Electronic Super Love
Commissioned by FA: Travis_Buchanan to show off a little bit of robo love and corruption, this story turned out a little more adorable than I expected. And in a good way, I think.
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Electronic Super Love For Travis_Buchanan By Draconicon
Typical. Call it a machine, and people begin to abuse it.
Malachias shook his head, the spiked demon walking amidst the shutdown robots that populated the labor yard after dark. Each one was little more than a faceplate crowning a collection of wires and sheets of metal, but each one had its own face, its own marks, its own signs of individuality. Most had different colored lights in their heads, as well, something that he felt was as different between them as the colors of eyes in humans.
Then again, it didn't seem to matter to humans, as long as something else was different as well. The demon sighed as he walked along, spikes in his heels leaving holes in the sheet metal as he moved along.
He passed the charging stations, seeing graffiti drawn on most of the different robots, as well as more than a few clawed up and key-marked by some humans that needed amusement on the way out of the work site. Malachias shook his head, reaching down to the worst-damaged one and dragging his claws along some of the designs. At least he could scratch it out, make it look a little bit better than it did.
"Humans. Pains in the ass, every single one of them. 'Oh, looking for a deal? I'll sell my soul.' News flash; most of you gave them up a long time ago..."
Pulling his claws back before he caused serious damage - if he hadn't already, judging by some of the sparks coming off - the spiked demon made his way further down the lines of robots.
It was almost soothing, being here after dark. No humans stuck around here, nobody looking to make a deal, no one shouting at him to leave because of his nature. He didn't have to fight, pretend interest, or anything along those lines. All he had to do was walk, and look, and just...imagine.
He was in the middle of imagining one of the robots standing on top of a building, planting a flag as the work of the day was done, when he heard a soft cluster of electronic beeps. Taking his mind off of the triumphant vision none of these little things would actually get in the hands of their overseers, he followed the sound down the charging line.
With the sound repeating every few seconds, it didn't take long for him to find the source. Malachias rounded one of the stations and found, to his surprise, one of the bipedal robots standing by one of the charging rods. It held the rod in its hands, tapping it towards the back of its head, and each time beeping in distress.
Unseen so far by the labor bot, the demon leaned around to see what was going on. As soon as he got a good look at the back of the robot's head, he both understood and trembled. Several sheets of metal gained new holes as he clenched up, as well.
_How...What idiot left him like this?_Malachias thought. The port for the charging rod was completely bent out of shape, likely damaged in a fall or something when the robot hit its head against something. It was half-closed now, too small for the charging rod to get in. If left unchecked, the robot's power source would completely drain, and it would - in effect - die.
Growling, Malachias reached out without warning. The robot's beeps changed from one of distress to one of shock, and it started to turn to face him.
"Still."
The demon's voice was sufficient command; the power of a Greater Demon overrode reality to some extent, and he used his claws to rip through the bent metal. He couldn't shift it back, but he was able to slice off the blockage. It came free without difficulty, with more precision than a surgeon's scalpel, and he took the time to slide the rod into place.
"Release."
As soon as his command was given, the robot jumped. It beeped softly, and booped a couple of times as well as it reached back, feeling the power cable. He watched as it felt around with its two-fingered hand, realizing that it was inside, and wondered what was going through its metallic mind. Circuitry had to be saying something, after all. Could it feel relief? Or was he projecting some of his feelings upon the metal people again?
It turned, giving him a look at its face. It had two yellow-green eyes, each slanted down at a near 90 degree angle, with a narrow slot for a mouth. Curved, angled lines ran down its face, in a mirror image on both sides, making the eyes seem to be more recessed than they actually were. It stared at it, then pointed at the back of its head and then at him, beeping softly.
"You're welcome. How did that happen?"
The robot paused for a moment, and he realized that it must have been even lower on power than he thought, if it needed time to process his question. It lifted its arms, miming working, beeping and booping as it did, before acting like it was falling over. A metal hand gently bumped the back of its head, showing it had fallen and bent something.
Just as he'd thought. Malachias shook his head, sitting down, and the robot sat down by him. It beeped.
"Hmm?"
It beeped again, pointing at him, and then the back of its head.
"Why did I do it?"
Beeeeeep.
"Because nobody else did. It's not like you could fix it yourself."
It cocked its head to the side, and he groaned.
"Right, labor and work bot. You probably could have. So...why didn't you?"
Beeping up a storm, it raised its hands in a vertical fashion, holding them a wide distance apart. Making a few gestures that looked rather competent, it then shrank the distance between its hands, and the gestures suddenly became less competent, more clumsy.
