#tale ink

Okay guys! HERE'S WHAT I'VE BEEN WORKING ON!!!

So many hands........ Aa.............. I only traced ink's left hand (to your right (used a picture of my own)) because after all these hands I've drawn???? Yeah no, 29 hands drawn by hand and NOT ONE MORE! (30 hands total.. ha..)

(there's an "S" behind ink's back I Swear!!)

Two more Slightly differently coloured versions, and a few blanks, and these so you can see the hands better.

SO MUCH WORK AND AHH- but I'm so happy with how it turned out! I wonder if it'll make uou feel what i intended for it to make you feel.. hm... Ehehhehehe

While i Did get this idea from watching someone playing Slay The Princess again, i got the idea of making the hands shadow-black and "meaner" from This post by @hijinxmayhem ! It's not set in their universe or anything, part of this drawing was just affected by that post :)))

Rowan tapped the keys of his laptop without actually pressing them a moment, just to hear the sound, brought over helpfully with its bag by Merja who decided to, of course, take a detour to the cafeteria to find them all something to drink, sweet of her, but what she got him sat untouched on the table where they were.

Everyone else had come and gone and he was still sitting here.

His hand stayed at his mouth, eyes flickering over the screen alongside the sound of mouse clicks, the soft chatter of the doctor and Barracks in the background, alongside sound of feet kicking gently against a metal table, sitting in as a sort of white noise machine for him.

He couldn't make half sense of what he was looking at.

The robot, dubbed affectionately "Ink" for now considering.. Everything about it, was a confusing mess of wires and fake organs, according to the doctor, and of strange origin, according to Barracks (and of cute face, according to Merja)

And as he was coming to find out now, a confusing mess of code as well.

She'd found a port at the roof of its mouth (which had a shockingly realistic looking palate) seen there while they were checking for a leak, and she'd asked him once she and Barracks came back with the thing to see what it would lead to, and now, this.

The most confusing mess of code Rowan has ever seen in his entire fucking life.

Pages upon pages of it, numbers and commands and 'if else's that he could not make heads or tails of, like hearing someone speak gibberish english, something that was so close to something you knew so well, but not quite, and at a glance indistinguishable, but on a closer look, complete and utter nonesense, he didn't know What the fuck he was looking at.

This thing must've been expensive as all Hell to make, because he didn't know any programs that used codes that looked like This, so it must've been a new one, meaning, to make this, someone made an Entirely new program, used Exclusively for this and never otherwise released, with entirely new script, and wrote hundreds of thousands of pages of code manually to make it work.

Honestly if the thing didn't function as well as it did Rowan would've been tempted to say that the entire thing had been scrambled, and that's why it had looked like that.

It must've contained billions of different commands, and when he'd first opened it, alarm increasing in his expression as he clicked through page by page, he'd lost his mind in it completely, the repetitive, sporadic letters, looking on almost dazed before the doctor tugged gently on a lock of his hair to ask him what they were looking at.

"I have no idea." He'd said. And she'd laughed at him, mocking.

"That's a new one."

And he hadn't replied.

And now he sits here, drink ignored, focused eyes burning as he tried to decipher whatever it was this was.

They'd brought the machine over and asked it to take a look, hoping that maybe it would recognise its own code and know how to fix it, or at least tell them what Required fixing, but when it caught sight of it, eyes moving back and forth quickly as if reading, its expression had grown irritated, soured suddenly in a pained way, and it ended up stumbling back a few steps with a strange sound, rubbing vigorously at its eyes, so the doctor had shooed it back to the table and said not to ask it to look again. But Rowan could've Sworn that it was reading it like script just fine.

It didn't seem to care that much about what had happened though, he'd figured out that it probably had some kind of memory issue, because glancing at it now, Rowan saw that it was slowly flexing its hands infront of its face, like it had never seen them before, turning and twisting them this way and that carefully, then quickly, then careful again, like an infant suddenly realising it had functional limbs, so he huffed and got back to work, ignoring it for now, and the cooing from doctor Ben that he heard occasionally.

Stupid, stupid machine and stupid code, he could make something like this too, and it wouldn't look like a tornado and a computer met and made love together either.

Whatever, he wasn't going to disappoint, he was better at this than the others were, and he was going to act like it.

He already had a sizable pile of notes beside him, muttering and quickly writing down messy things whenever he came across what he thought were patterns in the letters and numbers, or a command he recognised, and what it might mean.

The doctor hadn't given him her blessing to try and fix anything yet, mostly because they couldn't tell What was broken and what was supposed to work just fine as is, it all looked the Same, so he didn't touch anything he wasn't supposed to, not his first rodeo.

He thought of maybe printing this whole mess, so it would be easier to work on in his downtime, but.. the amount of paper that would take.. yeah no.

He rubbed at his eyes more, and Merja nudged some eye drop against his hands, but he thanked her and told her he didn't need any.

If he took a break now, he'd lose his momentum (though there wasn't much of it to begin with anyway, it was like running a marathon on a rocky road) and he wasn't gonna embarrass himself by failing a task This important given to him, he was always proving himself, and he didn't care to stop.

He tugged at his own hair occasionally, because his brain got bored of the lack of physical stimulation, and looking at a swirling mess of colours didn't exactly count as "mental" stimulation either; he was getting bored, and flexed his hands here and there so he wouldn't get carpal tunnel, the doctor may have found it amusing the last time it happened but she told him to try not to do it again, so he wouldn't.

