Chapter 1: Chapter 1: What is this, a diary?

-- Day 0 --

Getting kicked out of your house is uuuuuuusually supposed to be a minor inconvenience. I mean, it sucks! Absolutely it sucks! But it's also not impossible to come back from, most of the time.

...maybe some of the time.

On the other hand, for me it was practically a death sentence. Robots — especially sentient robots — weren't very common! I couldn't just buy food, I needed a special place to plug into for any real energy recuperation. And I lost my plug when I got kicked out, so... fuck! No car, no public transit, basically all I had was a connection to the internet in my head and the ability to fix myself up a bit if I got knocked around. In all, a shit situation.

I had basically one chance: post about it to the closed robot support group I was in. Anyone else would be untrustworthy, but the group was pretty chill (but hostile to those who seemed shitty), so I'd posted a help message to the board a few hours ago. Now, I was sipping some cheap coffee at a cafe near my old home and waiting for the one person who'd responded.

There was a beep on my phone. She was outside.

Gulping down the rest of my coffee — and drinking the rest of my milk, which was really the main benefit of buying coffee anyways — I grabbed the small backpack holding the few possessions I had and walked out of the cafe. She was apparently in an old car? Not an Oldie car, not a super cool one that felt nostalgic, but a beat up shitbox she'd apparently fixed and upgraded to be an electrical car... somehow. As expected, a positively-ancient car greeted me upon my exit. In aesthetic, it was probably 20 years old; in reality, most of the parts in the car were probably younger than I was. Lucia, my new roommate, was apparently a technician genius; she had enough money to comfortably take someone in to help them get started on self-sufficiency from even just her commissions, let alone her job. The window rolled itself down with the sound of clicking gears.

"Toramie?" the driver asked. She looked... like you'd expect a technician to look. Cropped hair, tired eyes, and hands that had old scars and burns nearly healed over, wearing a loose-fitting hoodie and jeans. "I'm Lucia. Here to pick you up."

I nodded. "That's me, ha. Thank you for coming to help on short notice, I really appreciate it."

Lucia giggled. "Of course! I'm always glad to come and/or help." As I rolled my eyes, she unlocked the door and let me step in beside her. Inside, the car was pretty nice! I mean, there was air conditioning. And like. A radio. Lucia had her phone stuck in a sort of cup holder, her eyes darting to it for the way back home. She seemed to live pretty close to here, apparently in an apartment just big enough for two, and we made it there without much pomp and circumstance.

Just in time, too. I was running a bit low on battery, and apparently Lucia had a plug compatible with my hardware at her apartment? I didn't really remember a ton after getting to the house. Not until the next morning, at least.

-- Day 1 --

I jolted to wakefulness as soon as it hit 6:00 AM. Not great. Not ideal. I must have forgotten to stop that subroutine when I'd gotten to Lucia's apartment. Thank god I'd been reminded now, because I cleared that annoying horseshit out from my ledger as soon as I had the mental faculties to.

Usually, I woke up in my room. This time I'd woken up plugged into the wall, which wasn't honestly that different. However, I'd also woken up to Lucia's face about three inches from mine. I yelped. She giggled. God. was this a mistake?

After a couple moments, Lucia spoke. "Sorry! You just look really pretty when you're asleep. More importantly also I've never really seen a robot of your model before! Which means I wanted to catch you when you woke up so I could get diagnostic information and a list of parts, so that I can be the best host I can be for you. Does that work?"

"Gu...h?" I blinked. Apparently there were some words there that were supposed to make sense, but a lot of it was really in one ear and out the other to my muddled mind.

Lucia laughed again, then helped me to my feet and explained herself again. It seemed reasonable, so I accepted. It was pretty simple information, honestly — and I was more than able to print it all out on some paper. Not... like, I'm not a printer, I mean write. Print as in write.

God, my brain was still kind of addled. Still, Lucia gave me another tour of her apartment; it wasn't small, but wasn't particularly gigantic. Two bedrooms, a kitchen connected to the living room (really just a multipurpose space — it had a small dining table and a couch), and a bathroom. There were ample amounts of plugs to set myself up with if I was feeling a bit tired, and she seemed to keep the place just tidy enough to stay safe while still having tons of knickknacks littering the cabinets and tabletops everywhere. All in all a pretty nice home, and I certainly wouldn't be hurting for a cozy area to rest and recuperate in while I tried to find a sustainable job.

