After an uncomfortable and seemingly final "rejection" from your hopeless crush, Kirsh catches you in the elevator after you've been avoiding him.
Pairing: Kirsh x Reader
Tags: (MDNI🔞) Very suggestive, Kirsh seems a bit mean until you realize he’s not, so much tension, angsty but happy ending with some fluff, unrequited feelings (not actually because he REALLY likes you), intense makeout sesh with a synthetic, inappropriate elevator shenanigans
Note: Kirshtober. Help me. He has taken over my life <3 Y’know he has two great elevator related scenes lol. I'm down bad, this is WAY LONGER THAN INTENDED. I was listening to this on repeat while writing! Found this song through this Kirsh playlist, it's really good check it out
AO3: drcranefly
“I don’t have time for this.”
A sharp, icy stab through your gut kills all those persistent butterflies in a flash freeze. Your smile fades, pure horror taking place as your chest grows painfully tight and you stop mid-attempt to show him something on your tablet you had deemed somewhat amusing while endlessly scrolling. The worst part is, as he remains leaning over the table with forceps in hand, he doesn't even bother to lift his gaze to look at you when he says it.
Then, he adds softer, nonchalantly: "direct your focus elsewhere."
Kirsh is blunt, yes, sometimes a little sharp, yes, but to hear... that?
Doesn't have time. Not even 'I can't reciprocate', which would be bullshit, because you are and always will be a firm believer of autonomy for artificial persons and their ability to develop and maintain relationships. It's a matter of... time. For him. A timeless synthetic. The message, to you, is loud and clear: he doesn’t want to reciprocate.
You are, well and thoroughly, gutted.
Everything about him completely steals your breath away. That voice, low, distinctive, a touch raspy. He's modelled to look like an older man, perhaps in his late fifties. Taller than you. Definitely stronger. The amount of restraint it takes for you not to touch his hair is unfathomable. But what truly captivated you about Kirsh was... Kirsh. Intelligent. Meticulous. Patient but unapologetically sassy, which, the subtle passive-aggressive remarks and glances may just be your favorite part about him—if someone held a gun to your head and told you to choose. Right now, though, there's none of that, though a gun to your head might have felt better than... this. You'd thought there was something between you; you've been working with him for months, he's allowed you this close, he's welcomed you in even when it isn't your shift, he's let you run maintenance on him instead of his usual technician, he's walked with you through the halls enough times for everyone to notice so yes, you had felt special.
Now, you feel stupid. Really, really stupid. Your face is burning and you think he must be aware of how mortified you are but he's not even giving you contemptuous side-eye. The specimen he's dissecting has his full attention. And you? You wish the fucking thing would spring back to life and put you out of your misery. "I..." You cross your arms. Uncross. Then you wilt. "—okay." It's all you can muster at first, really. Since when the fuck did it get this bad? You're still clinging to denial that this is just a silly crush and not something devastating. "Mixed signals. I'll, um..." A pause as you bite back tears, your voice hushing to a whisper. "...see you later, Kirsh."
You're not sure what to do. So you turn and you leave.
He doesn't move to stop you. "See you around," he states flatly to your retreating back, the phrase devoid of any warmth, sounding instead like a simple confirmation of shared workspace proximity.
Afterwards? Prodigy’s wheels keep turning. Things just… continue as usual. But not really. Because Kirsh logs the deviations in your behavioral patterns and over the course of a week, your presence, previously a near-daily occurrence marked by unsolicited assistance and a distracting brightness in your expression, had ceased. Isaac inquired twice about you. Without your support overtime, project timelines suffered minor delays. Statistically insignificant, and yet...
In the lab, when unavoidable, you kept conversation to a minimum. Outside, you keep your gaze down and you quicken your pace when passing him by. He watches you with almost detached curiosity and that stings, because you would rather him just not watch you at all anymore. Your absence, which is ridiculous in the first place, begins to itch. He's never felt an itch before. It's made worse by the fact that he can't scratch it because it's on the inside, and no matter how many times he purges, recalibrates, it refuses to go away.
On the seventh day, opportunity presents itself. He observes you entering the elevator alone. Calculating the timing precisely, he slips inside just as the doors begin to close. The pneumatic hiss seals both of you inside the sterile, mirrored box before you can protest.
"You're avoiding me," he observes, his tone detached, analytical, yet somehow intrusive. He doesn’t face you directly yet, instead watching your reflections in the polished door. His posture is unnervingly still. "And your avoidance strategy isn't working."
Your jaw nearly drops as he blatantly calls you out, still in the process of trying to accept the fact he is standing right next to you. Unbelievable. Dread, frustration and relief washes over you all at the same time because firstly, he’s taken notice of your absence enough to bring it up, but secondly… he’s gone out of his way to corner you in here. You can’t escape the conversation. He’s taken that away from you, and you hate the settling warmth low in your belly. The audacity.
"...and your cornering strategy is bullshit. I clock in and out every single morning and evening without fail. I'm meeting my contracted hours. I'm directing my focus." You try to sound cold, to give him a taste of his own medicine and keep up the mystique, but the edge in your voice is so harsh you nearly flinch at yourself. The anxiety is rolling off you in suffocating waves. "I'm not avoiding you, I'm just... doing other things in my spare time. I don't live in that lab..." You mumble, borderline petulant. "Unlike some.”
He turns his head, steely eyes fixing solely on you. The butterflies instantly come back. A persistent fluttering alongside treacherous pangs of want. For a moment that feels like eternity, he just stares down at you and you can feel the hot flush crawling up the back of your neck, cheeks reddening. "You overreacted. My statement was logical, not…" he pauses, as if searching momentarily for the appropriate term, "...unkind. And," he adds as he shifts deliberately closer, reducing the distance between you, "this is childish. You are not a child, you need to stay focused."
You finally scrape together the courage to glance up at him and your breath catches when you realize just how close he is, which doesn’t help your flustering at all. “F-Focused? Fuck—” You have every intention of telling him where to shove his unsolicited, borderline paternal scolding but when your eyes lock, your defiance dies. You want to be angry at him but... you can't. Uneasily, you realize you just feel... sad.
“I know you’re not being unkind, Kirsh,” you concede quietly. It makes you ache, the barely noticeable tilt of his head as he listens. What was he thinking? Did he know just how beautiful he is? Your eyes briefly betray you and dart down the length of him before settling on his face again. “I completely respect your choice to make whatever decisions you want. Including... not wanting me around. If my presence bothers you."
Shit. It wasn't meant to come out like that. You turn your head forward again as you struggle to articulate yourself beyond that, the click audible when you swallow. You can feel your heart pounding in your throat. "I'll get over it." You attempt to sound a little more lighthearted, though you're fairly certain you sound crushed. The irony isn't lost on you, so you decide to just put this all to rest while you feel like you can, expecting him to acknowledge this with the same indifference and move on. "It's called a crush. I just... really like you."
"Really like me," he echoes and you cringe. The silence is painful and your eyes drift to the elevator buttons, wondering how to make this go quicker. He notices. “I am synthetic, my responses are not yours. My motivations are not yours. You must understand that.” Mixed signals. The steel doors shudder as the elevator halts between floors, lights flickering. Kirsh didn’t press the emergency stop. Probably. His hand rests near the panel, fingers splayed. "Avoidance," he continues, stepping fully into your space now, forcing your spine against the mirrored wall, "won’t help you. Neither does denial." He leans down, white strands of hair catching the fluorescents, until his lips hover a breath from your ear. "I propose an alternative. Exposure therapy. Systematic desensitization."
...huh? "Excuse you?" Is all you can initially squeak out. "If this is your way of trying to get me back into that lab during my free hours—
“—you will be going back into the lab during your free hours.” He interrupts smoothly to correct you and heat pools between your legs because you can tell it isn’t up for debate. One hand presses flat against the wall beside your head, caging you in without touching you. The proximity is completely deliberate. The hitch of your breath fascinates him and it shows all over his face, the subtle squint of his eyes, the hint of parting lips as his simulated breath ghosts over yours. “Direct exposure may accelerate habituation,” he murmurs so softly your knees buckle, “reduce the crush.”