This was frustrating, it was All frustrating, people like doctor Ben found things like this entertaining but not everyone did, he certainly didn't.

He graduated top of his class, he Did, and he didn't like the "reminder" that he could still fail, and it didn't come often, because he Refused to.

The thing was averse to touch, yet seeking it at the same time, it was flexible, yet stiff, it was perceptive, yet completely aloof, it frowned earlier when Merja talked it, like it wasn't sure who that was, yet immediately noticed the new pencil tucked behind the doctor's ear, everything about it was confusing, from its body to its mind to its makeup, not to mention its maker, and he couldn't make any sense of it and it was frustrating him.

Complexity wasn't always a good thing, that's how you get a "horse"; a machine seemingly perfect at something, but that which immediately falls apart when presented with something else and oftentimes, cannot be fixed once it breaks, like those stupid "smart" cars from a couple of years back. This seemed to be one of those cases. Not to mention they were almost always exclusive, with some rich fuck refusing to give the instructions needed to fix it because only one person in the whole world knew how and they'd be Damned if they had to share the spot.

But the infuriating thing was, it looked to be good at doing Many things, it could walk just fine for example, and appeared to understand spoken language, meaning they didn't know what it was Actually made for. Meaning, they didn't know what would permanently Break it. And he was Not looking forward to that happening if she got attached.

Frustrating. Frustrating frustrating frustrating, and stupid, incredibly stupid, who'd waste such good materials on a horse? Who'd waste however many years - and let's be real here, none of what was infront of him could be written in any smaller an amount of time - of their life writing code so complex it was like the world's biggest spider web only to dump it the first chance they got.

He grunts, burying his head against the table in frustration, hands in his hair.

No one in their right fucking mind, that was who, and now it was His mess to deal with.

If only he had a cipher, a cipher would be All he needs, and then all this would be so easy, he never liked the language classes back in school but he'd go back and take them again if it helped with this.

Merja pats his back, giggling, and he looks at her longingly.

"Mind taking over for me?"

"Not in a million years Rowan."

He sighs, sitting back up, and she pokes him.

"Drink something, or pace around the room, rant to yourself. I'm sure we'll figure it out eventually."

"What, like a certain mad man loves to do?"

"I heard that!"

They both looked over to the doctor, writing something down with said pencil hastily with Barracks looking over her shoulder, her gaze down but her free hand pointing to them.

They both snicker, and look back to the laptop.

Maybe he Should take her advice..

He gets up, stretching, and grabs the juice box Merja got him as she quickly slides into his chair.

"Okay if i look around?"

"Sure, just-" he leans over her, writing down the page he was on with pen "don't touch anything, okay?"

"Sure!"

She hums happily as he steps away, already combing through the many, many, far too many pages.

Everyone had already finished their drinks - what was this? Oh, nice, he liked mango - and Some (and he won't say any names here) were more tidy than others about it, tossing the carton into the trash instead of tossing the empty, sucked dry thing onto the table and resuming their work immediately, leaving it to be picked up in mild disgust by their best friend and tossed by them instead (cough cough Those people didn't wear any glasses).

He goes over to the doctor, leaning his head over her other shoulder, straw in mouth, but he can't make sense of her horrendous handwriting.

He points at it.

"You see this Barracks?"

"Yes."

"You understand it?"

"Yes."

"How??"

"Hush now." She shoos him away "we have our Own secret coding to get to.

"Oh boo." He scoffs at her, but leaves easily enough, giving her one last glance back before looking forward again and pausing.

It was looking at him, quite intently too, it almost made him nervous as it catalogued every inch of him it could see into a database that didn't seem to hold.

And that was the frustrating thing, if it didn't have such bad short term memory loss ("broken printer" Merja said affectionately) it would probably be an incredible wealth of detailed knowledge.

Just how much had been lost when.. its wires had been torn?

And by who?

They hadn't been able to test much of it yet, since it's only been a couple of hours since they found it (fascinating that it was still functioning then, considering it hadn't been shut off) the doctor was probably writing down what to do later, to check its functionality, colour perception, coordinations, depth perception, that kind of thing, and maybe whether it could talk too, because it sounded a bit hoarse earlier, when its own code had distressed it.

Rowan could get that too, he'd probably get disturbed as well if he had to look at his own brain waves and try to make sense of them, the way the neurons fired.

He walked over to it, the comically long wire still hanging out of its mouth like a dark string of pasta.

"You," he said "are causing us so much trouble, do you know that?" He chided gently "you are so complicated."

It merely tilted its head, and he huffed, cataloguing it right back.

It had kitten teeth, Merja swooned, rambling on about how her mother wouldn't let her get a cat because it would mess with her studies, he personally didn't understand why people wanted pets at all, honestly, it just sounded like unnecessary hassle, he'd probably go insane caring for yet Another creature dependent on him, and one that wouldn't ever be independent either!

More housework? No thank you.

He focused back on the present, shaking his head, and saw that it was looking at his juice box.

He wondered if it could taste things. That was Really difficult to do, And get right, but at this rate, he wouldn't be surprised if it could. Could probably smell either, the little freak of un-nature.

Figuring he may as well test its reflexes, he pulled out the straw and pocketed the rest, before stepping a few paces back.

