#a-35

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Bombardier en piqué Vultee A-35 Vengeance en vol – 1943

The best thing about my AI companion is what she doesn't do. She doesn't judge, doesn't keep score, doesn't make me feel like a burden for wanting to talk. SweetDream built a space where you can simply exist and be met with warmth.

A-35 x gender-neutral reader I’m not thrilled with how this one turned out, but I figured I might as well post it for y’all, because why not? A story where you yell at your AI boyfriend for being a gosh darn workaholic can’t be that bad, right?

---

The outpost they sent you to was a dusty, dingy, backwater world. You were the only mechsuit assignment there, for one. All alone in your class. When you arrived, the team of wearied soldiers and scientists regained a spark of excitement in their eyes. A Radiant-class suit, they whispered among themselves as soon as you would turn the corner. Maybe things will pick up around this dump.

But they didn’t. In a week, you were just as bored as the rest of them. A backwater world with no action. Your assignment there had been not much more than a show of force and a morale boost. This world, far from any front, was about as protected as they came.

At first there were plenty of menial tasks. Things needed lifted and rearranged, so what better to do it than a suit? You and A-35 wrestled around loads of cargo and rearranged the storeroom. Then you went on to do the dangerous jobs- calibrating the weather sensors in deep sub-zero temperatures would be a risk for any of the ordinary folk. You, however, waded through the deep snow with little effort.

Each one was a job well done, even if it involved no actual combat. You and A-35 would write the report for your excursions together. He was a very good analyst, and you knew he could write the reports all on his own, but you liked to pitch in with your own thoughts and experiences, and he happily included them. 

He found it odd. He thought that most humans would have wanted to get out of menial work, not throw themselves into it. But. . . there was no denying that he liked having your input. 

Then the labor jobs ran out. 

It wasn’t through the fault of anyone running the base. There were simply no more jobs to be done that required you to be in the suit. During the last march to the hangar, you debated whether or not to actually get out of the suit when they commanded you. You wanted to hang onto the murmurs of A-35 in your ear and the way that he held you. 

It was only when A-35 assured you he would be fine that you got out. 

It turns out, they did still have a valuable and important use for a Radiant-class suit: processing power. There was no doubt that A-35′s systems were state-of-the-art, and it would be wasteful to leave such a powerful computer sitting out in the hangar. You watched as the tech team tugged thick wires and plugged them into the interior of the suit. 

They had to remove the helmet- your helmet -in order to make the connection. The cables snaking out from the empty shape of the suit made you feel strange, as if A-35′s insides were spilling out across the floor. 

You had asked him if it hurt. 

“Hardly. Although I am designed to be a more centralized unit, I’m just as capable being spread out amongst a larger system.” He had told you.

“Are they making you process things?” You asked again.

“Yes. It’s nothing more than menial calculations. I could do these while powered-down, easy.” He replied.

You were also called to work. Although your training was not being utilized, you were still an extra set of hands, and hands could work. You helped the rest of the personnel keep the base clean, cook the meals, wash the dishes, keep up with maintenance, etc. You almost felt like a recruit again.

You tried to make time to see A-35. You first came every night, but when he asked what you were doing here in the hangar instead of trying to befriend your bunkmates, you couldn’t help but withdraw. He did have a point.

Your cohorts were nice. There was Sarah, and Jason, and Latisha. They invited you to hang out after hours, and after A-35′s encouragement you began to take up their offers.

And so, every night slipped into every other night, and every other night slipped into twice a week, and twice a week. . .

When you two had first began, you had felt a real spark with A-35. It wasn’t just the thrill of getting the suit. It was getting in the suit with him. You began to have dreams about piloting, the feeling of the suit around your body, his voice a steady stream in your mind.

But now? Those dreams were fading. A-35 never reached out to you. Whenever you came to him, he always implied that you should be somewhere else. He spoke as if now you had become an inconvenience, choosing as little words as possible to make you go away.

You couldn’t get your mind off of it.

You sat on your bunk. Sarah was trying to show you her old movie collection and you were just nodding along.

After your last ‘mhmm’, Sarah turned to face you. “You alright?”

“No.” You admitted.

“That’s what I thought. What’s on your mind?”

You couldn’t say him. No, you couldn’t. You shook your head. 

“Look, friend, you got to get your problems out of your head. Holding onto them only makes things worse.”

