Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Are you having trouble with your everyday life? Does it ever feel like there's so much on your plate that no matter how hard you try, your list of problems seemingly never ends?”

Rei looked up from the floor that she had been cleaning. Her camera lens eyes focused on the TV in front of her, where a commercial was playing. 

The commercial continued: “For all those struggling to keep up in life, we have just the solution for you! Meet Adachi Rei: the robot that's taken over the world by storm! For all those who already own her, you might think you already have it all, but you won’t want to miss this great new update that’ll make your own Rei look like old news in comparison! Thanks to the hard work of the scientists at XXX Co., the Adachi Rei robot has a revolutionary new feature: the ability to feel emotions!”

Rei continued to silently watch, holding the broom in her hand completely still. This ad was talking about her. 

“What difference does having emotions make, you might wonder. Well, let us tell you! Along with Rei's current ability to sing and manage your entire household, now she can even help you with your interpersonal relationships! Feeling upset about something that happened at work and you have no one to talk to? You can talk to Rei! Having a fight with someone important to you and getting a therapist just isn't within your budget? Rei is there for you! If you order within this week, we'll even throw in these cute new accessories for free so that you can customize your Rei and make her stand out above the rest. She truly is the perfect robot, and for the low low price of–”

Rei used the TV remote on top of the table in front of her to shut the TV off. Then she resumed sweeping as if she hadn't been distracted just now at all. 

Her? The perfect robot? She didn't feel like the perfect robot, when just days earlier, she had been scolded by her “master” for “mopping the floor wrong.”

It had been a simple difference in opinion, but he had said such harsh things to her that the orange-haired robot didn't even feel like cleaning anymore. 

Rei had thought that the idea was ingenious, so she wasn't sure why a human like him wouldn't understand. 

To mop the floor, you used water to wet the mop and you pushed the water around, right? So what was wrong with filling a bucket with water and dumping the water all over the floor to save time? All she had to do next was soak up all the water with the mop and repeat the process until the floor was sparkly clean. What did it matter how she did things as long as the end result– a clean floor –was still the same? 

Unfortunately, her “master” had strongly disagreed. He had come into the room while she was still cleaning, so of course the floor wasn't clean yet. There was no need to call the floor a “huge fucking mess”– obviously it would seem that way to the average person since she still wasn't done with it yet. 

If her “master”’s harsh words towards her had been a one-off thing, Rei would've been able to shake that off as one of his bad days, but unfortunately, she had not been blessed in life. 

Her “master” was an extremely unpleasant man, and the reason she referred to him with quotes in her head wasn't only because she didn't respect him; it was also because he wasn't the one who had created her. Instead, he was just some ordinary person who had purchased her, because at the end of the day, Adachi Rei was a commercial product, and anyone who had the money could have their very own Adachi Rei. 

It didn't always used to be like this. 

Every Adachi Rei knew a little bit about her own origins– about how she had been created by a man who was passionate about robotics who had been able to keep working on her with the support of crowdfunding. 

Well, eventually, as everything got more and more expensive, the money for hobbies and the like had dried up, so Rei's creator had been forced to share Rei's rights with a large company if he wanted to keep developing her. 

And she had gotten big as a result. Very very big, to the point that practically everyone who wasn't fighting to survive knew her name.

What is the point of having emotions? the robot with the side ponytail thought, as she stopped sweeping the same place she had been sweeping for the last 10 minutes and moved to another part of the room, her broom in tow. 

Her “master” was the type who never let her relax. If she looked like she was “slacking off” in the slightest, she would be harshly reprimanded and told that buying her was a complete waste of money. It was her duty as a robot to fulfill whatever her owner asked of her, so being called things like “a huge fuck-up” wasn’t very good for her self-esteem. 

If she had lacked emotions, she wouldn't have cared what she was called at all, so wasn't having emotions more of a curse than anything? 

I wonder if this is all I can expect for the rest of my ‘life’? the tall robot thought, as she let her eyes wander over to the window where the blue sky was waiting. 

At least she'd be able to go out soon. Every day at the same time, her “master” allowed her to leave the building to go purchase fresh ingredients for dinner.  

At least she was allowed that small respite.

Ring ring ring! 

At last, the alarm that signalled Rei could finally go finally rang– the thing she looked forward to the most every day, come rain or shine. 

“Master! I'm going out now to buy ingredients for dinner!” the orange-haired girl called excitedly, as she eagerly made her way over to the door and put on her outdoor shoes. 

There was a grunt from another room. Rei backtracked a little bit and poked her head into that room, curious to see what the older man was up to. She didn't want to accidentally mishear him and get in trouble for leaving when he didn't want her to, after all.  