Before you can muster a half-hearted protest, before your mind can catch up with the sheer absurdity of this out of pocket proposition, before you can comprehend just how hard you’re breathing, he closes the final inch of space and your world explodes. Cool, dry lips press against warm moisture, unmoving, assessing, chaste. The simple pressure is too much and not enough at the same time and you gasp too loudly for what it is, fingers glued to the surface behind you. He holds the contact for precisely four seconds before he pulls back to observe you and you suddenly feel like one of the creatures on his dissection table, because he waits for your reaction patiently like a scientist expecting lab results.
Kirsh kissed you.
And now you know there’s absolutely no way you’re ever going to get over him.
"I... I hate you. Insufferable, inconceivable—snarky—you—" You groan, then slap fruitlessly against his chest. "WORSE!" You squeal, before you bury your burning face in your hands. You can’t look at him; this isn’t fair. "That made it SO much worse and I s-should kick your synthetic ass for..."
For kissing me so gently. For treating it like an experiment. For crushing my hope of being with you then throwing me through a fucking loop.
"...for all of this! For... for totally leading me on!” You accuse lamely. “For months! And before you deny it—you let me stay around all the time! You let me cling to you and… and we just… like…." Your voice cracks a little as you find yourself stumped. You didn’t even realize you were crying until you were blinking away the tears. He’s already told you how it is—you don’t know why this is so difficult—
“My statement,” he repeats slowly, talking to you like you’re stupid. You just might be. “Was logical. Your presence is a constant test. That doesn’t mean I don’t want you around.” You’re struggling to understand that ‘logic’, but you open your mouth only to close it again when he shoots you a look that tells you he already knows what you’re going to say. “I was not leading you on.”
“Y-You said you didn’t have time for me—”
“No, not for you. For that.” He gestures with a small tilt of his head down towards the tablet hidden away in your bag. You frown. Same thing, you want to argue. “I didn’t anticipate your melodramatic tendencies spiralling into an episode, which was, by all means, a failure on my part.”
That’s as close to ‘I’m sorry’ you’re ever going to get but the backhanded apology doesn’t hurt, because you’re once again intimately aware of how close both of you are, how the sarcasm slides in, subtle and effortless, and how he is purposefully trying to bait you into a reaction.
Systematic desensitization is total bullshit. And the knowing twitch of the corner of his lip, almost a smirk but not quite yet, makes it clear that he knows you know that, too. That tight ball of dread in your chest gradually unfurls and you nearly bite through your bottom lip as you finally accept that if he didn’t care, he wouldn’t still be in front of you right now, both of you momentarily suspended in time inside the elevator. You sniffle. “...you’re an asshole.”
His brows lift. He gives you a slow blink as he processes that, simulated breath catching for just a moment. He has the gall to take that quiet, assertive tone with you again. “Sensible.” He corrects dryly. He reaches up before you can retort again, thumb brushing the corner of your mouth, then your drying tears. You shut up instantly and stare at him in awe, goosebumps erupting everywhere and he barely put a hand on you. “Try it sometime."
Ugh. Despite yourself, you giggle. The sound makes some kind of internal process inside momentarily stutter, his fingers twitching. “There’s absolutely nothing sensible about trapping me in here and kissing me.” You pause, the anticipation buzzing between you with an electric energy that feels downright dangerous. Your voice drops to a whisper that carries a note of fragile hope. “...did you like it?”
Kirsh instantly tilts his head back as he continues to stare down at you, gaze darting down to your lips then back to your eyes. “...further testing is required.”
Liar.
The next kiss makes that obvious. Slow. Deep. Far too human.
“Kirsh!” You part with a giddy gasp of his name, mouth still open against his, the taste of him strangely absent but also unique. “Aren’t you breaking several protocols?”
Yes, he is, but some protocols are routine for weaker synthetics, so he’s not going to address that. He answers by kissing you again and when you moan, when his name leaves your lips like that, the sounds loop inside him like corrupted code, amplifying. His hand snaps up to grip your wrist when you reach out to touch him, pinning it against the wall beside your head. Cool fingers press into your skin, feeling your racing pulse. “Look at you,” he mutters as he now gives you a once over, and you know he sees you clenching your thighs. He presses impossibly closer, the hard plane of his body aligning with yours. His other hand tilts your chin up, forcing you to meet his piercing gaze. “You make assumptions. You’re impulsive. Needy. Where does that get you?”
He’s right, but… “...exactly where I want to be, apparently.” Your free hand takes the chance to slide down his chest, grabbing the utility belt around his waist and giving a small tug. Kirsh exhales sharply through his nose—a simulated breath that warms your skin.
“Needy,” he repeats in low rasp and you whimper at the hot slide of your lips locking, beginning to lose count of time entirely. You know he must be perfectly aware of the minutes ticking by but he’s not stopping, and he’s a very fast learner because he’s devouring you now with his equivalent of hunger, greedily stealing your breath and holding it hostage within himself.
"You're... warming up, Kirsh..." You point out coyly, the abrupt shudder that runs through him when you whisper into his ear utterly captivating. Both his hands now clamp around your waist and haul you flush against him. Friction. You want it, you need him to give it to you, and by the way his knee is discreetly slotting between your legs, he has to know. “You… you can’t even begin to imagine how badly I want you. It drives me mad sometimes just… being near you… I…”
"You're wrong," he rebukes huskily, burying his face in your hair. You give a yelp when he bites your ear. "I can imagine. In explicit detail."
“Oh, fuck—
"I have simulated this scenario one thousand, four-hundred and twelve times—" before claiming your mouth again. The confession of his fantasies breaks you completely. You kiss back with wild fervor as he tangles your tongue with lethal precision, the collision of your bodies as your hips twitch in a grind against his turning all thought into molten honey. Through the barrier of his uniform, you can feel him. You nearly want to sob from how desperate you are. One of his hands slides around your lower back, cushioning before his fingers press hard to keep you where you are, denying you your pleasure. A slightly staticky sigh of satisfaction slips out of him when you whine in protest—he likes this.
He likes you needy.
He pulls back just to enjoy watching you left panting and wanting, immediately filing away for later all the little places that make you arch into his touch, meticulously cataloguing them all. The smile on his lips is diabolically gentle. “But you are right about one thing.” He leans in, forehead touching yours, savoring the heat of your flushed face and the sweat beading on your temples. "I am warming up."
There’s a cocky touch to his statement that is quite possibly the sexiest thing you have ever heard. You want to tease him but he beats you to it, his knee sliding just so to remind you of your predicament. "What happens next?"
The question takes you aback for a second. He’s only asking because he wants to hear you say it. “What… do you want to happen next?” You whisper dazedly, fingers sliding to tangle in his white hair. You’re aware of something straining through his uniform, trapped between the two of you, and it takes every last ounce of your shattered composure not to just start begging. Now you know how it is between the two of you, you enjoy this game. You don’t want it to stop. “What do you want to do to me?”
The question lingers in the charged air between you. You can’t imagine this ending any other way but being slammed up against this stupid, mirrored box with your legs locked around his waist.
"Everything." The word is raw, stripped of synthesized sarcasm, of clinical calculation, punching right through your lust and reminding you just how much you feel. "I want to disassemble you," he adds, putting it in terms he expects you to take seriously, because he won’t tolerate your insecurities any longer. "To study every reaction. Every sound. Every flutter.” He briefly bites the corner of his lip as if in contemplation where he would like to start. “Everywhere.”
Your attempt not to beg immediately fails. “Oh, please, Kirsh—
His knee shifts abruptly, grinding against you in a slow, merciless rhythm. "The next time you you start thinking on my behalf—” He pauses so he can soak in your moan, a far cry from your previous shy whimpers. His voice drops to a whisper, rough with static, as he grabs your chin with a firm hand, forcing you to keep your eyes on him as your head rolls back. “—you stop. You don’t isolate yourself from me. You ask.”