-- Day 7 --

The last week had been the best week of my life. Specifically, this was because nobody was being an asshole in my general direction and I had the options to actually do shit rather than stand around doing nothing for several hours a day. Also... Lucia was pretty nice. But that was no real concern to me right now.

I'd been getting into drawing an okay amount recently. When you can draw in your head, it's pretty boring — on paper was different, though. It felt like creation in a real sense rather than a theoretical one. Plus, this way felt like I actually made it. When I'm just using my robot head to draw, it kind of feels too much like dumb AI. I'm really aware of how everything makes me act different, y'know? But on paper, I can't control every little factor. It's a little more natural.

Or, well, something to that effect. Really it was just nice to do shit without having to model out everything or download brushes. The graphite on paper effect is really cool, but not particularly easy to replicate in digital paper without advanced models and brushes.

Anyways, that was my one hobby for now. Maybe I'd get into writing later, or something similar, but for now I was mostly just going to draw when I had free time and search for jobs in any other time I had. I briefly considered doing commissions, but... I wasn't good enough for that, to be honest.

Lucia was out today. She was doing some project for a big-name company, or something. I didn't really have time to ask about it before she was gone. Felt weird, y'know? In just a week I'd gotten used to her being there and wisecracking at anything I said. Maybe that was a bad thing. This was temporary, after all.

I sighed, leaning back from my desk. So far, I'd been just drawing in a notebook I'd found in a donation bin. The previous owner hadn't used it at all, but they had signed their name — Valor. It'd been helping my mental state a lot, lately, so. Thanks, stranger.

Ergh. No more being self-conscious on main and shit. I loosened up my hand with a good shake and got back to drawing.

-- Day 12 --

It was six in the morning when I woke up, hands trembling and chest heaving. A bad dream? Something wrong with my emotional circuits? I had no clue. I didn't even remember what my dream was about — the day before, it was something to do with crabs. This night, it was gone like a raindrop falling down a car's exterior. 

My hands steadied relatively quickly. I didn't even know why I was shaking, so it did kind of make sense. But a sort of hollow emptiness made itself at home inside my chest even until lunchtime, several hours after I woke. I think Lucia noticed something, but she seemed to be either too caught-up in her own shenanigans or too polite to comment. Thank god. I don't know what I would have done if someone called me out on it. Let alone Lucia — she was entirely too nice to me. Two days ago, one of my arms had a minor mechanical failure and she picked up on it immediately. I could have fixed it myself, but she insisted on helping me with practically everything, even soldering the wires that needed to be replaced when I couldn't reach. Saccharine to a fault, except for when she made my arm slap me in the face a few times.

I sighed, draping myself over the couch in Lucia's apartment living room. Staring up at the ceiling and thinking really hard didn't really reveal anything relevant that'd assist me with figuring out why I felt so shit. Armchair psychology couldn't save me? By god, I was hopeless! And yet I still scoured my brain for answers. Maybe it was my hobby? Or something? I had no idea.

Gah. I flipped over onto my stomach, hand on my chin. People normally said that to deal with depression sometimes you just needed to take care of yourself better. Being a robot, some things didn't apply... but it was worth a shot anyways. Maybe I could try cooking. That'd probably go okay. We had instant noodles, which weren't too difficult. Right?

Cooking was weird. Is weird. I grabbed a pot, a packet of instant noodles, and some water. The water went in the pot, and then once it was starting to boil I put the instant noodles in. And the soup base. But it kind of felt... I dunno, empty? Lacking in substance? Which naturally led to me thinking about what people normally put in instant noodles. We had some eggs, so I threw them in there. Nothing else that was easy, though, so... eggs and that's it. Still, the broth turned a nice yellow color and started to boil a lot more. I imagine that was probably a good thing. After a few minutes, I took the pot off the stove and pour all the contents into a bowl.

I'd overestimated how much soup there was to put in a bowl of the size I decided upon. Ramen soup spilled all over the place; the counter and the floor thankfully weren't covered in carpet or anything, but I still had to deal with cleaning up the mess. And the bowl was full enough that I couldn't reasonably move it without it spilling, so I needed to drink some of the soup or pour it out before I moved to the table. Great.