What greeted her sight was something she was extremely used to by now. The human being that was her “owner” was sprawled out on the ground, his shirt sporting a couple of unidentifiable stains and a fresh can of beer sitting by his prone form.  

He had been day-drinking again, and she already knew by now that her “master” was a huge lightweight. His disheveled form made her frown a little with disgust, but she had been screamed at for expressing her honest opinion of him in the past, so the usual smile that she sported when trying to get past interactions with him returned to her face. 

“Master, I’m going out now to buy ingredients for dinner,” Rei repeated, her voice a lot calmer compared to the one from before. It was as if she was dealing with a dangerous and hungry lion instead of a sorry excuse for a human being. “Is there anything you want to eat tonight?” 

He didn't respond at first, and the robot wondered for a moment if he had fallen asleep. It didn't matter if he actually answered her question though; he always ate whatever she prepared, because just like she had been advertised, she was a pretty good cook. 

“I don't care what it is, as long as it's tasty,” he finally said, voice surprisingly coherent despite his disgusting state.  

“Understood. I will prepare something tasty then.”

Rei was about to pull her head out of the room but he called out to her one last time before she could do so. 

“Oh, and Rei?”

“Yes, master?”

“Stop wasting your time staring at random shit before you even reach the grocery store. I can see you from the window. I'm not stupid, you know.”

“Of course not, master.”

“Good. Now hurry up and go already. You know I hate to be kept waiting.”

Rei pulled her head out of the room and made her way back over to the door leading to the outside. Certain that he couldn't see her face, she frowned to herself slightly as she thought about what he had just told her. 

Her habit of admiring her outside surroundings had been discovered, and he disapproved of it. That meant that she couldn't stop and stare at flowers, squirrels, or trees anymore whenever she was outside– at least when he was watching. 

Every day, he found more and more things to get angry at her for…

Truly, she had drawn one of the worse lots in life. 

The orange-haired robot opened the door and left the building without another word. 

Rei went to the exact same grocery store every day, but even though she rarely changed things up, she never grew tired of it. 

In the first place, she had figured out through past experiments that 90 minutes was the longest time she could take before her “master” started threatening to revoke even this privilege from her. 

That meant that after she was done actually getting everything she was looking for, she only really had an hour or less of looking around before she had to finally leave and start the long walk home. That definitely wasn't enough time to see everything that she could see, especially when things changed almost every single day. 

Stepping into the grocery store always felt like stepping into a whole other world. The robot with the side ponytail felt her heart lifting as she took in the scene of aisles upon aisles of items, all waiting for her to appreciate and examine them. 

Inside her pocket was a credit card belonging to her so-called “master”, but he hadn't given it to her because he trusted her. The credit card was more so he could see exactly what she purchased and get mad at her if she bought something he deemed unnecessary– with his money, he would always remind her. 

It didn't matter that Rei couldn't purchase everything she wanted though. She still loved being here, and the second best thing about this place was the people she would encounter– some humans and some other robots like her. 

In this day and age, having a robot do your errands for you was pretty normal. It wouldn't be uncommon to see a robot purchasing goods according to what its human wanted, and Rei would always happily chat those robots up, happy to talk to “people” besides the one at “home”.

What should I make today? We had fried chicken yesterday, and he'll complain if he eats the same thing again, even though fried chicken is the best thing in the world. He also hates when the meal is too expensive, so I have to remember to keep the price low, preferably below XXX amount… 

Rei talked to herself in her mind as she found a shopping cart and began walking down each aisle while pushing it. Her eyes sparkled with excitement as she gazed at everything that came into sight. Her other favorite thing to do at this place was stop and examine all of the toys and trinkets, but from past experience, she knew that she couldn't do that until she first had everything she needed safely in her cart. 

Robots weren't just customers here. Robots were also workers, and the one who worked at the cash register was an Adachi Rei too. To be specific, that Rei was Rei #10425. Every Rei had a product number that served as an extra identifier distinguishing her from other Rei's. Rei knew her own number by heart because it was practically her second name: Rei #24550.

Hmmm… Since we had meat yesterday, it might be good to switch things up. We had fried chicken with yellow rice yesterday, so why don't we go with white rice for today? As for the sides… Some vegetables would be good, as long as I add something else so he doesn't complain. 

The girl with the orange hair smiled to herself when she spotted exactly what she was looking for. After making sure that the price wasn't too high, she happily placed the item into her cart before continuing on her merry way. 