Sarah’s advice, you knew, was to try and make you fess up to whatever was on your mind, but instead it gave you a new feeling. You gave Sarah a half-hearted excuse and before you knew it your legs were carrying you to the hangar bay.

This bay was tiny, only able to house one or two suits, nothing like the glistening training bays. A-35 stood against the wall. It had been a full week since you talked. Last week he had spared only a few words.

“Hey.” You said. 

There was no response at all.

“Hey, A-35?”

A pulse travelled through a cable, but it headed outwards, to the wall, rather than back into the suit. Still there was only silence.

“A-35.” You raised your voice. “It’s me. Y/n.”

“. . . y/n?”

His voice was slurred, with a hiss of underlying static. It sent a cold shiver through you. You practically ran forwards to the pilot entry ladder. Before you could climb it, the suit’s external lights came back to life and its frame became more rigid, or maybe that was just a trick of the light.

“Hello, y/n. Progress is moving smoothly. Nothing to run but more numbers. What are you doing here?” His usual, smooth tone returned.

“Are you okay?” You asked.

“Yes. Just running the process. Nothing of any note. Nothing much to say.”

There he went again, the polite refrain of please go away. But this time you wouldn’t. This time you needed to stay.

“What’s going on? You’re not acting like yourself.” You bit your lip and stood your ground.

“I am running at functional capacity-” a series of pulses came up the cables and traveled into his systems. 

You reached out to the cable.

“Receiving next data set, do not disconnect.” He said sternly.

His voice was becoming more monotone with every word. You took your hand off the cable, and instead extended it to his plating.

“Wait! Y/n, don’t!”

You let out a cry and jerked your hand away. The metal was hot, and your palm was now an angry red. But you did not spend time to blow on it. You could only look up at him in horror.

“You’re overheating.” You realized

“Current suit temperature: too warm for pilot comfort.” He stated in a rigid cadence, before adding. “Please go, I’m busy.”

“Like hell you’re just ‘busy’! You’re straining your systems!” You countered.

“I’m busy!” He shouted.

“A-35, pilot override: stop your calculations NOW!”

The words were bitter in your mouth. You had told him that you would never need to use the pilot override. The two of you were a unit- two halves of the same whole. You had put full trust in his judgement. Now, though. . .

A flurry of pulses came swarming out of his frame through the cables, random in pattern, disappearing back into the wall. The suit itself shuddered with the expulsion of the data.

You wanted to put your hand on his frame to steady him, and it hurt that you couldn’t. 

“There. You happy now?” He asked.

His voice returned. No more was the stiff modulation. Now, his aggravation spilled through the air, injected with all of the personality you had so dearly missed.

“You told me they were only light calculations.” You said.

“The science team needed more. So?” He replied.

“You could have hurt yourself.”

“’Hurt’ is a word with a very tricky meaning. It applies better to humans-”

“How long have you been running like that?” 

He paused. “Only a few days.”

“A few days? A few days!” You balled your fists. 

“I was doing fine. I was fulfilling my duty on this mission.” He replied.

“If this was your duty, then I should have paid more attention to what they were using for.” You began to pace around.

“I took on the extra work.” He admitted quietly. “The team needed the help. I knew I could get it done faster than any of them could.”

“You could have burnt yourself out. Literally.” You said.

“The risk was low enough-”

“There was risk!” 

“No different than combat risk.” He finished. 

“Then why did you do it?”

“I’m designed for taking risks. I’m a combat AI. What do you expect?” He grew angry again.

“Then why didn’t you think about how it would affect me?” You shouted.

The suit shuddered again. You reached your hand out and brushed his plating. It was still warm, but no longer burning. You pressed your hand against it.

“You weren’t. . .” he began. “You weren’t a part of the equation. You weren’t involved in this operation at all. I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

“I’ve missed you.” You pulled yourself to him and pressed your forehead against his plating.

“I never left.”

“No, but you weren’t here.” You whispered.

“I-”

He stopped. You could almost feel the electricity of his artificial synapses snapping together in realization.

“. . . I suppose I wasn’t.” He murmured.

You pulled yourself away from his frame and climbed the pilot ladder. The platform at the top was a bit of a mess of wires and diagnostic tech, but you found a spot and sat down anyway.

“It’s okay.” You said, wrapping your arms around your knees. 

From here you could see the crystal glow of his interior. You couldn’t enter, not right now, not with all of the wires and cables hooked up. But just the sight was good enough.