He pauses all movement and you tug his hair in retaliation, his head jerking an inch. He doesn’t react. He can’t feel pain but it sends a strange burst of static through him that only makes him all the more determined to see what other reactions he can coax out of you. He just keeps staring. “Ask me.”
You’re so hot and bothered you can barely speak anymore but he’s going to wait until you do. “Do you… want me in the lab?”
“Yes,” he states simply and you feel a heavy weight immediately lifting from inside you; you don’t know if Kirsh is capable of wanting in a conventional way, but there’s no catch, nothing else but that one word. You trust him wholeheartedly, though the illusion of ever having any control in the first place has never been more transparent—you were always his, and he is very particular about your relationship.
You stepped uninvited into his world and made yourself at home.
You became essential to his process.
So now you can’t just leave.
And the fact he has to spell it out for you sparks something deeper than superficial irritation.
“Do you want to… oh!” You cry out when he rocks his leg again, the pulsing between your thighs unbearable, grabbing the front of his shirt; you’re already coming apart for him, burying your face in his neck, needing him impossibly closer. “Fuck me…"
It ends up not being a question, so he doesn’t answer.
Instead, he obeys.
You’re not sure when he pushed the button again, but the elevator finally resumes its descent. It doesn’t matter. You’d go whether he decides to take you, as long as he wants you there.
Kirshtober bonus prompt - When is a machine not a machine?
Kirsh x Reader
Wordcount: 1,6K
a/n: Fucked up with yesterday's model, went into a totally different direction and ended up with "when is a machine not a machine?" Maybe I just want to kiss Kirsh at the beach, who knows
Idk if this is good, and Kirsh is ooc, but I hope you enjoy it anyway!
Night had already settled over the island, painting the firmament in a deep shade of blue, scattered with tiny white specks, unpolluted by city lights.
You wouldn't be able to sleep anyway, and even though the sun was gone, the full moon was bright enough to see by.
Long after your work hours were done and the children had entered their charging routines, you had slipped away. The corridors were quiet now, empty besides the occasional guard – and you craved a moment that was just yours.
A moment without observation, without duty, without cameras tracking your every step.
And what better way to reclaim a sense of self than to stand barefoot at the shoreline, your toes buried in cool, wet sand? You did not care that the hem of your trousers darkened with seawater, or that the sea spray kissed your skin.
The ocean sang - endless, unchanging - and for the first time in days, you felt some sort of stability.
Working for Prodigy was a privilege, yes. Good pay, great qualifications for future jobs if you should ever leave - but it could be hard. Especially when you had a heart and a shred of humanity left.
Letting your head fall back, you drew in the fresh, salty air-
“Do you make a habit of disappearing without notice?”
You jumped at the sudden voice, almost not able to suppress the scream that formed in your throat. Whipping around, you saw him - a tall shape framed by the dim lanterns' glow from the path above, hands folded neatly in front of him.
“Kirsh,” you exhaled his name, your heart still rabbiting wildly against your ribs. “You scared me.”
“That tends to happen when one wanders alone in the dark,” he replied - calm, unbothered, though the faint tightness in his tone gave him away.
“The security feeds did not show you anywhere, and you were not in your quarters when I knocked. I assumed something had happened.”
He stepped closer, the sand barely crunching under his boots. Moving so soundlessly as if walking on a cloud - that bastard meant to scare you.
Arching a brow, you pressed a hand to your chest to calm down. “What exactly did you assume? That someone stole me away? That I tripped over a rock or stumbled over a root?”
He stopped a few paces away - close enough for the moonlight to catch his face, tracing his features in silver, hazel eyes looking almost black.
“Neither,” he said quietly. “But I do not like gaps in my data.”
You smiled faintly, crossing your arms. “You mean you were worried.”
Kirsh’s jaw clenched - a tiny hesitation, the kind he rarely showed. “That would be… an inaccurate term.”
“Mhm.” You turned back towards the water, watching as the moving waves broke the moon’s reflection. “It’s alright. You can say it. I won’t tell anyone.”
The breeze caught the ends of your hair, brushing it softly against your cheek, and for some time, neither of you filled the silence between you.
It was just the rushing sea and the low hum of nocturnal insects that sang their melody. Until he stepped beside you.
“You should have informed me where you were going.”
“And miss out on the part where you come looking for me?” you teased, glancing at him. “Not a chance.”
Hazel eyes met yours – pointed and curious – before softening in a way you had never seen before. Whatever this was between you, it felt intimate, and for a heartbeat, you almost reached out, an instinct to close that aching distance, to take his hand like he had done with yours some days ago, only this time tangling your fingers with his.
But instead of giving in, you let your fingers curl around the edge of your jacket.
“At least send me a short message next time,” he said at last, voice low.
“Vanishing like this is inefficient. I could have saved myself the trouble of scanning every camera feed and retracing your steps.”
“Maybe I like the inefficiency of having at least some freedom here,” you shot back, though your voice was softer than your words.
“You did not have to come find me,” you added after a moment. “You are very busy, and-”
A corner of his mouth lifted, almost imperceptibly. “And I told you, I would prefer not to become a single father,” he interrupted smoothly, tone clipped but not cold. “I would be a poor partner if I did not come looking for you. You cannot be left without someone to watch you. You showed me as much back on the Maginot.”
There it was again - that admittance of care that got to you, stole your breath, made your thoughts swirl. He was not hiding behind protocol - you meant something to him.
Kirsh’s presence felt like gravity - certain and safe - with a pull that made your knees want to give way, to just lean forward and rest your head against his chest.
Wind brushed cooling across your heating cheeks.
“Careful,” you teased softly, “if you continue to speak like this, I might think you actually fancy me.”
He tilted his head, eyes narrowing in a way that might have been amusement.
“I prefer to call it… a dislike of risk,” he replied evenly.
You laughed, though the sound trembled slightly, betraying the race of your pulse.
“Do you ever let anyone else see this side of you?” you asked softly. “The part that cares when I disappear?”
Your hand found the cuff of his sleeve before you could think better of it, fingers brushing over the smooth grey fabric of his uniform - in that moment, something in his expression changed.
“No, to my annoyance, you are the only one where I am less controlled than I’d like to be.” His hand shifted, sliding up to rest against yours – unexpectedly warm compared to the night's air.
“You are a nuisance,” he continued, eyes studying your face as if to calculate the probability of what would come next. “I told myself I only wanted to observe your reactions when I indulged your little fantasy of parenting the Hybrids. But I did not like it when the brother tried to touch you.”
Kirsh’s voice dropped, and he lifted a hand so that his fingertips hovered near your jaw.
“It is illogical. I ran several diagnostics to find what was wrong with my sensors. Nothing is. And if this is a malfunction,” he said slowly, “I do not wish to correct it.”
Your breath caught as his eyes flicked down to your lips – a motion so brief it could have been a glitch, an optical illusion. Swallowing, you stared up at him, eyes wide at his confession.
“I’m so screwed,” you exhaled weakly, and his brows drew together, confusion clear in his features.
“I hope,” you added, voice barely above a whisper, “that you are not toying with me now. Because I’m falling for you, Kirsh. And if you are only saying these things to study my reactions, I swear I will kick your ass.”
He blinked, stunned – as though your words had disrupted his entire operating sequence. For a second, he only looked at you, dumbfounded, and then – to your utter astonishment – a sound escaped him. Not a huff. Not a scoff - a laugh!
It was quiet, unrefined, real, and the most beautiful thing you had ever heard.
You were not even aware that you had moved, only that your hands had found the collar of his uniform - and before you could stop yourself, you rose onto your toes and kissed him.
Kirsh went utterly still, every mechanism frozen, as if your touch had sent signals through circuits he had never known existed, before slowly returning the kiss - as composed as he could manage, though the control slipped almost instantly.
The hand that had hovered near your jaw found the nape of your neck, fingers splaying against your skin - your lips parted on instinct, and he followed suit, exploring this new exchange, this new equation he could feel but not solve.
Breaking away to breathe, you pointed a finger at his face as if you were reprimanding one of the kids. “You are difficult,” you gasped, “cynical, and far too judgmental - I adore you, you prick.”