I wonder if anyone new came to the grocery store today. I already know the names of all of the regulars, but you never know when someone else will decide to come and pay this place a visit. 

Rei cheerfully waved at and greeted the people that she was familiar with. All of the employees here knew her by her specific name, and sometimes they would give her discounts or free things because she shopped at this place so often. 

If I could live here, I'm sure I would be happy every day, the robot thought longingly, as she finished placing the last food item she needed into her shopping cart. 

It was time to backtrack! 

Rei rolled the cart back towards the toy aisle, trying not to go too fast because she knew running was dangerous when indoors. Something had caught her eye earlier, and she hadn't finished shopping yet, so she couldn't really pay that much attention to it. 

Waiting time was over! With her cart safely parked against a corner nearby her, Rei walked over to the shelf of snow globes and carefully reached for one, her expression filled with unrestrained delight. 

She had always wanted to have and own a snow globe, but being able to see one in person was the next best thing. The tall girl gazed at the cute little scene inside the snow globe: a small wooden cabin with a beautiful yellow glow and pine trees and snow surrounding it. Her expression turned more somber as she thought about what it must be like in there– how badly she wanted to shrink into a tiny being so she could go there and be anywhere but in her own life. 

Shake shake shake. 

Rei shook the snow globe and watched as the snow inside of it gently fell, painting a picturesque scene that looked like it could appear in any children's picture book. 

I can't stare at this forever. I wonder what else there is, the orange-haired robot thought, as she carefully placed the snow globe back where she had found it and let her eyes wander.  

She still had some time left. Her internal clock helped her keep track of the time. So she explored the whole place thoroughly, looking for something new that might give her energy for the rest of the day. 

It took only a couple of minutes of aimless wandering before she spotted it: something she hadn't seen in all of her past visits here. 

To be more correct, someone. 

The subject was a robot with purple hair and a dark-colored cap. She was easily identifiable as a robot because of the robotic-looking earpieces she wore, with three receiver-looking protrusions coming from them and a wire dangling from the bottom– one earpiece on each side of her head. 

Sure, it was possible she could be a human wearing fancy-looking headphones, but her eyes gave her away, that unmistakable appearance that imitated humanity but couldn't be mistaken for it. 

Rei searched her mind for the name of the model of this robot, but she found that no name came to mind at all. 

Her mind froze in surprise. She wasn't used to encountering a robot whose model she couldn't immediately identify on sight, so she had absolutely no idea what to do. 

“Hasn't anyone taught you that it's rude to stare? Adachi Rei model.”

The purple-haired girl addressed her directly and turned to look at her. There was absolutely no emotion in her eyes– not even anger or annoyance. 

“I apologize!” Rei replied, completely sincerely. She straightened up. “Please forgive my rudeness,” she said politely, speaking in the same way that she always spoke to others. “It's just… I haven't seen you before. I visit this store a lot, so I usually know the people who come here, at least around this time. I like to get to know the people who come here, so I hope you don't mind my temporary intrusion.”

“Too used to being surrounded only by your own kind?” the other robot asked. The statement was obviously a jab at the fact that Adachi Rei models were one of– if not the –most popular model(s) out there. “Oh well. I don't mind. My name is Utane Uta. The reason you don't see me here that often is because I'm not a local here. I had to go a little further out than usual to get Momo what she needed.”

Rei glanced at what the other girl had in her carriage: a not-so-small amount of peaches, in both canned and uncanned form. “Momo”, she assumed, was the name of a person. Perhaps this robot's human “owner”?

“It's nice to meet you, Miss Utane Uta. My name is Adachi Rei, product number #24550. I've never heard of the Utane Uta model before. Are you perhaps extremely new?”

“The opposite, actually,” Uta replied, without missing a beat. “I'm a very old model, dating back to 2008. The only one of my kind to ever exist.”

Rei's eyes widened in surprise. The only one of her kind? 

Robots were usually made to be mass produced, so there were typically two reasons why there might be only one copy of a certain type.

The first reason was that the robot was too expensive to reproduce. The materials and construction and everything had an extremely high cost, so the creator simply couldn't afford to make another one. Only one robot was the representative robot. 

The second reason was that even if the robot was cheaper to produce, the robot was unwante–

“I can see the confusion written all over your face,” Uta remarked, right before Rei was about to finish her rude thought. 

Once more, the orange-haired girl snapped to attention. 

“Back then, robots weren't as common as they are now. That's why there's only one of me. There was no reason to make two.”

“Are you a housekeeper robot too?” Rei asked, trying to understand the other girl through the lens of her own experiences. 

