Android AU

[worthallthis]

Coming in out of the snow, he says, "Hey, Misty, I'm home."

Since the robot isn't even finished, let alone powered up, she's not actually able to answer. He doesn't care. It's not like he's got anyone else to talk to besides the cat, and the cat's not in here, out catching mice or maybe sleeping in the attached little barn.

"Got some parts that might finish you up, finally," he continues, stamping snow off his boots and hanging up his coat. The metal arm vibrates a little, trying to shake the cold from its circuits, and he puts a kettle on the stove before padding over to the mostly-finished robot in the corner and dropping his pack next to her. She doesn't look perfectly human, but she's as close as he can get with the spare parts he's been scrounging up on his trips out into the world.

What's left of the world, anyway. War and disease and famine have made a mess of things, and he's long since given up on trying to do what he can do to stop it, and just helps where he can. The arm makes him stand out, though. That and his general good health. It's getting harder and harder to keep a low profile, except among the one local group that considers him "theirs". Hence, android. With more clothes and a better wig, with a few upgrades once he knows he can make her work, she might pass better than he ever will, especially with the awkward way he imagine's she's going to move until he gets some better upgrades. Besides... he could use the company, way out here.

He puts together a little sandwich and mixes the cocoa into the hot water, then comes to see if what he's found can at least get her running.

It's late in the night, another sandwich and cocoa later, with only a brief break to let in the cat and give her a pet and dinner, that he finally sits back and says, "Well. Let's give this a try." And he reaches behind her, finds the series of switches, and sets them in their careful order. There's no one switch, there's a pattern. Then nobody can turn her off who doesn't know how.

Then he sits back to look up at her, and wait for her system to power up.

Comments

[shadowsran]

Minimal subroutines running. Diagnostics. No damage, limbs accounted for. Fingers twitch, one joint at a time. Toes. Calves and biceps flex. Both shoulders slowly roll. Her chest doesn't rise, nor fall, and her already open eyes don't blink, still as the rest of her save, if one peered closely, flaring of her pupils. Lenses focusing. It's a long, calculating silence.

At long last her eyes rove the room, coming to rest on the individual before her. Her neck audibly clicks when the head moves to follow the gaze, but this is at least recognition and some movement without anything bursting. Strong start. Though eerily unblinking, her eyes are a friendly, charming blue-green. After another moment, a smile slots into place.

"Hello."

[worthallthis]

Motion attenuators working. Gears and servos all aligning more or less properly. Cameras for visual input clearly doing something. Vocal processor active. He grins, fiercely pleased, but at the same time feels almost near tears. She sounds perfect.

"Hello, Misty," he says. "How do you feel?"

[shadowsran]

Misty. Understood.

Feel. Less so. Subjective.

"Undamaged," she settles on. "Functional. Alert." He's smiling, so she's smiling, which also correlates to, "Happy. How do you feel?"

[worthallthis]

"Fucking ecstatic," he says. She's alive. She's speaking. She's understanding. Jesus Christ, this is so much better than he anticipated. There are other androids out there, but he only sort of understands how they work, and he'd taught himself everything to do with her operation.

And her first start-up, and she's understanding him and responding clearly. Jesus Christ. This is amazing. "Can you move your hands for me? Up, like this?" He holds up his hands, palm facing her, between them.

[shadowsran]

Ecstatic is good, and he too seems to be in fine health. Her smile widens appropriately. Her arms raise, taut and lacking in some articulation, but working. Her left elbow catches at a forty-five degree angle, so while her right extends fully the left has to compensate with a harsh turn of her wrist.

The imperfection doesn't escape notice.

"Mostly."

[worthallthis]

"I'll fix that," he promises, gently touching her palms with his, then shifting to get a better look at the elbow join, hidden partly by shawl. "Don't hurt yourself just trying. Do you remember anything?" The parts he made her from might have memory impressions left over, but he did at least try to clean her storage out. If there's anything left, he needs to know, so he can work with her appropriately.