You barely gave him time to process before you kissed him again, harder this time, letting all the pent-up frustration and affection spill out of you.
A surprised sound left you when he nipped your lower lip - not cruel, but precise and purposeful.
“And you,” he murmured, voice low, faintly distorted by static, “are the most precious annoyance I ever had to deal with.”
Somehow, his choice of words made you laugh – his hand still at your neck, the faint pressure of his fingers grounding you in this wonderful moment.
Cupping his face with both hands, you kissed him again, tenderly brushing your thumbs over the sharp lines of his cheekbones.
“Will you still claim to be an unfeeling machine after this?” you whispered against his lips, before tugging softly at his bottom lip in playful revenge.
“Go inside, out of the cold,” he murmured, voice low and a little rough. “Then you might find out.”
You grinned, running your tongue over the faint mark his teeth had left. “Only if you join me in my room.”
His expression shifted, a hint of amusement crossing his features.
“That was the plan, dearest.”
summary: accidentally butt-dialing a synth to your quarters wasn’t part of the plan—but after a long week of work, maybe it’s exactly what you needed.
word count: 6,4K
warnings: (MDNI🔞) explicit sexual content (mutual masturbation), mutual consent, voyeurism
a/n: It starts slow, but give it a minute—things get warm fast.🔥
The building changes temperament before the last hour of work starts. You can’t measure it with an instrument, but your skin knows—like the ducts pull their breath in and hold it, and the hum refines from chatter to a single reliable tone. Task lamps bite clean circles into the benches; everything beyond their edges loses urgency and becomes backdrop: the faint grid of ceiling panels, the muffled footfalls in the corridor, the intermittent blink of a server light thinking in the dark.
You’ve lived with this rhythm for years now. Prodigy likes its people on-site—close to the work, close to the rules—so your apartment is a vertical commute away: a narrow rectangle of a life with a bed, a couch, and an obliging window that pretends the ocean view isn’t framed by surveillance poles. Friends are hard to grow in this soil. Teams reshuffle with Kavalier’s weather; someone’s desk is empty on a Monday and no one explains why. The guards form their own orbit and stare through you; the PhDs speak in closed loops only they can parse; you’re somewhere between—useful, interchangeable, visible mostly when something needs fixing.
Still, the work never bores. Projects roll through like seasons. A casing that runs too hot. A sensor that drifts by a margin just wide enough to ruin data. A map of wires that looks clean until it doesn’t. You like catching the slip before it hurts someone’s job. Or yours.
Tonight the lab is tuned to that late-cycle clarity. The hybrid project has everyone running on overstretch lately, so you’ve already told yourself you’ll finish the checklist, log the updates, and then make a quiet exit. It’s Friday. The thought of your couch and a dim lamp and a bath has been the thread you’ve followed through a day of minor fires.
Across the table, Kirsh is a geometry of intention. He works like the lamps do—contained, accurate, never once groping for a tool he hasn’t already placed within a hand’s half-reach. There’s nothing performative in it. It’s simply how he was made. You’ve supported his bench enough times to learn the steps before he asks, to anticipate which probe he’ll want, which cable, which lens cloth. He is tolerable company by Prodigy standards: unflinching, direct, edged with a humor so dry you sometimes miss it until the aftertaste hits. He gives feedback the way a level gives you a bubble: factual, steady, without malice. You do good work; there’s usually nothing to correct.
Lately, though, your focus has been a little too alive. The hybrid’s deadline piled hours on hours, stacked pressure like bricks; your body decided to be inconvenient on top of it. A restlessness under the skin, attention snagging where it shouldn’t. It’s mortifying to notice the way his hair traps the lamp’s ring and turns it into a halo, or the way his eyes look almost black when he concentrates, not empty exactly but fathomless. Or the engineering indulgence of rolled sleeves that show the design team cared about more than function. None of that earns you a paycheck. You keep your attention where it belongs: on the board in front of you, the checklist in your head, the path out of the building and into steam-scented quiet.
“Status.” Kirsh doesn’t look up when he asks it. He doesn’t need to. His hands move while he talks, lining three wafers like commas, checking a thermal reading with a glance that registers and files.
“Four assemblies left.” you say. “Diagnostic pass was clean. I want one more continuity check before I sign the log.”
“Prudent.”
It lands like permission. You angle the light, brace your elbows, and lower the probe.
Outside your cone of vision, the lab ticks through its heartbeats: a chiller clicking over, a distant door sliding shut, the soft almost-sound of filtered air threading the room. You fall into the satisfaction of making a number do what it’s supposed to. Test points blink compliant. You shift to the next unit, center the tip of the screwdriver to seat a small retaining screw, and—
Stupid. It’s the smallest slip. Not even a slip, really—just a microscopic misalignment made consequential by tired hands. The driver skates off the screw head, catches your palm at the base of your thumb, and goes in.
Shock makes a bright white ring in your vision before the pain arrives. Your breath punches out on a useless hiss. Not deep, your mind offers, stupidly calm, but square. You jerk your hand back by instinct; a bead of red swells and tips, a too-bright dot in the blue of your lamp. You clamp your fingers reflexively, which is precisely not what you should do.
“Don’t close.” Kirsh’s voice arrives before he does. By the time you blink your eyes clear, he’s already moved around the bench. His presence changes the air—a coolness you register as the shadow of a body where your lamp hits him and stops. “Let me see.”
“It’s fine,” you say automatically. You know it isn’t bad enough for drama. “My fault. I’ll—wash it. Tape it.”
He doesn’t waste time arguing. He reaches for the bench drawer you were too proud to pull and extracts the small medkit you always forget is organized to his standard—nothing rattles, everything aligned. “You will wash it.” he says. “I will tape it. Come.”
The lab sink is a rectangle of stainless steel and warnings about contaminants. You hold your hand under the sensor; the stream starts. Water shocks cold against the vow of heat at your skin and pinks slowly as it moves away. He stands half a step behind and to the left, a position that feels deliberate, as if he’s chosen not to crowd you even as he supervises the bleeding.
“How did it happen?” No judgment in the question. Just data collection.
“Small head on the fastener.” you say, annoyed at yourself, annoyed at the world. “I was aligning pressure with my thumb when the driver slipped.”
“Angle?”
“Stupid.” you huff with faked amusement.
“That is not an angle.” You can hear the dry note in it and a second, lighter note behind that, something like reassurance disguised as pedantry. He takes the kit from under one arm, flips it open, and lays out what he wants with casual precision: a small antiseptic, gauze squares, tape, a sealable strip. His sleeves are already rolled from earlier; the thin black edge of a wrist gasket interrupts the smoothness of forearm like a design joke.
“It’s not deep.” you say, because now that the initial flare is over, you feel ridiculous. “It just looks dramatic.”
“It is clean.” he agrees, studying the blood thinned to watercolor under the stream. “Depth is acceptable. Flexion?”
You ease your wrist, testing. Pain protests, tendons hold. “Manageable.”
“Good.” He shuts the water off with a hand between your elbow and the sensor and gives you a square of non-woven to blot. “Press. Not with the fingers that are injured.”
You almost laugh. Almost. You obey. He waits long enough to count to some internal standard, then takes your hand as if you are a tool he is qualified to use.
His hands are cool at first, then not. He tilts your palm toward the light with a touch that is firm without being rough, and you feel, absurdly, as if your bones are rearranging themselves to meet his expectations. He is all unhurried competence—no wasted movement, no searching for what he needs because he has already placed it in a row. He dries the skin around the cut carefully, so the adhesive will adhere. You focus on details that do not help: the faint clean smell of antiseptic threaded with the almost-colonial scent you can’t name, not floral, not sharp, something engineered to feel like memory; the tiny hiss of a seal breaking when he opens the sterile packet; the shadow of structural reinforcement beneath synthetic skin where wrist meets sleeve. He doesn’t need breath, but he simulates it well enough that you notice the steadiness of it.