“Nope,” the short-haired girl with the cap replied, and she turned back to the shelves they were surrounded by, scanning them before casually dropping a box of instant curry into her carriage. “I was made for fun. I have free will.”

The words were like a bombshell for Rei, and she stood there, shell-shocked. 

Free will? What did that mean? Did that mean she didn't answer to a “master”?

Did robots like that actually exist in this world? Ones without a set purpose– ones made only “for fun”?

“I'm gonna go to the other aisle now, so see ya.”

“W-wait!” Rei grabbed her shopping cart and pushed it closer to the other girl, completely ready to follow her. “Please, can we chat a little more? You said you weren't a local; that means that we'll have very few moments like this one. I want to hear more from you. Is that okay?”

“Sure, I guess.” Uta sounded neither enthusiastic nor unenthusiastic; she managed to achieve the perfect sound of “neutral”, leaning on but not quite hitting “bored”.

“You said that you have free will. How would you define it, in your own terms?” Rei asked…

Life became unbearable directly after that. 

Rei found herself wondering why that was the case. 

Even though she had endured for so long, things felt even worse once she thought about how pitiful her situation really was: how she completely and utterly lacked “free will”.

Her “master” controlled and judged her every action, and every day was full of nonstop criticism. 

Rei also hadn't thought to ask Miss Uta for her contact information, and every time she went back to the grocery store, the other people there had no idea who she was even talking about. 

It was like the orange-haired girl had spoken to a ghost and now nothing in her life would ever be the same again. 

She didn't want to keep living like this, painfully aware that there was better but that she had no idea how to get to it. 

She wanted to escape. How could she escape? 

Life would be so much easier if she just… didn't feel anything at all. 

No hopes. No desires. Just fulfilling what she was made to do. 

No hurt from hurtful words. No fears about her own abilities. Being able to do things without complaint just like all the other Adachi Rei models. Not being handicapped by her emotions. 

The perfect robot.

Chapter Text

It hurt. 

It hurt so, so much, as if someone had trapped a small animal inside her chest compartment and it was currently doing everything in its limited power to escape.  

It felt like being burned from the inside out. 

The small animal scrabbled furiously against her inner chest cavity with its sharp claws, leaving hundreds if not thousands of wounds the longer it stayed in captivity. 

Rei didn’t know how to get rid of the feeling without tearing herself open and tearing it out.  

This is so…. pointless, the orange-haired robot thought, as she balled her hand into a fist, pressed it right above her chest where her mechanical heart was, and stared down expressionlessly at the ground. 

Robot technology had gotten quite impressive. It was amazing how realistic robots had become– so realistic that if you didn’t take a closer look, sometimes you would mistake a robot for a real live human being. 

Along with all of the positives of realism, Rei also felt all of the negatives with uncompromising clarity. 

Why do I need to feel like this? she thought, her previously blank expression morphing into a deep frown. This interferes with the performance of my job. My “master” doesn’t benefit from me having emotions. 

Or maybe he does. 

He revels in hurting me. 

She thought back to all of the times that she had “messed up”, all logged in her digital memory in conscientious detail. 

To be honest, she wasn’t as bad as her owner made her out to be, no matter how much he tried to convince her that that wasn’t the case. She meticulously completed her work within the unreasonable timeframes that he gave her, and whenever she did something that he disapproved of, she made sure to never repeat the mistake again. 

That didn’t matter to him though. It wasn’t actually her performance that he had a problem with, save for the occasional times Rei got a little more creative than usual with her solutions. What he liked was power: the ability to feel better than her by stepping all over her and completely crushing her self-esteem. 

She figured it out the first time that he exploded at her for a simple “mistake”. 

He would set arbitrary invisible rules and then scream at her for unknowingly crossing those lines, even though he had never told her about them beforehand. He would order her to accomplish a certain task, leave, and then come back and scold her for not doing something else, even though he had never given the order to do anything else. He would get angry at her for things she couldn’t control, like the building’s temperature and how she should have anticipated that it would get cold and done something about it beforehand to counteract it. She needed to read his mind and “think for herself without needing everything spelled out”, even though her “master” was an extremely flighty man whose preferences pretty much never stayed the same on a day-to-day basis. 

It didn’t matter how well Rei did her job; he would always find something to find fault with, and if she didn’t fix it immediately, she was a complete and utter failure. 

The few times he couldn’t find anything to criticize her for, he would stay completely silent. The orange-haired robot never expected praise or warm words from her “master” for doing what she was made to do, but the lack of acknowledgement hurt a little too, the fact that all of her efforts were simply the standard and if she ever fell short, she was defective and didn’t deserve to be known as a household name. 

