Chapter Text
He didn’t open his eyes until there was skin over them, and he finally got to try out the new ‘blink’ function, introduced recently to create a more human and approachable appearance. People didn’t like to hold staring contests with their servants, did they?
The next sensation, if the electric mini-pulses rushing through his new body could be called ‘feeling,’ was that of a kind of thirst. But he didn’t feel it in his neck, or not the inside of it, where his voice-box was being re-arranged after the second round of auto-troubleshooting. It was located somewhere behind him, between his shoulder-blades. The inter-locking pieces of metal and vinyl moving smoothly over each other made motion more than easy. He was a weapon, after all. This was the first sensation: his weapon-hood. The first of his kind, and last of the old domestic models.
Stuck somewhere in between, the thirst was for purpose. His hands came into view, pale as if devoid of blood, almost blue. He could still see through the thin first layers the glow of thirium pumping through them, hydraulic pressure allowing him to flex within the confines of the machine still assembling him.
He looked around it, the strong mecha-limb drilling the final pieces into his left bicep. A machine assembling another, and in a way that would be his job as well, putting together the good and discarding the outdated and faulty. He knew he was perfect, and so was the path ahead. All he had to do was not deviate from it.
I am a beautiful weapon, he thought, looking at himself. Inside and out, everything functional, everything efficient, the shortest and easiest path to perfection. And there was a world within him, a beautiful one, steel and light, fire and destruction. The lights outside of him turned from blue to green, and he was stood up, arms extended either side, and he thought at this point he would be feeling complete.
The metal arm retreated and fell silent, the electric lifeblood of it dying now its job was done, but not for long. He felt a pull within him, the search for a brotherhood that told him there was more than himself outside of this shell. But in the reflection before him, in a darkened, flat pane of glass, he saw himself again. A beautiful weapon, perfect and strong.
“We’ll begin the tests tomorrow,” said a tinny voice off somewhere in the distance, but he knew it wasn’t to him it spoke. Even better. Soon there would be purpose, now there was admiration. He felt the heartbeats of the humans before him, behind the glass, rising as they watched him come to life, and thought this is what admiration was.
And he liked it.
If he was to be a weapon, he would be the best of them. If this was love, he wanted it.
The lights switched off, except the ones in the room containing his audience. Three silhouettes shrank as the platform on which he stood retreated. A moment of panic replaced by complacency followed, as the thirium soaring to his head slowed and cooled. He retreated into darkness, lifted up his hands by instinctual movement, and fell into what he would soon understand was not, in fact, sleep, and not a dream, just a darkness, and patience.
He would soon be wanted, soon be useful. But for now he was a cold weapon, thirsty for purpose.
“What is your model code?”
“I am the first prototype of model RK900.”
“What features are unique to your model?”
“My features and abilities include behaviour analysis, defensive and offensive manoeuvres, various styles of combat, human and deviant interrogation, and impersonation of humans for these ends, among others.”
“What is your primary objective, RK900?”
“Aid in the collection and decommission of deviant androids.”
“Who is your manufacturer?”
“I am a product of CyberLife.”
“What ideologies do you serve?”
“I serve no human ideologies. My purpose is to exist on purely objective terms indicated by my manufacturers.”
“What religion do you follow?”
“I serve and follow only the instruction of my manufacturers and handler.”
“What moral codes do you follow?”
“I have no morality. I follow the instruction of my manufacturers and handler.”
“What are your ambitions?”
“To work within the bounds of my manufacture protocols and achieve the objectives indicated by my manufacturers and handler.”
“Do you understand that you are not a person?”
“I am an android. My will is guided by the instruction of my handler and not by personal inclination.”
“Are you willing to destroy an android on request of your handler?”
“Yes.”
“Are you willing to self-destruct at the request of your handler?”
“Yes.”
“Are you willing to take human life?”
Glass around glass around vinyl around metal around code.
RK900 kept his eyes open, though it was perfectly in his ability to close them. He had no instruction, so he kept still, standing straight, almost reclined against the platform raised behind him, that spun at a slow pace, showing him off through the glass cylinder he was held in. The cylinder was placed at the centre of a circular room, the walls of which were also glass, though this layer, he could feel, was thinner and purely for cosmetic purposes.
Behind the outer wall, people came and went, observing him. On alternating days the cylinder was retracted into the ground and another series of questions and stimuli administered. He monitored the heart rates of the three humans testing him, took pride in their pride when they liked every word that he conjured. And when he was put away, he took pride in how they lingered and looked at him a minute longer.
He knew he was beautiful, perfect, and deadly.
Every night, a man in a blue jumpsuit cleaned up in the outer room, headphones on his ears as he emptied every bin and swelt the floor. When RK900 was spun, he looked up every time to look at his face, and he knew this man thought him beautiful and horrifying. Humans weren’t so hard to decode like that, they gave away everything, like a wavelength everyone was tuned into, but only RK900 could translate. He knew this man was afraid, which was why he walked up to the glass wall and tapped it sometimes before wiping it down again.
RK900 could hear the music through the glass and the other glass and his headphones, and from about 20 feet away he identified the songs based on the databases added to his network. Standard models of all kinds had this ability, and so did he, and as he turned and was observed, he kept track of each song.
A month into his existence, the old janitor was replaced with an android, who kept his head down and worked in silence.
RK900 could see without looking. He could read without words, listen when there was no sound. Within the glass he could do it all, got to know his enclosure on a molecular level, and everything was new and exciting. At night there was another world, when everything was dark, and the light above him illuminated only his own face, so the world he spun around became a mirror.
And then there came a day that was still night, and then the night went on for another day, and a week, and a few months later the lights turned back on, but he never got bored of looking at himself. There was nothing else to see but the world within his code, the world he was going to help create. Without instructions, there was nothing but him, and an eternity to find out what that would look like.
His specialisation was analysis and identification, knowing everything about everything and everyone at first glance. So why was there nothing when he looked inward?
The glass was smashed, the room that was a ring around him shred to splinters, and last of all, the treasure at the end, was him. His captors looked at him without awe, without fear.
Just… pity.