“This will sting.” He warns you because honesty is part of the operating system. You nod before you realize he isn’t asking for consent; he’s preparing you for the input. The antiseptic bites anyway. You flinch like a child and grit your teeth at your own body’s betrayal.
“Acceptable.” he says, as if your wince were a result tolerances can accommodate. “Give me your thumb.”
You present it; he secures the first strip. The pad of his thumb smooths the length of the gauze where it meets your skin, eases the edge down with exact pressure, then mirrors the action with the second piece. He could be dressing a wire. He could be aligning a delicate lens. He does not hurry. You become aware of minute things again: the faint drag of fabric at his elbow against the sleeve of your coat; the warmth where his knuckles bracket your palm; the way lighting catches the tiny ridge in his lower lip when he concentrates. Your body, already keyed up by a week of overwork and the unhelpful calendar of biology, reads it all as signal.
“Range.” He releases you and looks at your face the way he looks at a readout—direct, evaluating without heat. “Try flexing again.”
You curl your fingers. The bandage holds; the hurt is a line you can name. “Better.”
He nods once. His attention returns to the small injury as if the conversation were with the wound and he is only the interpreter. He adds a narrow strip across the base for stability, then seals the ends with his palm a final time. “You will re-dress it before sleep.” he says. “Avoid solvent exposure for twenty-four hours. Use the nitrile gloves for anything corrosive. If the edges peel, replace them. If you see swelling beyond normal inflammatory response, report to Medical.”
It should be absurdly formal for such a minor incident; somehow it steadies you instead. You hear yourself make a low, useless sound. Gratitude. Embarrassment. Something between.
“I can finish the last four.” you say. You mean the assemblies, but you also mean the evening—to finish it clean without letting your nerves calibrate to something they shouldn’t. His hands are still within the frame of yours; the two of you could be a single machine briefly, each a part the other activates. You step back—not far, just enough room for your thinking to rearrange. “Thank you.”
“You are welcome.” He closes the kit, checks that the bandage edges are flush with a final glance, and then—an unexpected concession—tips his head a fraction, as if acknowledging the human part of the exchange. “Efficiency does not require you to endure discomfort.”
“I’ll add that to the wall.” you say, dry to hide the heat still skating your skin. “Between the safety posters and the evacuation map.”
“It is a poor use of wall space.” he says, and you can hear the almost-smile in it. The moment passes—his posture resets to neutral as he returns to his bench with the fluid, unmarked steps of someone who has never tripped over his own feet in his existence. “Resume. We will finish before the hour.”
You do. The next fifteen minutes are a study in competence resumed. You settle inside the discipline of sequence. Kirsh passes you a component without looking; you receive it without asking. The lab hum holds. The bandage catches at your skin when you flex, a small reminder that your body is not metal, which you do not need him to tell you.
By the last assembly your mind has already drifted ahead to the path home. Bath. Dinner. A light left low in the living room. A few hours that belong to no one but you.
“Log it.” he says, when you set the last unit on its foam cradle and lean back. He has cleared his side of the bench already, aligned his tools in their quiet grid, wiped the surface as if no one worked here at all. “Include the incident.”
You open the project system on the tablet, type the lines that will make the day official, and add the note about the screwdriver to the small, embarrassing anomaly field. He watches without hovering. You half expect him to dictate the phrasing, to insist on language that makes the fault a process failure rather than a person one; he doesn’t. He trusts you to tell the truth.
When you hit submit, the server light across the room blinks acknowledgement. Done. The relief that follows is not dramatic; it’s a warm lowering of shoulders and a deepening of breath you hadn’t realized you were holding shallow all evening.
“Good.” he says, reading the quiet around your exhale as easily as he read the numbers. “You are off-shift.”
You look at the clock. Later than you wanted, earlier than it could have been. “Lucky me.”
“Luck played no part.” He straightens a single out-of-line spindle on the supply rack and then glances at you, not down, not away. “You were effective.”
It lands softer than praise and firmer than nothing. You feel it in the place you keep your reasons for staying.
“I’m going to head out.” you say, rolling your shoulders under the lab coat’s weight. “Beat the laundry room rush.”
“You should eat.” he says, like a directive appended to your evening, and one corner of your mouth wants to answer it. You nod because he is right and because it’s easier than arguing with a concerned machine.
At the door, your badge chirps you through. The corridor beyond is a spilled line of light and shadow, the air cooler by a degree. You glance back without meaning to.
He is already returned to the stillness he wears when there is no one in his circle, a figure cut from steadiness and lamp-glow, sleeves pushed to just below the elbow, eyes on nothing you can see. For a breath, your body offers you a treacherous image: that stillness tipped toward you, that steadiness applied at your edges. You tell it to hush and go.
The walk to the staff wing is a corridor riffling beneath your boots: polished floors, walls with framed infographics about corporate compliance, a window at the end that throws the hallway into a long strip of ocean-blue. You pass two guards who glance at your badge and then away. You pass a vending unit that hums like a tired insect. You pass the west stair where someone laughed once and never again. The rhythm steadies you—a metronome ticking you toward ordinary.
Your apartment opens after the second chirp. It smells faintly of laundry detergent and the lemon cleaner Facilities prefers. You toe your boots into the tray, hang the lab coat on its hook, let your shoulders slide down from the Prodigy posture and into something that belongs to you. Dinner is whatever you can convince the kitchenette to produce without effort; the bath is effort but the kind you want—steam rising, water carving heat into a day that used you and didn’t break you.
The bandage looks neat when you check it. You replace the outer layer per instruction, tell yourself it’s because he’ll ask tomorrow and you’d rather say yes than be corrected.
When you cut the water, the apartment feels too quiet, as if the walls had leaned closer while you were submerged. You towel your hair, pull on a tank and underwear and the thick socks that make the tile less hostile. The couch receives you like it knows the shape of your tiredness. You lower the lights to a softness that makes edges kind; you let a playlist drift into the air, something low and without words. The tablet wakes under your thumb and offers a hundred distractions. You pick the least dangerous: a book you’ve been meaning to try, its cover shamelessly telegraphing its contents. A man and a woman in an embrace—nothing you’d admit to reading—so you skip straight to the part that actually works on you.
Nothing about tonight is unusual. This is what you do when the week wears you down: warm skin from the bath, low light, a screen to hide behind, a few hours where nobody needs anything from you. It should be easy. It isn’t. There’s still that hum under your skin, a restless edge you’ve been ignoring with work and coffee and too little sleep. You tell yourself it’s just stress, that if you slow down your body will follow. For once, you believe it.
Your comm blinks once on the table when the tablet connects to the network. You ignore it. You ignore almost everything except the sound of your own breathing and the quiet spreading through the apartment.
You tell yourself you’re not thinking about anyone while you read the book. You’re just winding down. Just trying to relax. Stillness, that’s all. Except your mind keeps circling back—to rolled sleeves, to hands that move like they always know what they’re doing, to a voice that never needs to raise itself to be heard.
You set the tablet aside and close your eyes, because you can no longer focus on the words.
The apartment hums around you, a low mechanical sound that passes for calm. Air vents shift somewhere overhead. Outside, the ocean pushes at the strand and pulls back again. You follow your heartbeat until it evens out.
Later, you’ll probably cringe at how fast the mood took you, how easily your brain filled the space with the wrong image, the wrong person. Later, you’ll make sense of it. For now, you’re just tired, human, and alone in a room that—for a few hours at least—belongs to you. You sneak your hand below your underwear. You already know what you like and how and you bite your lower lip as you touch your clit, circling your finger over the sensitive spot.
You don’t notice the tablet’s screen fading to black, or the name still glowing at the top of your contacts list. You don’t notice how loud the music has gotten, or how thin the walls sound.
You pull the blanket over your legs, turn the lamp low, and let your breath even out. Outside, the island goes still. Inside, the tension finally starts to let go as you feel the dampness form under your own touch and the image of a certain lab partner.
You catch a rhythm for a moment, then it slips. You shift your hand, try a different angle, exhale sharply when it still doesn’t work. It’s maddening. Even when you picture Kirsh—his precision, his hands instead of yours—it doesn’t tip you over. You moan his name anyway, low and useless, and nothing happens.
