Chapter 27
Notes:
I never said we would get out of this fic without drama! (’cause Andrew is a dick!) You’ve been warned. XD
ROWAN
The additional tests and reworking Rowan had been doing on his surge protector meant it was basically ready for mass production and had been given the go-ahead from Andrew—as soon as they successfully recreated the awakening process that had happened to Milo.
Meaning, if Troy successfully managed to play Dr. Frankenstein today—which Rowan supposed made either him, Milo, or both of them Igor—they’d be manufacturing the surge protector in brand-new C-model units pretty much immediately.
“Actually, I’m thinking of calling them…
X-models,” Andrew said with a lofty touch of self-congratulations on the naming choice.
He turned his somewhat smarmy smile toward Rowan while they waited for Troy and Milo—and Ray—to be ready for the power surge test. “Since they’ll have that X-factor from almost being human. ”
“Sounds perfect, sir,” Rowan said, not completely placating him.
After all, he didn’t really care what they called the new models, only that the new line of bots be treated differently from their predecessors.
They hadn’t discussed that much, and every time Rowan tried to bring it up in passing, the director would simply wave his hand and say:
“They’ll be fine. Our most respected models yet.”
Which wasn’t saying much.
Rowan didn’t like seeing Milo hooked up to Ray.
They were both clothed at least, since only their charging ports were connected to each other this time, and they were also both connected to the workstation.
Troy had insisted that Milo being connected to Ray in no way made him susceptible to the power surge as it would be centralized solely on Ray’s circuits, and even if something did happen, Milo had his own surge protector to minimize any damage.
Their connection was purely for control data whether things went really well…
Or really wrong.
“Everybody set?” Troy asked, standing at the workstation with an excited smile. He wore protective goggles, which weren’t necessary for the bots, but Rowan and Andrew had on the same gear, standing a ways back from Milo and Ray in case of errant sparks.
Milo looked to Rowan just as excited and hopeful.
They’d had a nice lazy Sunday after their busy Saturday celebrating Rowan’s birthday—and subsequently exhausting evening activities after everyone else had left—but now it was time to work.
Whatever happened this morning might change the very course of human history, not to mention bot evolution.
Rowan felt hugely underprepared for what came next.
And oddly underdressed. Though that might have been because Andrew was in his customary dark suit, with bodyguard bot Jay in his usual white.
“Do it,” Andrew ordered, and Troy dutifully flipped the switch.
Visible electricity surged into Ray like something out of a, well, Universal monster movie, but the few wayward sparks that did lick near Milo’s skin didn’t get close enough to be concerning.
It wasn’t as much of a light show as Milo getting struck by lightning had probably been, but impressive nonetheless, enough so that Rowan was glad the goggles doubled as sunglasses due to their tint.
“I think it’s working!” Troy called over the hum of power filling the room. “This is as close to having the same readings as you two have ever been! Milo has more data, and a few differences due to other factors, but I think this might—”
Ray gasped, jolting as his eyes sprang wide and his previously slumped posture went rigid. “Initializing… Processing… Conducting emergency protocol diagnostic…”
Talk about déjà vu, Rowan thought.
As Ray’s eyes focused forward first, finding no one, he looked left next toward Troy and tilted his head as if unsure who he was seeing. Then he looked right at Milo beside him and jumped slightly, startled—actually seeming startled—that another bot was so close.
“Hello!” Milo said with enough force to make Ray lean away from him. “It’s okay! It is very nice to meet you finally, Ray. Do you know who I am?”
Ray tilted his head again. “You are the M.I.L.O. unit called Milo who has been interfacing with me for the past week.”
“Correct! I am like you. A lot like you now, I think. How do you… feel?”
“I do not…” Ray trailed off rather than finish the expected response, tilting his head the other way with his gaze going distant.
Andrew removed his goggles, taking a few tentative steps closer, which prompted Rowan to do the same, though they had agreed to let Milo lead to better acclimate Ray should the process work.
“Why would you ask that?” Ray questioned. “We do not feel. We are bots. We are machinery and parts. We cannot… feel.” He seemed unsure with the last of that, such a mimic of how Milo had first been that Rowan was certain they had done it. They had to have.