The list of tasks felt insurmountable. After this, I needed to make sure no soup got in any of my non-water rated components from the splash that'd coated my front with juices, and then I'd need to go do my nighttime routines and eventually get into bed, and then... christ. I didn't want to deal with that. My feet felt all fucking soggy, too. Wearing socks was evidently a really bad idea today, for reasons I could probably have foreseen ages ago but that realistically I'd have been too stupid to directly face until after it was too late.

God. I felt like death froze over, shit itself, and then got put into a dumpster in the sun. Like my life had just ended, despite this being realistically a minor setback at worst.

I sat down on the opposite side of the kitchen, knees close to my chest, and felt very much like crying. No tears came. 

-- Day 19 --

Nothing had changed since a week ago. Still felt empty. Still wasn't the best at cooking. I'd cleaned up and ate before Lucia had returned, but I think she noticed my acting strange. She invited me on a shopping trip right after. Which... was weird. Right? I mean, she wasn't even the kind of person to go shopping. I think. I was pretty sure she wasn't the kind of person to go shopping frequently. Plus, when we did go shopping she was weirdly... passive? Generally she was the one pushing me to go somewhere or do something — I actually started drawing because of her, which similarly hasn't been going well recently — but on the trip she basically just sat back and observed. I didn't know how to feel about that.

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Ah, well. We were playing boardgames tonight, which acted as a welcome reprieve from the spiralling nights that seemed commonplace now. Specifically, we were playing... some kind of weird strategy board game.

Lucia moved one of her pieces a square forward. "Check."

"This isn't chess." I moved one to meet hers. "Your move."

When she tapped hers to mine, I reveal the piece. It's a ten, the strongest unit. My last stand. "It isn't?" With a grin on her face, Lucia revealed her piece. The ace. Only thing that can remove a 10 from the board.

I groaned, as Lucia took my unit from me. Without that, I really didn't have a way of winning other than hoping all her pieces died to minefields or something. "I'm a computer. How are you even doing this?"

"You don't know what you don't know!" Lucia advanced one of her other pieces. I was tempted to try and challenge it, but I'm running low on manpower. I let her advance a bit and instead push the front in another area. "Besides, I know you're not cheating. You try to be honest, I'm pretty sure."

"A little," I said. So far, she'd been handily beating me at all the strategy games we'd played. I had a slight edge in games that involved some creativity, but... I'm pretty sure she memorized the winstate for Connect 4, which I think objectively said more about her than me. "What've you been up to recently, actually? I'm curious."

Lucia did an adorable roll of her eyes, then took another one of my pieces. "Same old, same old. Never gets tiring, though... I guess I've been doing a bit more research on robotics, actually. It wasn't really my major, but. Figured I should, y'know?"

I shrugged, using my turn to divert supplies to the front that she'd attacked. "Sure." 

"What about you?" She shored up her attackers as well.

"Meh... nothing, really. Thanks for the charcoals, though. Hell to get all the dust and smudges out of my joints, but they've been really fun to use."

Lucia grins at that. She's really cool. I almost catch myself sighing. This is hell on earth. "That's great!" she said, while taking another front effortlessly. "I'm glad you've been having fun with them. Used to love using charcoals for designs, until I realized most people wanted actual blueprints and not just cool drawings."

"Hmm, yeah... I used to try making robot designs and such, stuff to improve myself with. Never really panned out, though."

"Oh? Why's that?" Lucia seemed interested. Genuinely, which threw me off a bit. She then started building up another attack on the Eastern Front, which sort of distracted me for a few seconds.

I shrugged. "Never had the supplies. Or the technical expertise, honestly..." My face reddened a bit, remembering what I was talking about. "Also, a lot of it would have been really fucking weird."

"Ooh! Well, I'm your girl. All three of those things I have in spades! Weirdness included!" To exhibit this, she apparently saw fit to encircle and destroy one of my battalions. Perfect. "So, spill. What'd you make?"

"Ah, well..." See, this was embarrassing. What was I supposed to say? I wanted to give myself tits? Tits with fucking buttons in them? The clicky kind? I wasn't a furry artist or doctor, I was a coward! That sort of bluntness wasn't in my repertoire. "Uhh. Like. Body... stuff. Body modifications. Y'know, like tattoos and shit. Right?"