You don’t mean to say his name out loud.
It’s just the last thing in your head, pressed to the roof of your mouth by music and steam-soft thoughts, and then it’s in the room—out where sound can hear itself.
“So this is why you called?”
You jolt. Your hand yanks back on reflex. The blanket snarls around your knees. For a beat the apartment is just breath, bass at a low volume, and the shock of a voice that shouldn’t be here.
He’s standing a few paces in, where the warm pool from your lamp just reaches his shins. Posture perfectly still, neutral expression.
“What— why are you in my room?” Your voice is hoarse, too high. You grab for the tablet and manage to palm it to your side, as if that will subtract the last thirty seconds from reality.
“You called me.” he says, tilting his head toward the tablet. “Your device initiated a connection. You were making noises consistent with distress. I concluded you might require medical assistance.” A pause—dry, nearly amused. “I arrived within ninety seconds.”
You blink down at the screen. The call overlay glows with his ID. Not intentional. Not sexy. Just the worst possible tap with damp fingers.
Mortification hits in a slow-to-arrive wave. You swallow. “I’m—sorry,” you manage. The words come small. “I didn’t mean to— I wasn’t—”
“Are you sorry?” he asks, almost curious. He looks at you the way he looks at a monitor: what’s the signal, what’s the noise. “You seemed to be enjoying yourself. Your recent lapses in focus had me concerned about a reassignment. This explanation is preferable.” He considers you a beat longer. “Although you appeared to be… encountering difficulty.”
You want the floor to open. You want the island to slide into the ocean and take you with it. “I’m fine.”
“You weren’t finishing what you started.” he says, calm as ever, like he’s giving feedback on a project instead of walking in on your complete humiliation.
Your cheeks burn. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to confirm that your problem is not structural.” His gaze flicks to your bandaged hand as if to acknowledge the day’s earlier clumsiness. “And that the music is an ineffective cover.”
You scrub a palm over your face. The apartment seems smaller than it did five minutes ago. “You could have… knocked.” Weak, you know.
“I did.” He nods toward the small panel by the entry. The indicator glows—a soft recorded chime you must’ve tuned out completely. “Twice.”
Right. The volume. Your pulse is still climbing down from the ceiling. You pull the blanket higher on your thighs and try to straighten your spine into something resembling dignity. “Well. I’m okay. You can go.”
He doesn’t move. “Do you want me to?”
You actually stop. It’s not a challenge. It’s a genuine question, posed in that toneless way of his that keeps your blood from sprinting but somehow keeps it warm.
You look at him. The apartment’s lamp gives him a softer edge than the lab does, a warmer tone across the smooth planes of cheek and jaw. His sleeves are still pushed above his forearms. Details catch your eye you wish wouldn’t: the small crease where fabric meets skin; the faint, engineered seam that pretends it isn’t there. Your body reacts like it’s hearing the end of a sentence it already knew.
“I don’t know.” you say, because lying is more work than you can do tonight. “I wasn’t— I didn’t plan on an audience.”
“I would not qualify my presence as an audience.” he says. “I am a participant only if you invite me. Otherwise, I am an observer.” He lifts one hand then—small, nonthreatening motion—palms open. “You can ask me to leave, and I will leave. You can ask me to stay, and I will stay. You can ask me to stand behind the line on the floor, and I will stand there.”
You glance at the floor. There is no line. By the coffee table, he looks back at you as if the invisible mark existed and he’s already on the correct side of it.
Your voice comes quieter. “Did you… see a lot?”
“Adequate data,” he says. And then—delicately—“Enough to infer that visual stimulus would improve your outcome.”
You repeat the words back to him like they’re a foreign language that needs a different tongue. “Visual stimulus.”
He inclines his head. “A focus. A cue. Something to organize your attention.” His eyes track from your face to your hands—bandage, then knuckles, then back. “You have been operating at high load. It degrades signal clarity.”
There are a dozen ways to say no. You have said them in your life to worse men for less reason. None of those men were standing there with their elbows bare and their voice level and their offer phrased like a research note.
“Okay.” you hear yourself say.
His gaze stills, attentive as a metronome. “Clarify the terms of okay.”
“You can stay.” you say. Your throat is dry. “No— stand there. Not closer.” And then, because whatever this is you need it to be yours: “If I say stop, we stop.”
“Yes.” he says immediately. No hesitation. “At any time.” He gestures at the volume control on your speaker. “Do you want the sound lower?”
You nod. He crosses to the shelf with unhurried steps and nudges the volume down until the music settles into the room like a breath rather than a wall. He comes back and takes the place he had—near the table, not touching anything, hands at his sides. He looks like he has arrived at a safe distance and is content to stay inside it.
“What do you want from me?” you ask. “Exactly?”
“Attention.” he says. “Focused attention on you.” A beat, shaped like kindness in his voice even if the tone doesn’t change. “If you want more than that, you will tell me.”
Your mouth goes dry. Your body answers for you, a low thrum under your skin you can’t file away.
He watches your face. “Breathe evenly.” he says, softer.
You do. The room narrows to the warm cone of the lamp and the cool rectangle of the window and the steady figure watching you without grabbing for you. You are very aware of your body now: the temperature of your skin; the way the blanket grazes your knees; the weight of your hair, still faintly damp, against your neck. You gaze down at your hands clutching the blanket.
“Look at me.” he says.
You do. His eyes are dark in this light, unreadable at a distance unless you know what to look for. You know enough. He is not performing. He is simply present. It should not affect you as much as it does, and yet.
“Tell me what helps.” he says.
You swallow once. “You. Talking.” you admit. “Not… commentary. Just— you.”
His mouth inclines a fraction. “Noted.” He lifts his hands again—empty, careful; the way he does in the lab before he asks for a component you’re already passing him. “If you prefer, close your eyes and use the image you already had. If you prefer to keep them open, I will remain.”
“Stay.” you say, surprised by how quickly the word chooses itself.
“I will.”
Silence. Not uncomfortable. The kind that marks the border before a different kind of conversation.
He rolls his sleeves a touch higher. It’s a small movement—practical, even—but your body reads it like a script it studied all week. A sound escapes you, quiet and not quite voluntary.
His brow ticks upward. “That has an effect?” he observes, unable to keep the thin slip of humor from the words.
“Apparently.”
He doesn’t laugh, he doesn’t need to. He gives you a moment to decide if you want to crawl under the couch. When you don’t, he speaks again, evenly. “Begin when you’re ready.” he says. “You are not being timed.”
You shift under the blanket, not bothering to hide the fact that your hands are doing what they came here to do. You keep your gaze on him. It feels like drawing a line across your attention and finally standing on it. You hurry your fingers back into your underwear, trembling slightly from his attention.
“Slow.” he suggests, the word a curl of heat in the cool of his voice. “Don’t chase. Let it meet you.”
You test the pace he gives you, your fingers slowing on your swollen clit and your breath catches. He sees the moment and doesn’t comment, but his shoulders settle the smallest degree, like your calibration has aligned with his.
“Shoulders down.” he says, almost under his breath. “You always hold them too high. There.” His hand makes an absent circling gesture at chest height, not quite touching the air. “That pace. Keep it until your breathing changes, then adjust by a small percentage. Not more.”
You obey. It feels ridiculous, and then it doesn’t. The room tightens around the sound of your own lungs. The blanket drags against your skin like a metronome as you slowly circle your sensitive spot with now damp fingers. You don’t look away from him.
He doesn’t move closer, though you have the disorienting sense that he is nearer simply because your attention is. He stays where he said he would. Present. Patient. Eyes on yours when you want them, lowering when you need the permission to look without being looked through.
“Good girl.” he says, but it doesn't land like feedback, rather it's a praise that earns a sound from you. “You’re letting it build. You tend to rush the approach. It stalls you.”
“Since when...” you manage, a small, breathy sound hitching in the middle, as you use your other hand to slide your fingers against the damp slit through your underwear. “...have you been… studying my approach?”
