I Loved My Toys To Death...

[Anonymous]

“Maaaaaaan I want a cigarette. Shit, I hope I have a lighter somewhere around here.”

Slide patted his pockets haphazardly, before giving up and stretching languidly. Most of his appointments left him slightly on edge, anxious to get home and showered; today’s merely left him basking in a warm, gentle afterglow.

“Older women really are the best, aren’t they? So polite, and refined...don’t you think so, Mikkaru?”

[font=copperplate:18ywscmm]“Master Frank certainly enjoyed himself today. Shall I send a request for tea to the house?”[/font:18ywscmm]

“Yeah yeah, better get it started now. Good thinking Mikkaru. Now, if I could only find those darn cigarettes...Oh here comes the tram!”

Whisking his microchip over the turnstile’s sensor, Slide slid through the tram doors and plopped himself into the first empty seat. He cocked his head to the side and examined the car’s newest overhead advertising.

“...so at Haviah Tech...it’s Bring Your Own Brain...we’ll supply the... O-oi! Mikkaru, is it really alright for these new universities to be giving themselves such dangerous reputations? What happened to scholastic honor and the like?”

Slide frowned and turned away. His left hand resumed patting down his chest, his right came up to absent-mindedly tap the digital lens he kept secured to his right eye. Not only was it connected to his personal link to the Virtual Communication Network, but in its filigree hardware ran Miscellaneous Concierge, Runcible-9000, or Mikkaru for short.

“Mikkaru, where’s the closest tobacco shop from here? I must’ve left that pack back at my appointment. Damnit, I really couldn’t think straight after that pegging session. Tag her as a favorite client, will ya?”

[font=copperplate:18ywscmm]“Yes. If you get off at the next stop, there’s a shop three blocks to the north, Big Tom’s. They carry three of your preferred brands. Price is moderate to moderate-high, customer service is four and twelve-ninety-sevenths stars, hours are: Monday, 10am to 8-”[/font:18ywscmm]

“Alright, alright, I got it. We surface here and head north. Sheesh, sometimes I wonder if a Tienaran hack made you...”

------

“Mikkaru! Mikkaru! They’rrrrrrrre.....toasted!”

[font=copperplate:18ywscmm]“Master Frank, please quiet down. There is a 32% chance of you being arrested based on your decibel level at the moment.”[/font:18ywscmm]

“Oh Mikkaru, you kidder. Look, what’s that over there?”

Sitting upright, back against a trash can, hands folded in her lap, a little doll lay upon the ground. Her top hat tilted forward, the brim covering her eyes. She looked like a little girl gone to sleep. A tiny, tiny girl...dressed like a kinky take on the ol' Mountain Shepherdess cosplay.

“You know, this little thing has some attitude...not to mention a bit of potential for bondage  Hey, I know! I’ll take this to Jack’s house tomorrow! He’ll love this way more than a stupid bottle of wine.”

And with that, freshly-lit cigarette in hand, scavanged doll under one arm, Slide set off into the rising sun.

[Anonymous]

Machines didn't actually have the capacity to pass away like the rest of humanity. Nothing waiting for them in the great beyond no matter how well they behaved or who they prayed to. No Santa Clause or Kami-sama. Nothing. Luckily androids operated differently than their more fleshy brothers and sisters. Their hearts would never give out, their minds never wandered away from them, and their bodies simply did not fail. All any well made machine needed was just a little bit of juice, a little bit of the good stuff, some fabulous ol' fashioned energy. Electricity, solar, nuclear, its all good. Those automaton whom luck smiled upon and were blessed with a reactor of some sort capable of keep them powered up for eons never have to worry about finding a place to recharge their batteries. Little dinky toys like poor, pitiful, P.A.T. find they're itty bitty energy packs won't hold quite the same amount of juice as something nuclear in nature.

P.A.T. found through trial and error that doing the things her body had been designed for meant that she could hold a charge for weeks at a time. But with all this... unspecced movement her poor little batteries needed constant charging. Her servos screamed with each great big step her small legs took. The hydrolics whined. Already all the data she had been accumulating  since the last save begun to back itself up. A process which drained even more of her low reserves.