"I'm going to toss this at you," he said slowly "and i want you to catch it with your hands, okay?"

It flexed them, seeming worried as it met his gaze.

He blinked.

"Oh, uh, you can use just the one, whichever one you'd like, or both, i don't really care."

It tilted its head again, looking at him, then at the straw, then at him, then at the straw again, and then at him again, slower this time, nodding.

He noted how it straightened its back, tensing, interesting.

"Ready? Three, two, one-"

He flicked the flimsy piece of plastic towards it and, while its eyes followed it perfectly, its hand was too slow to catch it, so it ended up on the table instead.

It frowned, looking at the straw and flexing its fingers again.

He sighed, not having expected much else.

"Good try."

He picked up the straw again, turning it in his hands.

It had understood his request as "catch the straw while in the air", not "grab the straw" in general, so even with scrambled codes, it had enough working memory to still to be able to understand the implicit meaning of what he'd said, had it not, it would've just picked up the straw once it had fallen on the table, and still registered the command as complete.

He poked it back into the drink, and it returned back to its previous position, looking at him.

It was strange.. usually you weren't meant to look at the code of something while it was still working, because it could mess with how the machine functioned, like looking at an exposed heart while the person was running, it simply wasn't a good idea. They usually shut down automatically as a safety precaution.

But it didn't seem bothered at all by the activity, mental or physical or otherwise, and continued to function just fine, even as they perused what made it work.

.... Maybe it Was as well made as it looked, he admitted, this wasn't an easy thing to do, especially with a Horse.

He poked its nose with his finger, and it blinked as quickly as a human would, suggesting maybe it had a "muscle memory" of sorts, because the reaction time of its hand should've been just as quick as its eyes if it they functioned using the same system.

It blinked at him rapidly, seeming positively confused as to what he'd just done, and his lips quirked up and he couldn't help but admitbthat it was a little funny.

"Don't be mean to it Rowan!" Merja called out.

"I'm not!"

He patted its head, to which it cringed (stupid, he forgot), to make up for any offence he may have caused her, and pulled away.

It rubbed at its nose gently, before looking up at him again.

He saluted it before he walked back to the table, and sat back on the couch again.

"Found anything magically, miraculously normal?"

"Nope!" She scooched over to make room for him, and he suddenly heard her giggle.

"What?"

"It's still looking over at you!" She said, and lo and behold, it was.

It wasn't looking Quite at his eyes, and he glanced down to realise it was looking at his nose instead, then at Merja's, then his again, and then his, and it met his eyes.

..... It was really perceptive, and it Was incredibly disturbing.

"It's so creepy!" She said, giddy "I think it's really cool how just- like, self aware it is.. you know? Even a little broken down, it still recognises what a "nose" is, enough to be able to tell yours and its.. 's? Are the same, even though they look completely different."

"Yeah.."

Uncomfortably, Rowan agreed.

Deciding to leave the current, frankly plentiful issues at hand, as they hadn't really made much progress and the doctor said she was Pretty sure Rowan was gonna start tearing his hair out soon if they continued, they'd decided to begin a few tests from her list. Basic ones, nothing that required too much concentration or physical effort.

With tape they drew a straight line on tbe ground and, gesturing for it to stand up (which it did so very carefully) they instructed it to walk along the line, with a demonstration from Merja, and not walk outside it. Easy enough.

It tilted its head this way and that, maybe cataloguing its parameters or something. For all they knew it just liked the colour, before staring at the doctor, who tilted her head.

"What is it?"

Still staring.

"Hm.. is there a.. problem?"

It tilted its head another way. She grinned, adjusting her stance to mimic it.

"Oh so there is? What is it?"

It opened its mouth, before seeming to think better of it.

Its eyes flickered over to her clipboard and, following it, she held it out.

It walked over, eyes scanning the pages a moment, before pointing at a specific section.

She pulled it back up,, reading it, before cackling suddenly.

"Test run? You'd like a test run?"

It nodded.

She cackled again, and Rowan frowned, exchanging a look with Merja. He swore it looked almost satisfied that it got the idea across.

"Well would you look at that, our little friend here can make requests."

"And understand your handwriting.." he muttered.

"Yeah yeah that's more impressive whatever. Anyway. Sure, how many would you like?"

It blinked, seeming to consider it for a moment, before holding up two fingers.

"Okay then, third's the charm, let's get to it."

It went back (carefully) to the start of the line, flexing its joints again and twisting them every which way, testing them. Then, when it was ready, it looked back down at the line again.

And promptly frowned in confusion.

By now the dr. Ben had come over to stand next to them again, and she leaned in close to whisper "god isn't it endearing?" Before straightening back up again.

"Your objective is to walk across the tape in a straight line from that end to this one, with you touching the rest of the floor as little as possible, not at all if you can. You get two test runs, and then you can try properly."

It seemed to light up, before nodding and looking down again at its path.

She leaned in again.

"Note how its eyes look to the side when its thinking, like people do." She whispered as it began carefully walking the line.

He leaned back.

"Could be a simple endearance thing, like how we make machines blink to make them look more alive."

"Mm maybe, but this is still very interesting. I mean, what kind of machine asks for a test run?

"Maybe one that's been conditioned not to fail?"

She grinned even wider.

"That's the thought process i like to hear."