“Since you began losing focus three days ago.” he says. “I adjusted my model.”
You make a noise that could be a laugh. It shakes, breaks, reforms as a moan. He tips his head a fraction, the motion familiar now, something you can lean against.
“Tell me if I should stop talking.” he offers.
“Don’t.” It comes out before you think.
“Noted.” His voice eases a fraction. “You’re very predictable, you know. You set rules just to see who notices when you bend them.” A small pause—half smirk, half observation. “Fortunately for you, I’m exceptionally observant.”
You breathe. You let the comment hang between you, lighter than it should be. The room hums with rhythm and heat, balanced just where you need it.
“Look at me.” he says again, and you do, and the way you’re looking must put something into your face because his voice dips. “There.” he says, softer. “Right. There.”
Heat crawls up your throat, not from shame now but from somewhere more honest. You feel ridiculous and ferociously alive at once.
“I should go.” you say, nonsense. This is your apartment after all.
“You should finish what you started.” he answers, not unkindly. “You will sleep after.”
You close your eyes for one breath, then open them again and find him where you left him. He hasn’t moved closer. He hasn’t moved at all, except somehow everything in him is tuned to you in this exact moment. It’s like being seen and not managed. It’s terrifying. It’s relief.
“Permission to approach?” he asks, quiet.
Your heart trips. “To what distance?”
“Here.” He points to the edge of the coffee table. Half a meter from your knees. “Within reach if you want it; out of reach if you do not.”
You weigh it. You know what proximity does to you around him; you also know what distance does. You fight against the need to beg. “Okay.”
He crosses the space with that same unhurried exactness, as if there were no other way to move. He stops where he said he would. The lamp’s light finds his hands where they rest lightly on the table’s edge. He doesn’t touch you. He could. He doesn’t.
“Better?” he asks.
You don’t trust your voice, so you nod. You feel stupidly grateful for the table between you, for the line it makes, for the way he respects it like it’s painted bright on the floor.
He moves to his belt, and every rational part of your brain forgets how to function. Your heart skips, your hand falters.
“What are you doing?” The question comes out higher than you’d like.
He doesn’t miss a beat. “Visual stimulus,” he says, as if he’s citing a manual.
The sound that leaves you isn’t quite a word—just a startled noise you can’t swallow down.
You’ve wondered before how close to human he really is. Seeing him now, you can stop wondering. Prodigy got their money’s worth. He’s not entirely still, either—and whether that’s programmed or not, you can’t bring yourself to analyze it. Not while his hand moves like that around his own erect member. You want to touch it and as if on cue he rasps:
"Look with your eyes."
You make a sound from frustration and you lift your underwear to the side, fabric already damp as you push two fingers inside. You moan and try not to flush with the sounds your own body makes below the blanket. Your eyes stay fixed on his hand, the way he tugs on his own erection, making the tip glisten with what you can guess is something synthethic.
“Say my name.” he says, and it hits you like a switch thrown.
“Kirsh.” It comes out as air, then again as a word, and then he is nodding with that small, pleased tilt as if you’ve placed a component exactly where it belongs.
“Again.” he rasps.
You give it to him. Not a plea, not a prayer, just the name that has been ringing behind your teeth all week, the name that stays gentle in your mouth even when your body isn’t.
“Very good.” he says, and the approval lands like heat across your sternum.
He doesn’t narrate the rest. He doesn’t need to. He watches your face as his hand moves. When your breathing stutters he reminds you to slow down by simply slowing his own hand. When you falter he tightens his grip, once, and then eases. When you say his name again he says yours back, and it sounds different in his voice and your back arches against your own hand.
The room narrows to the table, the lamp, the music’s soft pulse, and the circle of his attention. You are aware of the bandage on your other hand, the dull ache now background noise to something brighter. You are aware of how carefully he’s staying on his side of the line and of how your body keeps leaning over it anyway. You are aware of heat rising in a way that feels earned.
“Good girl.” he says once more, so quietly you could have imagined it. “Stay with it.”
You do.
Your vision slips out of focus. He jerks forward, a hand hitting the table to keep balance. The noise he makes cuts through your own pulse—unexpected, unfiltered, enough to make you look at the mess he made on the furniture's surface. You feel your every nerve ending as you wish that substance would have landed in you.
After a few seconds, the room expands again. The music breathes back into the corners. The lamp remembers it is just a light. You realize your eyes are damp and you’re not embarrassed by it, which surprises you more than anything else.
He waits for your movement before he makes his own. When you withdraw, he stands, refastening his uniform in neat, efficient motions. He takes a tissue from the table and wipes away the evidence with the same care he gives his work.
“Water?” he asks.
You nod. Your voice is somewhere else. He crosses to the kitchenette, throws away the tissue and returns with a glass and a folded paper towel like he has seen this sequence enough in humans to imitate it well. He sets the water on the table, then pauses. “Permission to adjust the blanket?”
You manage a laugh that actually feels like one. “Granted.”
He lifts the edge and arranges it across your knees with the same neat competence he gave your bandage earlier, tucking it under your shins like he’s closing a file. The heat in your face has faded to something manageable. Your breathing has, too.
“Any dizziness?” he asks, all business suddenly, which is a mercy.
“No.” You find your voice. It’s rough, but there. “Just… satiated.”
“Side effect of visual stimuli.” he says. It’s almost a joke. It lands like one.
You drink. The water tastes ridiculous—perfectly filtered, exactly cool, nothing at all—and it helps anyway. He steps back to the line he marked earlier and resumes that attentive stillness as if his body knows the position by heart now.
“I intruded.” he says, after a moment. “I will file a note with Security to remove my emergency access to your quarters if you prefer.”
You shake your head. “Don’t.” you say, surprising yourself again. “I’d rather you come in than a guard.”
He accepts that with a small nod. “Then I will configure the chime to escalate in volume if you do not answer within fifteen seconds.”
You huff out a breath. “Of course you will.”
He glances at the tablet. “I’ll also set your device to require double confirmation before placing a call.”
“Thank you.” you say. You mean it. There’s a steadiness in your center you didn’t have half an hour ago. The hum inside your body has shifted to something you can live with.
His gaze drops to your bandage, then back up. “Re-dress before sleep.” he says, because he will always say that. You nod, because you will.
He lingers—just long enough to ensure you’re not drifting toward embarrassment’s cliff again—then straightens, like a program concluding. “Do you require anything else?”
You look at him. You could ask him to sit. You could ask him to stay. You could ask for every question you are suddenly not afraid to ask, like him bending you over the armrest and fucking you senseless, and then remember that you want this to be slow, careful, real.
“Not tonight.” you say.
“Tomorrow, then.” he says, the faintest curve at the corner of his mouth. “Weekends are good for... rest.”
He turns toward the door. At the threshold he pauses, then glances back over his shoulder—not coy, not dramatic, but something that makes you flush with need again.
“If your mind attempts to replay the evening in a loop.” he says. “Tell it to email me a copy in the morning.” A beat. “I will redact what is unnecessary.”
You stare at him. He waits.
“Go.” you say, laughing for real now.
He goes. The door sighs shut behind him. The apartment breathes.
You sink down into the couch as the last of the adrenaline shakes out of your hands. The blanket is warm. The water glass sweats against your palm. Your tablet screen has gone dark, the call ended, the tiny icon in the corner like a comma rather than a question mark.
For the first time all week, the hum inside you matches the room: even.
You stand long enough to wash your face, long enough to change the bandage, long enough to switch off the lamp and leave only the smallest light in the kitchen. The ocean outside is a soundless shape against the strand. The island keeps its secrets.
In bed, your body slides into rest as if the mattress were a magnet. Your last thought before sleep is embarrassingly simple: you want more.
Are You The Parent? (Kirsh x Fem!Reader) - Kirshtober 2025 2
"As satisfied as Kirsh could be, he finally raised his head and looked over, easily recognizing your profile as you leaned against the glass window and looked over the corridor. There was barely a moment between his eyes landing on you and the flood of subroutines kissing and hold close, anchored strongly on the main routine pursue you, they all feeding each other.