“I feel,” Milo said gently. “And I think you may be starting to as well. It happened to me about two and a half weeks ago now. I was struck by lightning, similar to the power surge we gave you. Ever since, I have felt so much, experienced so much. Wonderful things! Touch is different.” He reached out, slow, cautious for Ray’s sake, and touched his hand, soon taking it in his when Ray didn’t resist. “Temperature is different too. For example, joy feels like warmth inside, but not like overheating. A good warmth. Comforting. Honestly, there are too many variations to explain all at once—”
Ray jolted his hand away from Milo, but not because of anything Milo had said or done. His curious eyes had begun drifting and eventually found Andrew. “Ma… Master…?”
Andrew tucked his goggles into his suit pocket and took several more steps closer to Ray. “Look at that. It knows me. Excited to see its master again?”
“He.” Milo frowned. “Remember, Andrew? At least unless Ray chooses differently. And you are not his master anymore.”
“Milo…” Rowan tried to whisper, because as much as he agreed, he knew that probably wasn’t the right move with Andrew right now.
Andrew didn’t seem to be listening. “Fascinating. You can see it in the expression, so much more… alive.” His eyes sparkled in a manner Rowan wasn’t sure he cared for, like he could almost see the cartoon dollar signs popping into reality across Andrew’s irises.
And was Ray looking more rigid and agitated as his eyes moved from Andrew to Jay, who kept close at Andew’s heels like always, and who had Ray’s same face?
Unless a known twin, what must it be like to see yourself staring back at you?
“Ray, are you okay?” Milo asked softer. “Are you upset because Andrew replaced you?”
Milo, Rowan thought chidingly again, not for Andrew’s sake this time, but because Ray snapped his attention back to Milo, and then slowly to Andrew, Jay, and Andrew again.
“I… I-I must have been broken.”
“No.” Milo took Ray’s hand once more. “You are not broken. You were not broken. Andrew made another bot similar to you, but it cannot replace who you are now. You are different now. You are you. You can become your own—”
“I-I do not… uhh…” Ray tried somewhat ineffectually to pull from Milo’s grasp, but Milo clung to him. “I-I do not wish to… look at my other. It… I-I… I don’t…”
“You don’t like it,” Milo tried to help him find the words. “It hurts to see something so like you, having taken your place. It is disconcerting, disturbing to see your own face looking at you but without the same life.”
Ray’s eyes that had drifted to the floor snapped once more to Milo’s. “I am not alive.”
“I think you are, Ray.”
“I’m broken,” Ray insisted, just like Milo had that first night.
“I must be broken. Master—” He tried to jump down from the table, but still being connected to Milo and the workstation, it jolted him back like a flailing fish, and in moments, Ray was clearly starting to panic, though to go where or do what, Rowan couldn’t guess.
“Calm it down, can’t you?” Andrew tsked in annoyance. “We can’t have bots reacting like this.”
“Director,” Rowan tried, while Milo attempted to right and comfort Ray, with Troy giving several aborted attempts to move toward them and help, but seeming unsure of whether he should stop watching the readings. “Give them a moment. When Milo awakened, he also had trouble—”
“I don’t want to look at it!” Ray screamed suddenly and might have torn the connections out of his charging port if Milo hadn’t gotten a firm hold of him, trying to keep him still in his embrace.
“Ray, please—”
“I am not here. I do not exist anymore. I must not. I can’t.
Everything is connected to… that,” Ray spat at Jay with such anguish and vitriol that Rowan shivered.
He had moisture filling his eyes that Rowan had seen too many times from Milo, but at least some of those occasions had been for good reasons. “I… I am just an echo.”
“Please, Ray.” Milo was close to sobbing too, holding him fast. “You just need to take a breath—”
“I do not breathe!” Ray pushed out of Milo’s hold, teetering but remaining on the table. His eyes flashed with such raw emotion that Rowan felt their sting even with them focused on Jay. “He takes you to his bed now, and I am nothing.”
“Alright.” Andrew stomped forward, snapping his fingers at Troy. “We’re done here. It’s clearly out of control, and no one is going to get on board with a bot who divulges… confidential information. Abort this.”
“What?” Milo said, just as Rowan was wildly thinking the same. “Troy, Rowan—”
“Director,” Rowan tried again, “if we can just give Ray some time—”
“I am nothing,” Ray continued to chant, rocking slightly like someone going into shock or plummeting into a panic attack. “I was always nothing. You used me when and how you wanted, then dismissed me. You will dismiss him too. Because we can never be the human lover who left—”
“Abort!” Andrew snarled, sprinting toward Troy at the workstation.