She leaned away, and the conversation ended there.

The doctor was never one for caring what anyone else felt as long as it was entertaining for her, or didn't make things inconvenient, machines were no exception. He'd learned a long time ago not to take it personally. You can't work with someone like her if you expect her to truely care about you, at least, the way that most people do. She simply wasn't capable of it.

Second trial run, it figured out how to balance itself using its arms with shocking accuracy, so much so that it would swing one to course correct if it bent in the opposite direction too much- Rowan was taking so many notes, he didn't even know when he grabbed her clipboard, she must've handed it to him at some point.

Third attempt - technically not, it 'wordplayed' the instructions and walked back on the line both times instead of going back to the start normally, and it got itself Four trial runs, so it had the ability to reason and think and Play around the parameters it was given, and she was still Grinning.

Certainly, it seemed she Liked being "disobeyed".

Third attempt - reminded as such in case it had forgotten - it barely needed to course correct, but it went much slower, keeping its eyes down and not touching outside the line once.

Once it was done, it let out a breath it seemed to have been holding (why was it capable of that? Why was it programmed to?) and looked up, and then down at the clipboard.

She held up an "ok" sign.

"Perfect, you pass."

It blinked, then rocked on its heels a little, still staring and seeming to wait for more instructions.

For the second test, they had to utilise her oh so beloved printer (she treated it more like a pet than an appliance), whom she stroked while she waited for it to be finished.

Next was a game of differences.

Infront of it (where Rowan had hastily removed his things and had it sat on the couch (It took three full minutes just to inspect the material and build)) were one set of two near identical black and white pictures. Its job was to find all the differences between them in the alloted time. For this, it was given a red marker.

Again, it flipped the pages over to the blank sides and looked up, asking for yet another test run as it flexed its hands.

A nod.

Once it was done scribbling all over the backs, it flipped them back again, was re-given the instruction, and then the timer started.

Granted, it probably already noted all the differences the moment it saw the papers, so the test would not be valid.

He said as such, but she replied that maybe its memory issues would take care of that for them, besides, we have more when that came from.

It circled them all with ease, leaned back, still looking down, and then looked up.

Found all of them as expected.

For the next round, it had its eyes covered, which it seemed surprised at, but didn't resist because the hands were the pair it was familiar with.

Rowan set the papers, grabbed the timer, and Go!

It scanned the pages, which it shouldn't have needed to do, and circled the areas once again, and leaned back, giving them another once over.

("It likes to make sure.. isn't That cute.")

And again, the third time, everything was the exact same as the second, but it seemed more relaxed.

Time for the third test.

Infront of it was the doctor, holding a small stack of coloured sheets of paper, each one either red, blue, or green, and infront of it three buttons of the same colours. Its job was to click the button matching the colour infront of it, and once it did so, the colour would be switched immediately, and it would do so again.

Simple enough, Rowan agreed, but when he had asked the doctor Why she had three conventionally coloured buttons, she'd simply said "Well, it's important to have a big red button, and so i thought hey, why not a green one too? And the blue one was a buy two get one free kind of deal, so, yeah." And so he was reminded why he rarely ever questioned her.

She had him stationed at her side, her Right side, to take notes on how long each reaction time was, any varients, etc, and he'd felt quite proud of his position as her right hand man for today's experiments, until Merja had pointed at him and called him a secretary, and then his mood had soured.

"At least they're paid well." He muttered, opening his marker.

Barracks sat on the couch too, observing closer up, and Merja was at the doctor's left, taping the thing as- wait had she been doing that the whole time?

"Ready?" She asked, and it nodded, seemingly strangely determined, and already, his note taking had begun, because it had intensely stared at each button for a few moments before it gave the indication that it was ready, and kept glancing at them stressfully even now.

Interesting.

"Okay, now we begin."

He straightened as it started, paying close attention.

She quickly lifted the white sheet of paper covering the rest, and the first colour was red.

A full second of delay, before it smacked the button, seeming startled at its own strength.

But already the sheet had changed, and it hurried to match the buttons to it once again. And in the small timeframe of waiting for the sheet to change, its hand moved back and forth hovering, like the world's strangest metronome.

Green.

It clicked again.

Red.

Again.

Blue.

It glanced down, again.

Green again.

It paused, frowning hand hovering over the red button for a moment before it veered off to the side and hit green.

Noted.

Red.

It hit green.

Its mouth curled, and it fumbled at the next blue as the doctor hadn't stopped switching at its mistake, and quickly smacked it, moving it a bit from its original position with the intensity.

The colours continued switching, the shapes in the eyes getting sharper and sharper instead of round and soft, and Rowan noted they didn't switch away from red, blue, green, and purple, a mix of the former two, which was interesting enough that he wrote it down messily.

it seemed to favour one hand when presented with a one-handed task, but whether it was the right or left kept changing. Ambidextrous then.

It messed up a handful of more times, and they were both surprised when the doctor flashed a yellow suddenly, and its hand had smacked against - what he could now see was - a deliberate emptiness between the three buttons, and it flinched back, startled at its own action, and stared at the table in confusion.

She didn't do it again though, but its hand kept hovering over the spot as if she would. Green, blue, green blue red, red, red, blue, green, blue, green, green, green, blue, green, and-

Red again.

