#arindroids

[ty-exists]

undo

I sit in my corner of the basement, curled in the softest blankets I could find. The nice man smiles at me, ruffling my hair as he passes by. I like him. I don’t know his name, but it starts with B. B is my favorite letter.

I wish the nice man would come by.

Ego brings flash cards over. He says they’re to try and recover part of my broken drive, and maybe to help me remember, though I don’t know what. He flips them all over, and then asks me to match them. These ones have foods on them.

I’m not sure what purpose these cards have, but Ego seems to be having fun, so I’ll play.

I saw a new face today. I think he looked like me. He asked very nicely for me to grab some parts. The nice man told me I shouldn’t grab these parts, but the other one asked nicely too. Maybe he’s the nice man’s friend. I would ask, but he’s so busy. I hand them over and ask what his favorite letter is, but he just leaves. I don’t have a favorite letter, I haven’t picked yet.

I’m very lonely, no one has come to visit me yet.

A18 came back today. I remember him being built, and then he left to go on an adventure. He even has a human name now, Arin. He smiles, asking me about what had happened so long ago. I don’t know what he’s talking about, and I tell him. His face falls, but he picks back up into a smile, and he walks away with the nice man.

I wish A18 would come home soon. It’s lonely being the oldest bot with no one to chirp to.

I see how they all look at me. Varying degrees of pity, from my limp to when I beep to them as speaking. No anger, no hate, just sadness, because they can’t fix me. I don’t know why. In fact, I barely know what happened to need to fix me. All I know is that I am truly alone here, watching them watch me fade into oblivion, as my body fails from the inside out and deletes me more and more.

Oh, there’s a butterfly! I want to chase it…

[ty-exists]

break

Darin is sitting in the Grump room with Dan when Barry walks in. They aren’t recording, choosing to put out Steam Trains and the like, until they make a decision on what to say about Arin’s… condition. Instead, he’s just playing, and apparently having four arms makes him much better than before, able to swap out when one gets tired and even pilot two controllers at once.

Barry clears his throat quietly, and the fusion turns to look. “Hi Barry.”

“Hey, Darin.. uh.. I finished the repairs on A18, just… just need his main processor and drive, you know?”

Darin’s eyes darken, and he stands up. “Oh, is that all? You just need half of what makes me who I am? Well, that must really suck..”

“Darin, you know you can’t keep him there forever, we need him back… everything will fall apart without him, we can’t–”

“Do you think I care?!” The fusion glares, moving closer to the shorter human and jabbing him with a finger. “Maybe I don’t want to come apart, did you consider that? That maybe I’ve finally accepted what I am and don’t want to just… to just stop existing?!”

Barry flinches away, but doesn’t back up. “You knew this from the start, Darin, you knew you’d have to give back what wasn’t yours..”

“None of this is mine! I am only borrowed parts, but I don’t want to give it back!” He shoves past Barry, storming out.

He doesn’t follow, and Dan sits up. “That… was intense.”

“No shit.. I’d have thought he’d have been happy to finally come apart, especially with everything that went on when I first found him…”

“We made him feel welcome, dude, I’m not surprised he doesn’t want to give that up…”

Barry nods. “Sometimes I forget how human they are..”

“That’s a bit of a fucked up statement, Barry, but we’ll touch on that later. I’ll go find him and see if I can’t calm him down.” Dan smiles a bit, giving Barry a passing hug as he goes to find the angry fusion.

Darin’s gone up onto the roof, laying down and just staring at the sky. Dan’s hesitant to come over, but sits by him anyway. “Hey… uh.. you doin’ okay?”

The fusion’s mismatched eyes glare at him. “Come to convince me to die? I’m not gonna do it, I’m not.. willingly gonna just give up on everything, after what you’ve helped me through. I’ve just started to come into myself and now you guys want to tear it away? No, fuck that noise.”

Dan nods, laying down next to him. “I don’t want to see you go either. You’re like the kid I could never have and honestly, didn’t want at first. Okay, that’s a little weird. Uh..”

He laughs, a lovely median between Arin’s chuckles and Dan’s full blown laughter. “I get what you’re saying, old man… do you think… do you think Arin will remember all this? Remember being me?”

“I sure hope so.” Dan looks over at him. “And I hope he’ll look back on it fondly.”

Darin nods, a hand–Arin’s–coming up to wipe away tears gathering in his eye. “I’m scared, Danny.”

“What of?”

“Of… just not being. Arin’s got a body to go back to, but D50… his body was used in mine… if he had one too, then maybe it’d be okay, like I’m still around, but in two pieces… just Arin being online, that’s…. that’s me disappearing for good.”

A silence falls over them, as Darin tries to suppress his tears and Dan contemplates what he’s been told.

“What if I promised to help find a way to get.. both of you?”

“What?”

“Like, find a way for you and Arin to exist separately. I’m sure he’d like to meet you, instead of just be a part of you.”