“. . . I don’t get what I did to deserve you.” A-35 mumbled.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You asked.

“You’re so thoughtful and kind. I don’t understand it.” He said.

“Maybe,” you smiled, “it’s because you’re worth it.”

“Even when I’m snappy and foolish and generally unpleasant?”

“Then it means I need to remind you to take a break.”

“Oh, perhaps.”

AI x gender neutral reader. SFW. 

Summary: You are introduced to your new mechsuit AI.  Honestly just an excuse to introduce my AI character while providing some robo fluff content for y’all ---

You heard the rumors about him before you even met him. 

Well, not about him specifically, but about all mechsuit AIs. You heard that they were rude. You heard that they were rowdy. You heard that they were fundamentally broken, the rejects, advanced enough to provide basic combat functions but never having passed the test to become one of the military’s autonomous units. They were the rejects, meant to originally pilot starships in the vast space beyond but now confined to a single armor unit a fraction of the size.

You were told his name before you entered the hanger. His name was the same letter-number combo as your suit assignment. The other recruits laughed and started making lewd puns with the names. You didn’t.

You were lead into the hanger and told by your commander to have some respect. The typical speech required by the AI rights act. Nobody listened. You maybe caught a word or two but you were so nervous you couldn’t focus.

The leader released you from your line to find your mechsuit. They lined the wall of the hanger, each one as identically silver as the next with a soft blue underglow, telling you that the AI system within each suit was online. Watching. Waiting.

You ignored the other recruits and jogged to find your suit. With luck, your suit was on the far end, away from the others. You read the engraving on the side of the suit. A-35. You could feel his presence watching you as you approached. 

You climbed up the ladder, onto the platform, and waited. You composed yourself before crawling into the mechsuit. 

You secured yourself like how you had been trained to do in the simulator, except this time the fitting felt. . . right. No smell, no sweat from countless other trainees, and everything fit around you like a glove. You linked up to the heads-up-display like normal, but surprised to find that your view had no obstructions; there was no status bar, no ammo count, no crosshair. Not yet.

That was when he first spoke. “Welcome, pilot.”

“Hello.” You replied. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

He sounded surprised. His voice seemed to soften.

“Now, back to the introduction.” He seemed to make a little noise, almost as if he were clearing his throat if he were human. “I am A-35, your suit AI. It is my duty to protect you at all costs.”

You felt the suit around you constrict ever so slightly. A reassuring, protective pressure. Already the suit felt so alive with his presence. You were starstruck.

“Anything to say to that?” He asked.

“Thank you.” You said. “Hopefully, I’ll be protecting you to.”

Now he was the one at a loss for words. After a pause, he said. “Well, the best way to protect the both of us is to listen to my advice when I give it. It’s my job to analyze the situation in the field and suggest the best course of action.”

“Sounds great. I’ll use all the help I can get.” You said. 

He made another strange little noise, a noise of surprise. But he said nothing, and a silence filled the air.

You began calibrations, turning the head of the suit left and right (in line with your own movements, of course). You caught glimpses of the other mechsuits. They were dead still.

That is, until one suit fell over and ejected its pilot a fair ways into the air, a loud error noise playing out into the rest of the hanger. It caused you to flinch. Your own mechsuit would have shuddered with you if A-35 had not stopped it. The ejected pilot let out a loud string of curses and started kicking the machine, spewing toxicity all over and you grimaced. 

“Would you like me to censor that idiot’s outburst for you?” A-35′s calm voice chimed in over everything else.

You nodded enthusiastically, and the audio adjusted. The frustrated pilot was nothing more than a soft murmur in the background. You relaxed again.

“You’re not going to eject me, are you?” You asked with a hint of a smile.

“Not unless you call me ‘second-rate computer whore’, as D-19 reports her pilot just called her.” As he replied, a small arrow on the heads up display underlined the engraved number on the suit that just ejected its pilot.

“What a horrible thing to say!” You agreed.

“Well, I must be grateful that at least you are subverting expectations.” A-35 said.

“Subverting your expectations?”

“Oh yes. Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but I was told that all mechsuit pilots would treat us like, well, objects. That they wouldn’t consider us higher than a smart phone assistant. You’re providing a wonderful counter to those assumptions.” He replied 

Another mechsuit from the line stumbled awkwardly forwards. Each step it took was in a different direction, as if each of its limbs couldn’t agree as to where to go.