"When you're low on power...you can't work as well?"
Beee-beeeeep.
"I see."
He reached out and took the robot's hand, much like some decent people would do with someone else, he supposed. Giving it a squeeze, he shook his head.
"I'm sorry. But at least - something wrong?"
The robot didn't immediately answer, instead looking down at its hand. When it continued to remain silent, only turning its wrist mechanisms around a few times, Malachias took a look as well.
The metal around his fingers had turned red, and as he let go of the robot's hand in shock, he saw that almost the entire hand - two fingers down to the wrist - had turned a similar red to his own flesh.
Corruption...but how? It shouldn't work on robots...
"I'm sorry. That wasn't what I meant to do."
Booping softly to itself, it brought its other hand over to the corrupted one. Malachias could only stare as the red jumped from the fingers of the first hand to the other, and started spreading further, almost like an electrical storm of energy running across the metal and wires. Then, and only then, did it jump up and start waving its hands back and forth, as if it was trying to shake it off, throw it away.
Malachias, despite his best efforts, couldn't help but laugh.
As the robot danced and squirmed, shaking its hands as if they were on fire, Malachias let out a deep belly laugh as the beeping, booping, squealing robot moved around. There was no stopping the corruption once it started, but at the same time, it was hilarious, and the sounds were perhaps adding to that more than a little.
The robot kept trying to shake it off, even as the electrical storm moved up its arms towards the elbow. It started slowing there, finally, but everything on the way turned a different shade of red, from a light tint of it nearly at the pink stage to a deep crimson. Malachias was actually impressed at the color shading, finding it helped the robot look even more distinct.
Then it turned to him, holding up its arms with a beeping so fast and frantic that it almost sounded like a consistent tone. He realized that the robot was worried, perhaps even 'scared' as much as programming would allow it to be, at the changes that it had just felt. He reached up, meaning to settle him, and forgot about what happened the last time.
As he settled his hands on the robot's shoulders, the electrical storm started up again, red sparks running out from the shoulders, up the robot's neck, and down his back. The color change began again, and Malachias whipped his hands back, saying a pair of words that he hadn't said for a hundred years or more.
"I'm sorry!"
It didn't do any good. The beeping got higher and higher pitched as the robot changed, turning red from the neck down to his stomach. As it reached up to his jaw, the beeping suddenly stopped, replaced by a tinny sort of voice, electronic and rather scared, if forcefully suave at the same time.
"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, this is hardly appropriate, what is going on, what is happening, and why am I speaking like a human being?! AHHHH-beeeeeeeeeep-aaaaaaah!"
"I...did not know it would let you speak."
"I have always been speaking, thank you sir," it said in that voice, somehow managing to keep that cultured and sophisticated tone, even as it was running up into the higher ranges of hearing. Out of programming for the former, he imagined, and panic for the latter. "Just not in a language that makes sense and oh dear me I'm going to crash - bzzzt!"
If he'd been thinking, Malachias would have moved. Or maybe he would have commanded the robot to fall somewhere else. Or perhaps just done something to keep him from falling at all. Instead, he reached out, catching the falling labor bot and letting him fall on his lap. The result was as predictable as it was spectacular.
The electrical storm came back with a vengeance, spreading down the robot's body from head to toe, shooting off in arcs of crimson red and powerful, lighter pink bolts. It went up in the air, across the ground, and even into some of the other nearby robots.
And then, the lights went out.
"Great...a power surge...Well, I guess a blackout's as good a time as any to make a getaway."
It wasn't what he had planned for the night, that's for sure. The robot had been corrupted and transformed massively by his touch, and the result was still booting back up on the table in his little makeshift lair.
Who would have thought that a labor bot would end up becoming so...different? In addition to the more cosmetic color difference, the robot had taken on a number of other transformations. In addition to a couple of demonic spikes along its shoulders, very similar to Malachias' own, the metal plates on it had smoothed out, growing over the wires and cords of the central body to a startling degree. The joints still showed it, but even there, not much.
Perhaps the most startling things were the new opening on the robot's backside, and the new...protrusion on the front. Both were astoundingly fleshy, from his initial examination, and the robot had managed a couple of beeps in its sleep when they were touched.
He's not a robot anymore. But...what is he?
A sudden series of clicks and a booting up whooooooom sound disrupted his thoughts, and the robot sat up quickly. It turned its head, looking at him, and cocked it to the side. That voice, no longer so tinny but still rather high pitched, spoke up again.
"Um...where are we? And...who am I?"
...Please, please tell me I didn't completely wipe his hard drive...
"Okay...where to begin..."
The End