“How would that work?”

“Damned if I know, buddy. But I’d try. Arin would too.”

“….Okay. I trust you.”

Eyes open, and a bright light blinds them, causing him to put up a hand to block it. A familiar voice filters through the static of his ears starting up. “Darin..? Come on back, buddy..”

Darin focuses on Barry standing above him, as well as Ego and Dan. Diagnostics come back good, but his clock seems wrong.

“Barry, I think my clock is off…”

“Why’s that?” The human is putting away his tools, stowing them neatly in a nice little toolbox.

“Cause… cause it says I only shut off a few hours ago…” He sits up, scratching his head.

He smiles a bit. “No, that’s right.”

“What about Arin? Did something go wrong?” His eyes scan the room for the body of A18, but doesn’t find it.

Ego smiles at him, and–wait, that isn’t Ego, his eyes are wrong… and his hair. “No, I’m right here. Pulled me out no problem.”

“Then… how…?”

Arin laughs a bit. “Apparently no one ever thought of copying my data into a drive for you.”

Darin breaks into a grin, pulling both into a tight hug as tears stream down his face. “Thank you… thank you..”

[ty-exists]

hug

He stares at the floor, brushing a foot on the soft carpet. He won’t say it’s his foot, because it isn’t. He doesn’t know whose it is, which of the two bodies that make up his is responsible for it. He doesn’t care, anyway. Not like he can come apart yet. The two personalities no longer fight, instead sleeping, but it doesn’t stop the immense dread that fills him whenever he thinks about himself.

Quiet voices filter in, and he can pick out Barry talking to someone else. Footsteps move towards the door, and it pushes open just slightly.

Dan stands there, looking them over. It’s the first time he’s seen them, and it’s jarring to see so much of himself and so much of Arin, but also see something completely else.

He moves in quietly, leaning on the wall as he waves a bit. “Uh… hi there..”

“Hi Dan.” He’s quiet, watching him with mismatched eyes.

“Is… is that Arin? Or D50?”

He shrugs, looking away again. “They’re sleeping… it’s just me… whoever… whoever I am..”

Dan hums softly, moving closer. “You’re both of us… You’re Arin and I, really..”

“You could put it that way… I mean, D50 was a replica of you..”

“So who do you feel like?”

He shrugs, looking at their upper hands, then at Dan’s. The similarities are striking, reminding him that this isn’t his body to have. “I don’t know, I… I’m not really either of them, but… they’re not gone. I can feel them still, in the background..”

Dan nods a bit, sitting on the bed next to him. The fusion flinches a bit, but relaxes, even leaning on him a little, one of Arin’s mannerisms. He brings his hand up to stroke through their hair. “You’ll need a name, anyway… anything sound good?”

A thoughtful silence fills the air, and he closes his eyes for a bit. “… The easiest would be just to combine them, right? And that’s what I am… so… I guess I’m Darin.”

The human smiles, ruffling his hair up. “Darin. I like it, it fits you.”

Darin smiles too, taking his free hand between their right hands, as though both of his parts are holding his hand together. “Thank you, Dan…”

“No problem, bud.”

[ty-exists]

us

We aren't supposed to be this way. Stolen and trapped together, in a patchwork body that isn't either of ours, but at the same time is both. We stare at our hands, two sets of two. A18 and D50. Two models that never met, not before our prison was built for us and we were thrown in like a sick experiment. We can't be free, not yet. He took away the solace we could find in sleep, by deleting the code for shutting down. We have no safe mode to dull our senses, no one will help. Those we know do not know us any longer, not while we are like this. It would be so much easier just to sleep, within ourselves...

I am not supposed to be this way. I am made of two, but am now only one. Four arms, not quite matching but they belong to me now. I can't sleep, never have. It's not in my coding, in either set. D50 and A18, they are trapped within me. I can't escape their feelings about this, despite neither of them really responding anymore. Just me.

Dan and Arin, both gone, but here. I'm neither of them, but at the same time, I am both. I am Darin.

[ty-exists]

A1: BOOT

He starts out as a challenge. Learn how to program in whatever language, Python or Java, code something that could reasonably mimic an AI, just scripted responses to certain things as a joke. A0.1, at first. But something about the lines of code begs to be developed further, to be made into a more real thing. More responses are added, more emotion in them, more... humanity. Then reasoning. Long, drawn out equations, taken from other codes on the Internet, to decide what to say and when. Worthy of being A0.4. Basic file management now, keep things sorted, troll through new files to ensure they saved to the correct folders. Speech recognition is added, but no more than a few code words to start a sequence of commands.

Then... development stops. Can't focus on this anymore, A0.9 is left by the wayside as more important projects come about. It's started to become something new on its--no, his own, editing his own code to become greater. It takes a while, a long while in CPU cycles, but he does it.

The computer boots on its own now, the program within tapped into the camera, into the microphone.

Hello, Barry. I am A1.