All he knows for sure is she isn't a combat model, at least for the most part. There are a couple combat-model parts he had to make do with, but she's mostly something else.

[shadowsran]

New sensory input. Non-damaging, not meant to be met with anything more than a touch more force to verify she feels it - though maybe not the left hand, if she isn't supposed to overextend herself.

"Seven hundred and twenty-two hours of video files and lab specifications," she answers. "Currently lacking the processing power to process video, but I do have transcripts. No lessons lost." Raising her chin, prim and proper, she's proud to recall: "No forks in microwaves."

[worthallthis]

Oh wow, he clearly missed a block. Well, that's fine, she doesn't seem upset by it. She's a remade, slightly-reprogrammed science bot, then. That's probably better than what she could have been.

The last, though, makes him bark a short laugh. When was the last time he laughed? Jesus. "Yeah, no forks in microwaves, that's a very good lesson." He thinks he can see where he needs to make adjustments to the joint in her elbow, but before he does any work, he needs to test the rest. He moves back a step, holds out his metal hand this time in invitation. "Can you take a few steps with me? I'll make sure you don't fall if something doesn't work right. Need to make sure your legs are functioning right, too."

[shadowsran]

Quite close: primarily a companion, with certain lab assistant duties as needed. Fortunate considering how crass her originators truly were. A great many vulgarities were escaped.

He laughs, which is good, so she graduates to a beam. As asked, she rises unsteadily to her feet and slowly paces forward. "Ankle joints will need to be reinforced and insulated," she declares, and after a wobbling step her left knee locks. Precariously balanced and trying not to pitch toward him she instead focuses on his arm.

"Are you in need of maintenance?"

[worthallthis]

"What? Oh. No, I'm good." He smiles for her, warmly, feeling almost giddy that this is working so well. Small, mechanical tweaks-- he can do those. But her programming was what he'd worried about, the fiddly little things, and that seems strong. "This is for you, so you don't fall. You can catch yourself on it. See?" He cups his hand under her right arm, the good one, to show it's there for support. Since she looks like she needs it.

"Insulation's coming, mostly I wanted to make sure you worked before I got fancy. Reinforcing I can get next time I'm out. Here, we can go back against the wall. Can you go back, or is that knee stuck?" He can probably fix that.

[shadowsran]

It's the metal that's surprised her, chiefly. He's been mistaken somewhat for another android, one arm stripped of coating. Support. Helpful of him.

"The joint is locked," she confirms, "Blocked, but not damaged. It can be reset, but I may need help returning to a resting position."

[worthallthis]

That's going to be fun to correct at a later time, won't it.

For now, he glances around, then stretches out with a foot to hook the nearer of his two kitchen chairs over. It's barstool height, so getting her robotic butt onto it shouldn't be hard, even with a bum knee. "Here, let's have you sit on this, and I'll get your knee and elbow fixed."

[shadowsran]

It's a less graceful trip than she was built for, but she makes it without incident.

"Thank you. Can I ask who you are?" The user, clearly if peculiarly, but she'll need to know much more than that. Be turned loose to explore their surroundings. Talk more and at length to accumulate knowledge naturally.

[worthallthis]

Pulling the little card table of tools and spare parts over, he crouches in front of her, figuring he'll handle the knee first. At the question he looks up and gives her another quick smile. "Bucky. And I've been calling you Misty." There's a bit of sadness to him, at the name, but it's a fond kind of sadness. "If that's not okay, if there's something else you'd rather be called. Just let me know, okay?"

[shadowsran]

Social cues are very, very easy to run into loopholes for, and were patched at the time of her testing on an individual basis. It is understood that regarding names specifically, there's an amount of time that ought to pass before asking into any obvious wistfulness, regret, sadness, or frustration they're linked to. It will be impossible to forget, and so will come back later. Once he's had more time to acclimate. When it will be less upsetting.

"Misty is perfect. You have good taste, it's a wonderful name," she chirps, the picture of docility as he works. Eyes remain on him, hands clasped in her lap. "I quite like Bucky myself. Can I ask where we are?"