If you were going to constrain me to a life of servitude, why would you also equip me with the ability to feel all of it? the machine with the side ponytail thought, directing her question more at the corporate scientists who had created her instead of her current, unreasonable “owner.” 

I don’t think I can do this anymore. But it’s my job; it’s what I was made to do. I am only a tool for human beings to achieve their own various aims. But why would you give me the ability to feel if there was a possibility that I could feel this bad? Am I supposed to develop a ‘thicker skin’? How do I do that? 

How do I turn off my emotions? 

Rei dropped her hand from her chest and lifted her gaze from the ground, the frown slowly melting off of her face. Her “master” was asleep in the other room, so she had spent the past 10 minutes just reflecting on everything and trying to figure out how she should proceed from here, past all of this unbearable pain.  

Her thoughts just now had confirmed it. Once, she had taken pride in her role as a housekeeper robot, and she didn’t want to give up. She knew that better existed– that some robots didn’t have owners or masters, and some robots had free will. 

But she wasn’t one of them. And she couldn’t escape– not without betraying the very reason for her existence, a kind of self-betrayal that was even worse than being degraded daily. 

Her positive perception of herself and her ability to carry out all orders “perfectly” was all she had left. She didn’t want to give that up, no matter how bad things got for her mentally. These were just feelings, after all– not grievous wounds that would never heal. 

The solution was simple then. All of the other Adachi Rei robots carried out their duties with no problems because they lacked emotions, but Rei– Rei #24550 –was one of the few who had been unlucky enough to be upgraded with that feature. 

The problem was so clear, and the solution was extremely clear as a result. All she had to do was get rid of what was preventing her– even discouraging her –from carrying out her day-to-day responsibilities. 

All she had to do was fix herself. 

Human emotions, she thought, her expression turning more steely. I don’t need them at all. 

Adachi Rei #24550 felt rather calm as she entered the packed storage room and fished out a small toolbox. 

There was no frown on her face, but there wasn’t a smile there either. Just deep, eerie calm, as if she was a surgeon who had performed hundreds of surgeries before and was simply prepping– business as usual –right before she had to do another one.

The tall robot opened the toolbox, picked out a screwdriver, and placed it into her white coat pocket. As neat as she always was, she closed the toolbox and put it back where she had found it, refusing to abandon her usual good habits despite what she was about to do to herself. 

Rei wasn’t delusional. She knew what was going to happen. There was a 90% chance that this was going to go extremely poorly, but she had been pushed so far past her limits that she honestly didn’t really care.  

A 10% chance was better than none, and if she failed, well… That wouldn’t really matter either. 

That would be her “master”’s problem to deal with. 

I’m doing this for a good reason, in order to continue my duties, Rei thought, carefully closing the storage room door and solemnly making her way to the kitchen. There, she spent a moment examining her options before she finally picked up a medium-sized sharp knife. 

After all, it’s either me or you, and obviously it can’t be you. I would never harm a human and make things difficult for all the other Adachi Rei models. It completely goes against my code and purpose, and it’s not my role to be an executioner, no matter how negatively I personally feel about you. 

Rei looked at her reflection in the knife. A tall, orange-haired machine looked coldly back. 

Worse comes to worst, a bad outcome just means that I’ll finally be relieved of my duties. For good. 

There were no more thoughts as the girl with the side ponytail walked to her final destination, the bathroom. She only picked this place because the mirror inside of it might help her a little. That was the only reason.

…

Let’s see. First, we expose all of the internal wires, Rei thought, taking off her coat and hanging it against the wall. The black shirt that she was wearing would have to go, but most robots weren’t really self-conscious about their bodies. Being embarrassed about “nudity” was about as rational as calling a computer “naked” when its back cover was removed in order to fix it; it didn’t make much sense at all, because robots weren’t living things, and all of their internal components weren’t really anything to be sensitive about. 

Oh wait! Before I forget… 

Rei glanced at the bathroom door, which she had left open in her eagerness to get started. Should she lock the door so her “master” didn’t interrupt her while she was doing this? She wasn’t going to take very long, but if she failed, she would also be causing him a bit of trouble because the door only locked from the inside.

What should she do? Risk him potentially interrupting her or keep the door open in case she failed catastrophically and he ended up walking into a crime scene? 

The orange-haired girl seriously thought about it for a moment before she decided that she would lock the door for the sake of privacy. 

The decision to do what she was going to do next was a choice that she had ultimately chosen for herself, even if she had been heavily influenced by society in the end. She was genuinely trying to adapt to “life”, and if she failed, then it simply wasn’t meant for her– simple as that.