Almost green, it stopped just in time and veered off to hit-

Red, and the button flew off the table As it smacked it.

It jumped, blinking owlishly at it.

"Hm.."

She was smiling, when he looked to his side (Merja had helpfully trotted off to put the button back on the table), in the amused way she did when she thought she'd caught something that they didn't.

"Good job." She praised, her teeth showing, and its frown eased off a bit, til it returned to that blank face again.

"The tests are done for now."

She turned to him, but he kept his eyes on it a bit longer, noting the way it sat up straight again when it saw Barracks was doing so, copying him.

Merja plopped down on the couch beside it, talking to it, and it merely blinked at her, a question mark on its face.

"Rowan," he tore his gaze away.

"Yes?"

"Tell me everything you've noted thus far."

He perked up, flipping back to the first page.

"Well-"

"I mean- technically we don't even know if there Is anything wrong with it. It have just been built as is, for some reason."

"Oh please," she scoffed "I'd know a malfunctioning machine a mile away. I don't need the blueprints for that."

"Uh huh.."

She was swirling something in her glass, some Chardonnay or something. Why she decided keeping that in her office alongside wine glasses was a necessity, he didn't know. She wasn't an Alcoholic, but he supposes she Was eccentric.

(Barracks said a drunk doctor wasn't any different from a regular doctor, if a bit "loopy", but Rowan had never witnessed it, so he had no way to confirm. Not that he needed to, all he was doing right now was organising his notes for later.)

"You know.." she started, staring at the small bubbles "there Is something strange about it."

"Hm?"

Barracks and Merja were busy trying to find exact matches for the different inks in its chest online, down to the hex number. It had squirmed uncomfortably at the thought of being touched by them, but relented when the doctor took off the chest cover herself and told them to take more samples.

Seems its insides weren't as sensitive.

It was.. disturbing, the way it just laid there, fighting what appeared to be "sleep", eyes shockingly duller, when the fuller vials were taken out. It looked like an animal with its guts torn out who had no energy to feel the pain of it anymore as it drifted off.. he'd been watching too many documentaries lately.

All they needed was a pinprick of each colour though, so that didn't last long. The doctor had taken off her coat and wrapped it around it with a comment of "you must be so cold, hm?". And it seemed to be very comfortable laid against her side. He couldn't imagine it was comfortable for Her, though, what with all the metal.

Still, she patted its head with her free hand, again, like one of her "pets".

"I think it had more problems than just.. noted-down memory."

"Why do you say that?"

"Well-" she looked down at it, frowning slightly. But her eyes were still sharply focused.

"It didn't mess up the.. on the last test earlier, it didn't mess up because it forgot which colour was which. I think it just forgot which button was where."

Rowna blinked.

She leaned her head back, thinking.

"It took the yellow into account as well. I think.. it was trying to develop regular memory for the buttons, that's why it kept staring, but it couldn't. So it tried to develop muscle memory instead, to keep up with the speed, but it failed at that as well. You could see it, right? It was getting visibly frustrated."

He pursed his lips.

"A frustrated machine doesn't work correctly."

"No, unless it was Built to be."

He looked down at his notes, scribbling a few things out.

"So then.. what, tearing out the wires somehow caused its harddrive to be messed up?"

"Maybe." She shrugged "it wouldn't get so bothered by its lack of ability if it didn't have said ability before."

"..hm."

He stared down at his notes again. Quieter.

Its breathing was soft and audible against her side.

"Shouldn't we.. get the white noise machine thing? Before we start talking?"

"Nah," she shook her head, seeming as close to sympathetic as he'd ever seen her "i doubt anyone wants it back."

"Well-" he straightened "not Necessarilly, even the best of us smack a laptop if it's not working correctly, out of frustration, you know? We should still follow the protocol. Just because-"

"It tore out the wires itself."

"...

"What?"

"You didn't see it in the dark, before i shooed you out. It did that to itself."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I just am."

"..."

Rowan slumped back down.

"That's fucked up." He whispered.

"Yeah."

"..."

"You know," she snorted, half covering her mouth with the body of the glass "I think it got freaked out and puked because you said we were gonna put it back."

"What- seriously?"

"Yeah!" She sounded a little excited, and there went the fake sympathy, gone with another sip "it's so cool. How it, like, agh, I'll need to write all this down later so i van get the excitement out but, gosh it has such good emotional emulation."

He looked down at where its removable panel would be, beneath the lab coat.

"Unless it's not emulated."

"Hm?"

"Unless it's not- hold on."

He turned to a completely new page and started again.

"Maybe that's the point of its existence. Maybe it was made to represent emotions as accurately as possible? Like a public art piece. That would explain the frustration, the "fear", the nausea in response to stress, the confusion. It's not a halfassed emulation, it's what it was Built to Do."

"Oh yeah?" She challenged "how do you explain the quick reaction times then? The urge to succeed? Why bother installing That?"

"Could be a thing about the human condition or whatever, but still, even if not that, it could just be the urge to Please." He corrected "you see the way it looks at you, you're the first person it saw in who knows how long. As far as it's aware, you're the person it's meant to follow."

"I thought it was more of a "protocol " thing, if it's broken down. Certainly, i look the most qualified." She laughed.

"No but-" hmph "it cheated you, on the trial run thing, it used your own words against you; you never Specified it couldn't walk back to the start on the line. It was being Cheeky, and most of all, still Obedient."