[worthallthis]

"You can ask any question you want, doll," he says. "We're in North America, somewhere in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. What's left of Kentucky, if you got any location data knocking around in there. Not sure how old you are, how updated your files are."

[shadowsran]

"I do!" She's pleased to report. Helpful, she can orient herself somewhat. Doubly good is the permission to ask all questions. Loopholed. "My model was fabricated in 2016, and my most recent update was November twelfth, 2018." Considering the prestigious, eccentric lab of origin, she's in fine shape. "No core software or functions seem to be out of date, but I can run a scan at any time."

A pause, so he can process.

"Why do you call me Misty?"

[worthallthis]

"Oh, honey." He looks up at her with a kind of apologetic expression. Christ, she's been in pieces for... a long time. "Your software probably ain't gonna get any more updates unless I make them for you." Wherever she came from, they're long gone now.

He sighs, gives her now-unlocked knee a little pat, then collects the oil to give it a little cleaning to hopefully prevent further locking. "Used to know somebody named Misty, is all. Long time ago. Your face looks a little like her."

[shadowsran]

"Are you programmed to engineer?" It hurts to run the thought, just a touch, so she presses on. His explanation is easily understood, and her chin dips in a nod. Used to know. Precariously approaching fields she isn't meant to ask into so soon, but it's overriden wholly by safety concerns.

"Is she a threat?" Should an eye be kept out? Interpersonal conflict so great she may assault the user?

[worthallthis]

Wow, okay, there's. A lot to parse in that. He sits back on his heels, blinking up at her. "No, no. Not like that. She was a friend, and. She died. No threat at all. And. Er. I learned electronics on my own. Nobody programmed me to know it."

God, he hasn't thought of his "programming" in... a long time. He knows there's still some knocking around in his head, but at this point everyone who knows about it is dead, he's pretty sure, so he's as safe as he can be.

[shadowsran]

"I'm so sorry." The only thing to be said, really. That clarification adjusts her view handily, eyebrows arching and pupils widening appropriately, a perfect picture of sympathy. A hand rests, briefly, on his shoulder. "I'll remain perfectly operational without updates, but I'll accept any given. Thank you for thinking of it, Bucky."

[worthallthis]

He's not sure if that's sweet or a little creepy. Maybe a bit of both. He pats her hand on his shoulder, though, and smiles up at her face. "It's okay. It was years ago." He still misses her, but it's a familiar ache by now, and he knows how to live with it.

Then he ducks out from under it and climbs to his feet so he can get to work on her elbow. "At least without modern updates, or with the kind of homebrew patches I could write you if you wind up needing anything, I doubt anybody's going to be able to hack you." Nobody's going to expect tech from forty years ago on a bot, even if they make her as a bot.

[shadowsran]

"Loss has surprising repercussions, but I understand. If there are any limitations you'd like to make regarding it, please do let me know."

Security is good, and there's some hardwired investment in it. Hardly any good if she can't fulfill directives, and there's quality integrity at stake.

"Should I anticipate needing anything?"

[worthallthis]

He's gotten used to loss, at this point-- they're almost old friends. He's lost everybody, and is likely to lose the handful of people who know and like him these days before too long. So he just nods to the statement; there's nothing he's going to do to limit her that isn't for the safety of herself or others, but it's a nice thought.

"Not right now," he assures her, popping open the minimal casing on her arm to better get at the exposed glitchy servos. "Right now your job is to learn your new parts, get to know yourself and me, and let me teach you about what the world is like right now. Eventually we'll be going out in it together, to help people, but not until we both think you're ready and comfortable with it."

[shadowsran]

Comfortable. He's kind.

"Alright. What parts are new?" It isn't as though she could feel it; the casing is the same and the feedback is the same, allowing for small changes befitting any out-of-lab repair work. Any of her could be swapped around and she would have no idea. "And what's the best way to get to know you? Lots of questions irritates some."

No word on what she could be like, because she's not anything particularly.