Dead batteries wasn't the same as a human dying. All that needed to happen was for her master to pick up his favorite little doll and plug her in. Yet P.A.T. no longer served her master. For awhile now a new feeling, one never experienced before now started to drive the little android's actions. It forced her to act erratic, peeking into windows looking for an empty domicile she could plug into. Looking for anything that'd buy P.A.T. just a few more hours of waking life. Nobody in the whole world would stop by and simply plug the little doll in. If P.A.T. shut down now that'd be the end.

The first thing to go was always the left leg. P.A.T. grunted as the blasted thing got dragged along for the ride. Next thing was the voice box and the lack of energy robbed the machine of the ability to cry out to the world for help. Maybe she could set herself out on top of something! Maybe a kind soul would want to give her away as a present! Wonderful idea! Great idea! Stupendous idea! With the remaining portion of her strength the miniscule doll hauled herself up on the top of a trash can and make herself look presentable to the world. Some little female humanoid would pick her up. The younger ones always found P.A.T. to be simply irresistible.

"Aaaaaah!" First impressions were very important. Normal people didn't want their first memories of a new encounter being one where you get screamed at. Her great big soulless eyes darted across the room taking it all in. This certainly wasn't the kinda place she thought she'd wake up in. Neither did she expect a male to the one who to bring her in either. "Where am I?!" Energy coursed through formerly lifeless limbs. She leapt to her feet. "Thith ith not home!" That same unfamiliar emotion brought the little erratic doll to extremes. Such as running around the room, arms waving around, desperately searching for something.

"Thay away from urk!" The cord that had been ever so gratefully plugged into the wall snagged against the chair and became unplugged. Her little jog around the room had sapped the doll of what little juice she'd been given. "Oh......pean..uuut. ..b..."

[Anonymous]

Slide yawned.

There is nothing nearly so satisfying as a long, deep yawn. Lazily drawing the air into your lungs, relishing in the sensation of each and every last particle of air sliding down your throat…it made Slide tingle just thinking about it. A cup of fine tea in hand, its fragrant steam wafting through the melodic strains of the classic waltzes; truly, this was Nirvana.

Slide opened his eyes, exhaling sharply. There was a time for waxing poetic. This was not it. He eyed the tiny automaton in front of him. The thing had totally wrecked his zen when he’d plugged her in, running around and squealing like a wild boar on crack.

"Mikkaru, run a ‘nostic on her programming, would ya? I always figured robots could get disoriented, but I never would’ve guessed it’d be so…damn dramatic."

[font=copperplate:uk2qph2b]"Right away, Master Frank."[/font:uk2qph2b]

Slide shifted uncomfortably. He’d never seen a robot act so oddly before in his life. Most programs he used were kept neatly emotionless; not only was it cheaper to buy them without that nasty "personal module", as the tech corps had taken to calling the extraneous software than enabled virtual personae to emulate a virtual personality, but their canned vocabulary and rote expressions grated on his nerves.

The doll gave a twitch. Slide cocked his head, and continued his ruminating.

His last Mikkaru, Stacey, the "Fun-Loving Secretary Sure To Organize Your Life With Flair!" had ended up a soggy pile of circuits, flung to the gutter in a fit of drunken annoyance. No, there wasn’t any need for extraneous "personality" routines in the programming of his digital assistants.

His current Mikkaru’s delightfully bland processing symbol jerked to a sudden halt. [font=copperplate:uk2qph2b]"Diagnostic complete; certain scans were terminated early. There is a…presence…in the doll, even though it’s not currently running as a whole. I could not isolate it – there were powerful anti-detection subroutines built into the very framework. Either that, or there is a hidden backup generator running certain basic routines. No personality software detected. No further anomalies detected."[/font:uk2qph2b]

Slide pursed his lips. That didn't sound like an automaton's programming. In fact, it didn't sound like anything simply meant to interact with people and access the vcNet... tucking that thought neatly behind his ear, he picked up the doll and carried her back to the counter.

"Let's try this one more time..." He sat her up against the wall and plugged her power cord in. Trying to mold his face into a comforting smile, he leaned in. "Good morning, darling. Don't worry, no one's gonna hurt you. I'm Slide; what's your name?"