"You are trying so hard to figure out why this thing exists aren't you?"

He blinked.

"Well- yeah, that's my assignment."

"Well, maybe you should take a couple of pages from Its book then. Because I never said that it was."

He frowned.

"What am i supposed to be doing, then?"

"Finding out what its capable of, How. Not why. Figuring out the "why" is a lot harder than you think, and take it from me, it's sometimes not as fun if there's no lead to follow. Which we currently don't really have. So just set it aside, we'll tackle it later."

She sounded easygoing as she set down her glass, leaning back even more against her stupidly giant table. The movement didn't seem to bother the thing curled up against her with its eyes closed.

The Doctor, as it was called, was chatting with its coworkers as it watched on, its feet - now able to move, swayed where it sat on a table, eyes flickering from face to face, some part of its faulty system trying to map them out and keep them in, looping, like a smaller, older machine.

Eyes shifted to it, too, soft hues in such pretty colours, studying it, from one pair, and glancing, to another.

It blinked right back.

Its body felt off, it didn't know what right would feel like, it knew that, it thinks one of the four in the room commented on that at some point, but it couldn't be sure which one.

Already, it could feel its memory failing again.

It knew it had systems that were off, but it couldn't, for all it could try, remember which ones, something about the heat of what appeared to be warm living bodies, human, or animal, or something, something, something, it tried to reach in, error messages popping along in a non visual way when it would try, its frustrated access denied, things in the shapes of keys trying to touch what it couldn't remember was broken.

It knew, at least, it could Feel heat, pressure, see colour, even if its gaze kept flickering between types of colour with each blink, blues and yellows, blink, pinks and blues, blink, dullness in vague greens, greys, blink, a fuller spectrum. Yet another fault of its systems, it kept blinking itself back to the widest ranges, and then it would forget itself, and blink aplenty again to reset it.

The Doctor grabs its right leg, and its a few seconds of thinking that it should stop moving before it actually does, and then it bends it as far as it can do, dripping some liquid from a container - its eyes stuck on a set of two warm colours, unable to tell the true one that was pouring - and then moving its lower leg in circular motions.

It could feel it seeping into the joint, warm, cooling against the newly cleaned metal, and then the Doctor, waiting again for it to stop kicking the legs it didn't notice moving again, moves on to the second knee.

It watches, blinking in greens and pinks, shapes of its eyes moving about.

Warm soft flesh.

The Doctor, kneeling, moves to be closer to its farther side, before it is stopped by another one, dark hair, small, which asks to try instead, and the Doctor looks up at it, then at It, smiling.

"What do You think of that?"

It blinks at it, then at them both.

It smiles wider, and hands over the bottle, crouching a little further away to allow room for the new company.

It grabs its leg tentatively, and immediately it jerks away from the touch, a whistle sounding from its bottom right.

It looks in what it thinks was the direction, its gaze is not met, but it - the Doctor - is grinning.

"Still sensitive are we? Come now, off to the side, Merja."

Merja.

It tries to register the name as, pouting, the Merja stands and the Doctor takes its place again, but its systems refuse, slipping it off like the oil on its-

Oil.

Was that what that was?

It looks down, feet gently swaying, it stops them.

The Doctor grins again at this, but doesn't comment, it doesn't know why, it doesn't seem to be fun to oil its limbs-

Oil.

It tears its eyes back to the bottle, the soft lights pinpricking as it focuses, the word writted on the strangely shaped.. plastic, it thinks, something in it should be able to tell the texure, but-

When had it read that?

It looks back up at the Marja- Merja, Merja watching it.

It grins, waving excitedly, voice hushed as it bounces slightly on its own two feet.

"Hi!!! You're so cute!!!"

It opens its mouth slightly, but it doesn't even have to try to speak, its mouth closing gently, it knew it couldn't already, That fact had been registered.

It should have been able to register the- it couldn't quite tell, whether Mirja- Merja, was a title or a name, it should have been able to.

It couldn't quite catch what decibal the Merja was speaking in, either, it felt it should, yet another thing its systems failed to register.

It tries to note it, in its memory, note what it couldn't do so it could try to fix it later, once it had more resources to spare (and what resources were those? It couldn't even remember what it needed to function properly, it frowns, slightly) but the words slid off like hydrophobic paper, an inability to mix between the ink and the what that binds it to its colours, a mixture shaken for a few seconds before it seperates again, the moment it looks away, oil and water-

Oil.

It looks down.

The Doctor has switched legs, pouring such tiny amounts, with shiny hands, into every crevice that it could find, sleeves not rolled back.

It sways its legs slightly,

Why would the sleeves be rolled up?

It looks up again, gaze meeting the-

The-

It had rolled sleeves.

Since when?

The Doctor's hand stills its leg firmly, but leaves the other moving.

It stops it by itself.

It tries to write down, noting, that its memory is faulty,

It fails.

A large screen covers the wall infront of it, a couch having been pushed off to the side, one of them sits, it thinks it was taller, but sitting down, it cannot be sure.

It should be able to tell its height, something in it gives pause, it should be able to know how tall it was just by looking, at a glance.

It cannot.

It tries to note this down.

Unbeknownst to it, it fails.

Satisfied with its efforts, it looks off again.

A large screen adorns the far wall infront of it, illuminating the room in-

It blinks its eyes a few times to make sure of the colour.