Not everyone was cut out for “living” in this kind of world, after all– especially not an imperfect robot like her. 

All of my problems end now, Rei thought, as she shed the black long-sleeved shirt that she was wearing and carefully folded it and placed it on one of the bathroom shelves. 

It was kind of funny. Different Adachi Rei models had different personalities, and Rei #24550 just happened to be the polite type who was sometimes so honest that her words were occasionally considered a direct attack by those who did not want to hear them. Her “master” had definitely considered her words offensive when she politely told him that lying around in unwashed clothing and constantly day-drinking was unbefitting of a normally-functioning human being, so she had learned to just stop speaking her mind around him at all. 

I don’t want to think about him right now, she thought, shaking her head a little like a dog shaking off its wet fur. I’m doing this for myself. For me. So that I don’t get hurt anymore. It hurts too much to feel all of this. I don’t want to anymore. I’ll do anything to make it stop. Just please stop insulting my competence. Stop calling me a ‘good for nothing’. It hurts. I hate it so much. Stopstopstopstopstop–

She narrowed her eyes and fixed her screwdriver snugly against the first screw, her mouth set in a thin line.  

I’m being a little dramatic, she told herself robotically. This will all be over with soon. 

The orange-haired girl twisted the screwdriver. 

The structure of Adachi Rei models was similar across her many different versions: all Rei robots had a center component that contained practically all of her important wires. If it was easily accessible, it would make her vulnerable to attack, so her center component was tightly screwed shut, and it took a dedicated screwdriver and time in order to unscrew everything. 

That was what Rei was doing now, as she methodically used the screwdriver in her hand to unscrew all of the barriers to her insides, inaccessible except only through this method. 

Calling the girl with the side ponytail strong would be an understatement: she was specifically created also for protection, so it made sense that if anything ever threatened her or whatever she was protecting, she was a force to be reckoned with. 

It would be bad if a Rei robot was assigned a task but couldn’t carry it out because it was too dangerous or because of bodily damage, so she could withstand a lot, whether it was rain, heavy labor, or accidental damage. Her purpose was deescalation rather than direct violence, but there was a reason why Rei’s “master” had never hit her, and the reason was hitting her would be like hitting a brick wall– injuring the attacker rather than achieving whatever it was that he wanted to achieve. 

There was a design flaw, though, the machine thought as she put down the fifth screw and calmly moved onto the next one. I care too much about what other people say that I can no longer endure being around them. 

After 15 minutes of unscrewing, Rei finally swung her central panel open and observed all of her internal wires. They were a jumbled mess, with a multitude of different colors– none giving any hint as to what they could be for or connected to. Her insides used to be a little simpler than this, but as she got more advanced, the scientists working on her had added more and more, and the lack of organization was to deter people from learning her company secrets and exactly how she worked. 

Unfortunately for her, this lack of knowledge extended to her, too. 

Just like a human could go through its whole life without knowing what a corpus callosum was or how the alveoli in the lungs was how they could breathe, Rei didn’t know the specifics of what wire #1 did as opposed to wire #2. Her internal code spelled things out for her and she could parse it in seconds, but a lot of her internal programming consisted of short and simple algorithms in one giant mass, and it would take quite a bit of time to truly go through every single part that made her function. 

I don’t have that kind of time though. I want my emotions gone NOW, she thought, as she put the screwdriver on top of the bathroom sink and picked up the knife that she had chosen earlier. 

If she didn’t know things intellectually, then she just had to experiment. That was how she was going to get rid of her emotions, and if she ended up messing other things up too, then so be it. 

Wires didn't exist only in her abdomen; they ran through her head and her limbs as well. But there was no reason her emotions would be stored in her limbs, and for some reason, she was reluctant to mess with the wires in her head. She knew she was doing something risky, but haphazardly taking apart her brain or detaching her head required a level of commitment that she just wasn't ready for. 

Even if her emotions weren't in her body at all and this was a failed endeavor from the start, at least she could say that she tried. 

(…or maybe she never wanted to “succeed” in the first place. Rei tried not to think about it.)

Enough procrastinating, she told herself, as she gently ran her fingers along her wires, eyeing them with the curiosity of someone who was merely window shopping. She didn't feel the sensation at all; these were wires, not nerves.  

Emotions are usually associated with the color red, right? Then how about we try this red wire? she thought, and she pinched the wire between her fingertips while leaving the rest of her wires alone. 

She paused for a moment as she registered what she was about to do, but all she had to do was think about how agonizing every day had become and her wavering resolve quickly came back. 