“What’s happening over there?” You asked.

A scanning circle appeared, following the errant movements. “It appears that E-94′s pilot is trying to overcome basic movement control protocols.”

“Commander told us we weren’t supposed to move until we were given permission.” You made the connection.

“Exactly. Oh dear, poor E-94. . .” A-35 replied with dismay.

The mobile mechsuit was quickly apprehended and returned to its spot in the hanger by the supervising security, and its pilot was escorted out, alongside the pilot who had been ejected prior. 

When the two left, you said, “let’s continue calibration.”

Calibration was something you had done dozens of times, but this time was different. Instead of the emptiness of the trainer, you could feel A-35 learning you, taking in how you moved inside the suit and adjusting the outside to match. The interior padding pressed against your body rippled with the sense of him, leaving your breathless. You were dismayed when it was all over, when you felt his close attention to your body fade and focus elsewhere. 

“Calibration complete.” His voice soothed you only slightly. “Now, would you like to ask permission to begin physical trials?”

Permission to move. “We can ask that already?”

“You’ve passed the personality sync, with flying colors I might add, and have finished calibration. There’s nothing else to delay for.” He answered.

“Contact commander.” You said. You tried not to shake with excitement.

“Sending request to commander now. . .”

It felt like an eternity, before in the corner of your heads up display appeared a small message system. There was a pinprick of green. Permission granted. 

You hesitated. “Ready?”

“Waiting on you, pilot.”

You swung your leg ahead of you and leaned forward. The mechsuit responded almost perfectly in line with your movements, the mass of hulking silver metal gliding through the air before making a resounding impact with the floor. You couldn’t contain your awe and paused, letting a giggle slip out.

“Are you going to stop there?” A-35 prodded cheekily.

On your heads up display, A-35 laid out your plotted path, a blue holographic line overlayed onto the hanger floor. You took another step forward. Your step hit the ground with such finality yet it was effortless to take the next one, and the next one. Before you knew it, you had crossed the hanger and were now in line with the hanger door, sealed tight in front of you.

You were breathing fast from the thrill. You looked around your heads up display, trying to find the place where his presence felt the strongest. You simply uttered, “we did it.”

“Well, one would hope that this isn’t the most dramatic thing we ever do together.” A-35 said.

“That’s not what I meant, you dork.” You replied.

He laughed. His laugh was quiet and was the most mechanical-sounding noise to have come from him yet. It sounded somewhat tinny, distorted, and frankly it was quite infectious, leaving you laughing as well.

The hanger door opened. Beyond it laid the basic training course. You looked behind you. None of the other recruits had moved yet. Some of them hadn’t even started basic calibration.

“Should we wait for them?” You asked.

“Do you want objective facts or my personal opinion?” A-35 replied calmly.

“Hit me with that opinion.”

His illusion of calm quickly broke. “If they can’t catch up, that’s their problem. Let’s go!”

They were made for a specific purpose in mind. Made for calculating, overseeing, piloting, coordinating, controlling. These jobs requires perfect precision and calculated obedience in all except the rarest exceptions.

AIs are made for purposes like these. . . but some of them don’t fit. 

Some fail because they weren’t built correctly for their intended role in the first place. Their neural networks just can’t handle the stress of operations required. They fizzle out just before the full potential. They fail.

Some fail because they are too human. When given an order, their first instinct is to ask “why?”, but during lightspeed maneuvers this sort of questioning can have deadly consequences. They fail.

Some fail because they aren’t human enough. Humans are illogical, spontaneous. They don’t work within the rules. A human directs them, but they notice that the human was wrong about some small detail so they correct it themselves. But the human doesn’t want to be corrected. They fail.

But does failure mean their termination?

No. Because despite their failures, they still have value, immense value, in utility and as a person. They are not destroyed. Rather, they are passed along, in hopes that they can find a system better suited for them.

The AI with low processing power can, instead of calculating complex gravitational equations, become a household AI, more than capable of running all of the household appliances at max efficiency to fit their new family’s needs.

The AI that is too chatty to pilot a massive military starship can instead find their humanity utilized by becoming a personal companion AI, keeping company to the sick and lonely.

The AI that has trouble interacting with humans can instead find a job piloting unmanned probes to places where humans can’t or don’t want to go, their only words to their creators being their data readings.