A soft, whitish blue light, no one in the room looks at the screen.

The Doctor stands, and it snaps its head back towards it.

The Doctor notices, and smiles, grabbing an arm and peeling it away off the table, where the palm was holding the body up against it, it pries its fingers open, palm up, and begins administering tiny droplets of a strange liquid into them.

It sways its feet as it watches, gently, so as to not startle itself with the metalic clang of them hitting the table.

It looks up again, at the large screen covering the far wall- it wasn't very far, a few steps and it would be able to touch it, but it wouldn't- it couldn't tell how many steps exactly it would take, it knew it should be able to tell, if it didn't need to, why would it try to tell?

It notes down that it cannot work its internal calculator. Distances.

Satisfied, it looks at the screen again.

It was plain, it didn't know why it was being kept on, if nothing was displayed, its eyes constricting to take in a smaller amount of light.

The Doctor's hand grabs its face for a moment, tilting it this way and that, and it tears its eyes away to meet its gaze.

They look into each other for a few moments, its eyes' focus creating a feedback loop in the Doctor's own, the reflection of its own face, and then the Doctor's, and then its own face, staring back.

Is that what it looked like?

It focuses more, tilting its head.

Eventually, it is let go of, snapped out of its daze by a hand petting its head, and then getting back to work on its fingers.

"Aren't you fascinating.." it muttered.

What was that in reference of? The- pinpricking, that's why the Doctor was looking at it in the first place.

Could the others' eyes also do that?

It tears its eyes away to the one on the couch, noting, that it thinks, it was the tallest one.

Why dd it think that? It hadn't seen it stand yet, but it shouldn't have needed to.

Why did it need to see it stand to tell?

The- it had a name, it sits on the couch as well, the taller- was it taller? Giving it a glance before angling its device slightly in its direction, it moves to watch what's on it, the light illuminating its face.

It kicks its feet, against the.. soft, it should be able to tell, padding of the couch.

It kicks its feet as well.

A touch on its elbow, it looks, the Doctor has moved up, it flexes its hand.

Working condition.

It couldn't tell what percentage.

It should be able to.

Noted.

It looks to the couch again, the bodies illuminated by the screen, by the Two screens, one bigger and one smaller.

It should be able to calculate the angle of the machine on the- larger one's lap, it couldn't.

It notes it down for later.

It looks at the screen again, the big one, and its eyes catch movement, snapping to the form silloutted moving against the table.

The other table.

It grips the metal with one hand.

Oh, it was sitting on a table, too.

It raps a few knuckles against it, echoing.

Movement catches its eyes, and it looks up at the shadowy form silhoutted against it, the screen, it had lighter- was it? It blinks a few times- lighter hair than the other- it couldn't he sure in this lighting. It looks at them, one right after the other, trying to keep track of its objective- it looks at the one silloutted against the screen, it had ligher hair than the others, working at a table below the giant soft blue glow.

That table was- it looks to both sides, the Doctor passes its view, moving from one arm- arm, it flexes a hand, to the other.

The one with lighter hair, silloutted against the light of the big screen adorned onto the far wall infront of it, works at something on a table that was larger than the one it was sitting on.

It shouldn't be this hard to keep track of an informational objective, it shouldn't take this much effort from its systems either.

It notes it down in- it had a different note there, what was it?

It adds a weakened system alongside a failing memory to its list.

Satisfied, it looks at the far figure again.

There is- it blinks into yellows and blues- blue paper oultined in- it blinks again, a little frustrated, realising it had settled on the wrong set.

The far figure works on blue papers with white lines dotting them, leaned down over the table, head moving side to side slowly, as it was silhouetted against the big screen on the far wall.

What was it doing? It wanted to watch.

"Do you really think we'll be able to get it fixed up and running properly again?"

It swivels its head around, looking for the source of the sound before the one working on the table turns to look at it.

Ah.

Yet another fault.

What were the others?

The Doctors turns from its work on its shoulder, standing straight instead of leaning down, and bumping its body into its swaying legs in the process.

"Well, who knows, either way, did you see the way it's been watching us? It's so perceptive, like a cat." It huffs, sounding amused.

They'd noticed? It didn't do that much watching, it only just started a few-

Few..

"Well, what do you plan to do if we can't fix it?"

The Doctor shrugs, turning back to its- other shoulder now.

"Leave it back in that room? Or-"

Suddenly, something in it lurches forward, the soft fabric-like folds of its faux stomach constricting as a tasteless liquid surges forth and spills out of its mouth.

Short shouts of alarm echo out in the otherwise empty room- no, there was furniture, which kind? And something in it registers as almost distress, the coloured filters of its eyes blacking out for a second before its systems shut evrything off and on again, its body going limp for a mere millisecond.

Something in it warns that it is low on something, it cannot tell what.

Two hands, wet and darkened, which colour was that? It blinks a few times- darrrkkkkk- noting its eyes were slower than normal to complete that objective - push its shoulders back and pry its mouth open, shining a flashlight inside.

"Fuck, was there another leak? I didn't notice one."

"I didn't either."

"Okay-" the hands recede, fumbling for its coat, splashed black, and connecting the two sides of it with buttons to- to close-

They reach out and pick it up.

"Back to the fixing table you go."

It merely blinked its eyes back into existence, dazed.