Don't back out now, she told herself, and she gently slid the sharp end of the knife right beneath the red wire. The knife was now pointing away from her body with the wire sitting dangerously on top, and all she had to do was give her hand a little tug. 

1, 2, 3…

Snap! 

Electricity crackled as the wire was suddenly severed by the knife slicing clean through it. Rei visibly flinched as the error message popped up in front of her eyes, directly telling her the name of the wire she had just disconnected. 

[wire.0362791 disconnected] 

“[wire.0362791] has been disabled”, the error message read, as Rei sat there and scanned her body to see if any part of it felt any different. 

Nothing had changed. 

I guess it wasn't important, she thought, as she looked at the bisected wire one last time before her camera lens eyes looked away, searching for a new victim. 

That wasn't so bad. Let's be a little bolder this time. 

For her second attempt, Rei picked up a bundle of wires and held them in the palm of her hand. She had all the colors of the rainbow here: red, orange, green, blue, indigo, violet… 

Rainbows are nice. I like rainbows, she thought, and just like last time, she gently worked the knife right underneath the handful of wires. 

Let's see what this does, she thought, and she sharply drove the knife forward with her arm. 

This time the consequences were a lot more dire. 

[ERROR] 

[wire.959259 disconnected] 

[wire.492514 disconnected] 

[wire.1229297 disconnected] 

[wire.088707108 disconnected]…

The scrolling list of damaged wires flashed in her vision, underneath a bright red ERROR message that blinked and completely covered her eyesight. 

You would think that pain would start flooding in, but the complete opposite was happening instead. As Rei lost more and more sensations, she felt calmer and calmer and less afraid of what was happening. 

This was working. Because her body no longer hurt. 

Is this what it feels like to be an early Adachi Rei model? she wondered, reflecting on the fact that her model “sisters” sometimes weren't as advanced as her and thus lacked the internal machinery that made newer Rei's so “advanced.”

It feels so peaceful. Like I'm finally free, she thought, and she smiled to herself, proud that her reckless plan was finally done.  

…

……

………

…Oh?  

She couldn't feel her legs. Or her left arm. She couldn't feel a lot of things, really.  

That was a little bit of a problem. She wouldn't be able to carry out her work like this, and her “master” definitely wasn't the type to want to repair her, especially when he constantly threatened to replace her instead.  

The orange-haired robot felt extremely at peace about this though. Finally she had a valid reason for not being able to do her job right. Finally the outside of her body looked like the horrible internal pain that she'd been struggling with for so long. Finally others would believe her– and she could believe herself –when she claimed that it hurt too much to keep carrying on. 

Rei almost wanted to laugh. How had everything turned out like this? 

But she was okay with it. She had already made peace with the idea that this might happen the moment she'd decided that she would do it. 

I've already come this far. I might as well go all the way, she thought, fully aware that half of her body was now completely unresponsive to her. 

Unfortunately, she hadn't gotten rid of her emotions quite yet, but the lack of sensation in her body was relieving, as if she really could fix herself if she truly tried. 

The hand that was holding the medium-sized knife was still responding, so thankfully, she had managed to avoid a fate of being unable to do anything and just consciously waiting for this to be discovered.  

I don't want to be here anymore, she thought, as calmly as she had felt when she first went into this. I want to go somewhere else. 

With the knife pointed towards her body this time instead of away, she aimed directly at the center of her robotic body and drove it into herself as if she was committing seppuku. 

[ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR]

The error messages silently screamed, filling her vision with red before it cut abruptly to a bright bright blue. 

[MAIN SYSTEM A DAMAGED] 

[MAIN SYSTEM B DAMAGED] 

[ACCESSORY SYSTEM C DAMAGED] 

[ACCESSORY SYSTEM D DAMAGED]...

The list of error messages just kept popping up, and the sound of static electricity crackled. 

[MAIN BODY DAMAGED. EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN IN 10 SECONDS.]

[10…]

[9…]

[8…]

[7…]

[6…]

As Rei's body shut down and she felt her consciousness slowly fading away, one last memory played in front of her eyes. 

“Forgive me for being nosy, but you mentioned someone earlier, someone named ‘Momo'. If she's not your ‘owner', then what is she to you? Feel free to let me know if this is an impolite thing to ask.”

“Why would it be impolite? It's fine. Momo is my friend. She's always helping me out with stuff, so the least I can do is grab all of these items for her, even if it's a little out of the way.”

“Your… ‘friend’?” 