Lucia raised her eyebrow, while taking one of my fleets. "I mean, fair. But you are a robot. All that stuff is removable."

"Sure, sure! Still. It'd feel weird. I dunno." The whole thing had started from me experiencing a good set of buttons, really clicky ones that were small as hell and useful as electronic components too. Like, the stuff you put on breadboards. That sort of deal. And then I thought about how I wanted to look more like a girl, and... well, one thing led to another. It wasn't my fault! I didn't really have a good body.

"Well." Lucia said, as she marched one of her units right up to my metaphorical and literal front door, putting me into what could be called checkmate if this was chess. Which it wasn't. "If you ever wanna go back and see if any of that was good, I won't charge you at all for it. You're a pretty cool person!"

"Ha. Thanks." Flag captured. Lucia won. I really could have resigned a couple hundred turns ago... but it was fun.

-- Day 27 --

This was a mistake.

Two of the things I was doing were mistakes, actually. The close contact with Lucia I was alright with. But trying to make food? And then testing out some of the augments she made on me? Er, not the augments I fantasized about as a slightly-younger-robot, that is, just general augments, yet somehow that didn't really inspire much confidence in me either. 

Neither of us really knew much about cooking, but Lucia had the benefit of having to cook on her own and was significantly more gifted in the eyeballing realm. Seriously, it was eerie how good she was with estimation. I could mentally calculate stuff, sure, but it took a bit of time and energy. Lucia just stuck water in the pot and shoved it on the stove — and against (admittedly relatively tame) odds she still succeeded in pouring just enough for both of us without making the same mistake I did.

It kind of stung to get shown up, but. It seemed so easy for Lucia. I'd probably be just making a big deal out of nothing if I showed any hurt, right?

Yeah, that made sense.

The water was boiling now, and we put the noodles in. Lucia started cracking some eggs, and I started slicing some, uh... processed meat stuff — we put both in after the noodles were cooking for a bit. The smell of MSG and artificial chicken flavor started wafting into the air. It was a good smell.

I was about to start an internal timer when Lucia tapped me on the shoulder. "Toramie?" For a moment, she looked almost tongue-tied. Nervous. A new emotion on her face. "So. It might not be really any of my business, but I've been noticing you've been... kind of distant, recently? And, y'know, we're... I'm pretty sure friends." She paused. "I dunno how to phrase this. Are you doing okay, I guess?"

What kind of a question was that? "Yeah, of course I am. Just, y'know, adapting to a new environment and all. And I guess it's been a while since I've done any standard diagnostics, but I knew I'd be foregoing that when I got kicked out. I've probably got another few months before that's an issue." That last part was a bit of a fib. I really had more like a couple weeks. But she didn't have to know that...

"That's horseshit. I'll just do your diagnostics and checkups manually." Lucia peeked at the pot and nodded a bit to herself after a little, then turned back to me; my face reddened. "If — if you're okay with that, of course. Could probably do it just after testing out my new augments. Tomorrow?" 

Flustered, laid bare, I stammered out the first thing that came to mind. "Uh, yeah, of course I'm okay with it!" Okay, well, shit, that wasn't really what I wanted to say! "Tomorrow works for sure!" And that wasn't either!! I'd have to be naked at least from the top down, and maybe more! And she'd be seeing inside of my chest! That's a little intimate, I'll have you know!

Seeing my apparently-eager response, and blissfully unaware of the gay mess I was making of myself internally, Lucia grinned in relief and gave me a little punch on the shoulder. "Nice! I'll mark it off on my calendar. Also, I think we're nearly done. Unless you like your noodles soft."

Actually, I had no idea if I liked my noodles soft, so I turned to look at the pot. Just to check — ow, shit. A spray of water got in my eye; I yelped, jumping backwards and toppling over a countertop full of pots and pans. If I was human, I'd have broken something on the edge of the counter, but the racket caused by several pounds of metal falling directly onto me broke me in another way — the embarrassment way. Lucia hovered around me, asking me if I was okay, and I nodded her an answer. A pot fell on my head. I could hear her echoed laughter from my position under several inches of steel.

As I lay under a mountain of metal and rubber, loose bolts in my chassis rattling in my skin, I groaned out an answer to her original question: "I think I like my noodles hard, thanks."

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