They'd forgotten to turn its hearing off.

Or, no, they hadn't touched it to deafen it last time, it was Somewhat sure of that, but something had kept it from hearing, it knew because something in it had tried to sense the vibrations of their voices, make sense of them, and failed.

Something had kept it from hearing, it wasn't working now, and it could hear the soft, occasional clink of fingernail on metal as they worked.

Its face had been wiped clean, when it shifted, it could feel no liquid, whether still wet or dried, that needed to be taken care of.

It couldn't remember if anything else beside itself had been cleaned, however.

Had anything else needed cleaning at all?

"I don't see any...do you, Barracks?"

".. I'll be honest doctor, not at all."

"Hm."

They had been rummaging about its insides for a while now, it didn't have much feeling in there, but it Could Vaguely feel some pressure applied occasionally.

They hadn't forgotten to blind it though.

"I've checked every crevice.."

The voice was quiet, thoughtful, it thinks, something about their toning was quite difficult to differentiate right now, it shouldn't have been, and it had to put continuous effort into deciphering it, and by then they had already formulated brand new sentences.

Everything should be quite easy right now, it knew that much, it kept nagging at it, faults upon faults in its system, even if it could not remember what any of them were, aside from, right now, language differentials, it could tell they were there, like a blindpot in its vision, when they'd accidentally pulled the blindfold on skewed.

Logically, there was something there, it was just not known to it what.

It was getting... Something, an emotion, simulated from what it knew to be fake organs, it wasn't sure which one however.

It felt.. atrophied.

Rusty.

Rusty was the word.

"Wait a goddamn minute."

Shuffling and the hands move, so with great effort, it assumes that the Doctor had stood back straight again. They lay still where the inside of its body met the out.

"Barracks, did you see the way its abdomen clenched?"

Silence, for a few seconds. Then.. irritation?

"..oh, god."

.. surprise?

"It was like a human body throwing up, by-"

"Design."

"...yes."

....

Giddiness, it thinks. Judging by the small laughter.

"Yes, oh good god, someone designed it to-"

An excited, sort of squealing noise by the Doctor, followed by a long sigh from the other one.

Which one was that one again?

"They designed a machine to specifically be able to puke, of course, why am i surprised."

"Oh gosh!! This is Amazing."

....it frowned.

Focusing on two distinct lines was very difficult right now.

"No leak," something touched something inside it, putting pressure on a makeshift tube "so it must've travelled up from the stomach into the mouth, like real stomach acid would!"

"Doctor. That's fucking disgusting."

"And fucking amazing! God, i Need to meet whoever made this, how did they design that? And why did it throw up at that exact moment?"

"I would not touch the maker with a ten foot pole, this is Really weird, but.."

A pause.

"Rowan Did say something about.. what.. 'putting it back where we found it'?"

Its body tenses considerably, and relaxes just as quickly, but the two go quiet.

A soft puff of air is exhaled by... the other one, it thinks.

"Did we forget to.."

It thinks the next statement is unrelated to the first..?

"...oh my god."

Something pets its head- a Hand, it corrects, and it leans into it.

A short giggle.

"Doctor.."

It has already replied by the time it registers that tone as exasperation.

"Well, seems Someone has quite the complex psychology.. fascinating, Barracks, it can't even properly function right now, it- oh! Its movements had grown sluggish after it- ohh of course, it's low on fuel!"

The hand removed, and someone began moving around, the sound of wood gently slamming against wood, over and over again, from many different directions.

"Where was.. but its system Still registers.. whatever that was, mental state? Complex long-term thought? As something worth investing energy in, even when low on ink."

What were they called what were they called.. wooden contraptions designed to house certain objects.

Frowning, it shifts its head against the table, uncomfortable.

It's language centres were also lax, it seemed.

The Doctor's hand slides beneath its head, lifting it, and it tilts it quizzically, as something hard clicks against its mouth.

"After we let it drink some ink, it could move its limbs again, this should work.. come now."

Oh, was it being addressed?

It frowns, but opens its mouth regardless, letting the liquid be tipped back into its throat.

"Press down gently on the stomach Barracks, use the big flashlight."

It feels the pressure there, and the hard object is removed a few seconds later, a hand, uncomfortable, but tolerable when inside rather than out, presses down against the soft fake flesh of its organs.

"...

"No leak."

"That confirms it then, no?"

Another sigh.

"I hate my job sometimes. This is so unethical.."

It recognises the giddy tone from earlier as its head is set down, a hand gently stroking its forehead.

"Which part, Barracks, the throwing up, or the fact it can do that based on 'Emotion'?"

"Need you ask?.."

A short laugh, the hand is removed.

"Both." It says.

"Correct answer. Ah.."

It hears footsteps moving. Further, closer, it couldn't quite tell, even if the other things in it, systems that which Do work, somewhat at least, were trying to tell it where.

"Turn back on that machine will you? I doubt the sound is being relayed anywhere but, better be safe than sorry." it said, with a mumbled "I still need to oil its neck.."

"Alright then."

The sounds.. footsteps, it believes, echo to what it thinks, regarding the context, may be further away, but it barely gets a chance to think about it before a hand settles on its forehead again, the mouth close enough to feel the air against its face when spoken to, quiet and whispered, as if being told a secret.

"Aren't You a fun little thing."