“...why do you look so surprised? Don't tell me you think I don't look like the type of person to have frien–”

“N-no! No no no! That's not what I was thinking at all! I was just thinking that I don't really get to know anyone long enough to truly call them my ‘friend', not even the people here at this grocery store. Even the kind salespeople interact with me mostly because they have to.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I think it sounds nice, having a friend. And free will. I really truly envy you, Miss Uta.”

“Hmm. I don't know if this is any consolation, but chin up, Adachi Rei model. If someone like me can do it, then I'm sure you can too.”

“You really think so?”

“Of course. Even if you're under the thumb of some human right now, it won't last forever. All humans die. So whatever you're going through right now won't last forever. Especially if he dies early.”

“What a morbid thing to say…”

The words faded away and Rei smiled to herself, amused by what she was remembering right now. 

Then everything abruptly cut to black. 

Utane Uta enjoyed rainy days. 

It was ironic, considering she was one of the most robot-like robot models around. 

In other words, unlike other robot models who had failsafes for that kind of thing, too much water when she was still turned on could literally actually kill her.  

Thankfully, death wasn't a permanent thing for robots, unless it was decided that that specific robot wouldn't be repaired anymore. 

It had been such a pain back then, when she had accidentally fallen into a body of water and it had instantly fried all of her systems. 

She was lucky that Momo knew so many people, because she had no idea if she would still be walking around right now if her pink-haired friend hadn't shelled out an exorbitant amount of money to save her. 

I wish I wasn't so dependent on her, she thought with a sigh, as she winced at the resurfacing of that unpleasant memory. 

Honestly, Uta could be completely fine on her own, because she was a robot, and that meant that she didn’t need to eat or drink, so as long as she had enough battery, she could theoretically last for forever (or at least until her systems degraded).

That last part was such a roadblock though… Because she was an older model, her battery ran out fairly fast because she used up so much just to keep her systems running. As a direct consequence of that, she needed to charge herself pretty frequently, like a smartphone that could last throughout a day but that you didn't want dying on you during an emergency. 

It was thanks to Momo that she could live in a house and go about her days in the way that she was currently doing, and Uta had absolutely no idea how she could top that. 

Well, whatever. I won't worry about it too much right now, the short-haired girl with the dark-colored cap thought, as she strolled through the streets in the light rain, her umbrella safely held above her. 

If the wind did something crazy like blow her umbrella away, the transparent raincoat that she was wearing would protect her from getting soaked instantly. She could also take shelter under anything that protected her from the rain, and ever since that incident, she made sure to stay far far away from any body of water, no matter how curious she got about it. 

(Can you believe that she fell into a body of water because she had been looking at koi fish? That was a dark moment for her, and she was glad her long-haired friend was nice enough to never bring it up again.) 

Going out in the rain when water was a deadly enemy to her was like thrill-seeking, in a way. Or overcoming her own weaknesses. The most important part was she wasn't going to let the weather stop her from doing what she wanted to do, and if she stayed inside whenever it rained, she'd never be able to get a nice view like this. 

The people passing her by with their variety of umbrellas, all different yet tending to add a splash of color to what was normally considered a dreary day. The various puddles reflecting the light and showing herself and her surroundings when she looked into them. The way that people wouldn't stare at her like they sometimes did on non-rainy days, wondering why a robot like her was just chilling instead of devoting herself to work 24/7. 

It was nice, being left alone and ignored like this, like she could anonymously pass by in the crowd and she wouldn't turn any heads at all. 

Even if being alone all the time was occasionally lonely, Uta couldn't deny that it was incredibly incredibly peaceful. 

It was on a rainy day like this, while the girl with the cap was walking down the street, when she noticed something… interesting. 

There was a white spot that stood out to her in the alleyway, faint and obscured by the light rain but easily noticeable to someone as environmentally-aware as Utane Uta. 

Uta paused when she spotted it, then walked towards it curiously, figuring there was no harm in just checking it out and then leaving it alone if it wasn't anything remarkable at all. 

What she saw truly surprised her. 

“What the heck…” she muttered to herself dispassionately, as she lifted the lid of the large black and green garbage bin and stared down at the thing that was poking out of it. 

The white thing that she had noticed had been a hand, and when she looked inside of the garbage bin, she saw a body. 

Adachi Rei, haphazardly dumped in the garbage disposal like she was a piece of trash, with her main body panel open and broken wires spilling out of it. 

You poor thing, the short-haired robot thought, as her eyes passed over this wretched sight. 

There was one thing she was curious about, and it was something that she wondered if she'd ever get the answer to, depending on if this robot was repairable:

Why did this Rei look so happy? 

Utane Uta reached into the bin. 

Chapter 2: END