Unbelievable.
Fascinating."
AO3 | A Constant Test (Part I) | Look With Your Eyes (Part III) | Yesterday's Model (Part IV) | Fear is For Animals (Part V) | When Is A Machine Not a Machine (Part VI)
Song: This Endless Endeavor - Starset
Word Count: 7.287 (don't ask me)
Warnings: Uh... I think First Kiss. Kirsh being a tease.
Are You The Parent?
In the following weeks, Kirsh started his slow, subtle test of your boundaries. He also moved the higher subroutines of amazement and curiosity about you towards the main routines, so more processing power could be used to analyze the results.
A hand just shy of the small of your back while you walked by his side across the facility, usually talking about the hybrids bodies and their development or even about your pet scorpion when you wanted to get a rise out of him – still named Kirsh, much for his chagrin and entertainment of the hybrids.
Body leaning closer to your back when you were sitting and had your eyes on the microscope or some data in your handheld device, looking over your head, hand extended to point you something; just enough for the barest press his chest against your back, for arms and hands to briefly touch, the layers of fabric not enough to mask the heat of your organic body.
Almost detachedly correcting your hands and arms when you were recording one of his experiments or dissections for him, his slightly colder skin holding on to the touch a tad longer than needed, fingertips briefly touching the inside of your wrists, taking in the spike of your heartbeat.
It all felt like playing with fire, as humans would say, routines and subroutines going haywire at the proximity, at the barely there touches: new subroutines and routines appearing and disappearing in the blink of an eye or even faster, demanding he kissed you, for him to actually grasp your waist, your hand, to lean into you, sink his nose into your neck and smell the wooden fragrance of your cologne directly from your skin instead of at a distance. Never enough to lag his systems, but enough to make him need to be… More careful, more deliberate, so those wouldn’t bleed into his actual words and actions without his actual intent.
Still, it had been both enlightening and fascinating, your recorded reactions tagged as important and urgent steadily showing how comfortable with him stepping beyond your boundaries you were: body shifting closer, enough your elbow skimmed his sides; back leaning slightly against his chest with a sigh, fingers reaching out to his even if not properly touching; lips grinning and eyes twinkling alongside your sarcastic words, not betraying your heartbeat – “Sorry my arms lack the stability and flexibility of a tripod.”
And beyond your reactions, there were your new actions.
The time you grabbed his hand and pulled him into your own lab to show the new polymer for fixing synthetic bones you were working on, not letting go, your free hand excitedly gesticulating as you explained the material and the process behind it – he heard with the utmost attention, your dominium over the subject as fascinating as yourself. The contact had been so long it seemed to be imprinted on his skin for hours after you let go, skin warm and tingly, processors speeding up every time he remembered it, systems unable to compute how he could feel it hours after.
Another moment, when he was sitting down, transcribing notes of an experiment into the system, and you more or less sneaked on him – he knew of your presence, but had missed your approach in itself –, body stopping beside his and fingers playing lightly in a questioning way with the hair at the back of his head as you looked over his notes and reports and asked if you could help. While he didn’t lag, it had taken him precious seconds to gain control of his main routines, a new one called “lean into it” high on priorities and seeming to blur the other ones. His answer of “no need, I’m almost finishing” meant the end of the touch and a general sensation of regret across his systems.
The increasingly frequent kisses on his cheeks before he had a new experiment or dissection, your “For good luck” bright in the sterile corridors of Neverland. The idea of stopping it barely crossed his systems before being summarily discarded – he was supposed to be testing you, and if that was a result, well, it was still data and knowledge about you. Instead, he let out purposefully weary sighs, always telling it was a matter of scientific method and not luck. You just shrugged and grinned, not raising to the bait.
And didn’t stop.
At least, you were usually as discrete as him when doing those.
Key word, usually. In a place as Neverland, so filled with staff, it was really just a matter of time before someone saw something.
The “someone’s” ended being Smee and Slightly, turning into the otherwise empty corridor at just the right moment to see you, lips on Kirsh’s cheek, a hand leaning lightly on his forearm for stability. At first the hybrids looked as if caught doing something they shouldn’t, which was probably true and wouldn’t surprise Kirsh, before their faces shifted to clear excitement in their smiles and something akin to childish glee in their eyes.
The two managed to scamper off with giggles before he could attempt to ask what they were up to, undoubtedly to tell the other hybrids what they had seen. Undoubtedly there would be questions about things that not their actual subjects of study.
“There, now you have just turned my task of trying to teach them something and to get useful answers awfully harder.” Despite his dry words, there was no actual heat in his voice.
He was the one that hadn’t stopped you from the start, after all.
“Well, that’s humans for you, we love some gossip.” You tapped his arm, not raising to his bait of sarcasm and stepping marginally back.
Kirsh zeroed on you, raised eyebrows and hear leaning to the side minimally, hands gathered at his back.
It was the first time you so clearly put the hybrids into the category of “still humans” in his presence, and it made him consider the real possibility that it was a very specific topic of discussion you had been avoiding for some reason.
“They aren’t humans anymore. Their bodies aren’t organic.”
You grinned, eyebrows raised, arms crossed. Not… Smug, but something closer to the delight you usually expressed during sarcastic matches.
“Just because their bodies are now synthetic? Being human is more than purely organic bodies.”
“Their bodies are synthetic, true, but beyond this, their minds are about programming first and foremost. There’s no hormones, nothing. Their perceived adolescence is a simulation, done through manipulation of their synthetic systems, to help their cognition mature. But in the end, programming. Not animals, not organic.” His body minimally leaned towards you, blinking, taking in your face.
You didn’t shift away, just shrugged.
“As if organic life itself isn’t all about programming.”
Everything in his systems slowed down to an expectant crawl, a slow blink and eyebrows raising. Usually, when that matter came with either Arthur or Dame or some of the other technicians, they always argued that, since the hybrids had been human children before, then they should still be human children, denying the reality of their synthetic bodies and systems.
You, however, was offering a different type of argument, and that captured the attention of his processors and main routines with the same violent arresting ease your presence could.
As his systems caught back to speed, there was an expectancy for what he was about to record.
“Elaborate.” Kirsh conceded, chin leaning a bit down, just enough so his eyes could stare directly down into yours, artificial lamps reflected in them.
“What is DNA if not a code similar to zeros and ones about how to build something organic? Deactivate or activate genes in different times, in different conditions, and you have different outcomes. You went through starvation? These genes will be silenced and these awake, and you’ll pass them onto your descendants so they can store fat more easily. You’re amazingly sweet, but look, now you have a tumor pressing here in your brain and your behavior changed, you’re angrier, mean. Oh, you passed through this emotional turmoil growing up? It increases the risk of you developing this genetic mental disease once an adult.” Kirsh allowed a barely there smile to pull his lips as you kept talking. Your grin increased, hands freeing themselves to gesticulate as you spoke. “It’s a different code, one we’re eternally cracking both for biological and psychological processes, sure, but programming all the same. And true, the kids are now processing everything in a different code, but it doesn’t detract from the fact that their first years of life were spent as a human and that this will always tint how they process things in some way. There’s no true way of just excising the human while they have memories of who they were.”
“… Like old, core programming in the drives of a synthetic, always influencing its actions even if everything else is changed. Only a complete wipe can take it away.” He indulged in your thought process, and you jumped in place, smile big.
“Exactly! Just… Try to not always expect of them to act as if they weren’t human anymore. It’s… Their core programming.”
“And it’s our goal to see if their core programming was properly transferred. Properly… Translated into another code.” Kirsh whispered, blinking at your smile and excited nod, systems and processors going into overdrive to take everything in, record, file it all – important, urgent, core memory.
Your argument had held passion, true, but it was also logical, he admitted, albeit reluctantly. Having such close ties with biological research, Kirsh was able to easily take in the examples and make the same connection. Even with how he usually thought about you and your reactions in terms of biological programming, he hadn’t really observed the hybrids under the light of organic life as programming in itself in the same way as synthetics, as if their existence was about a translation into a different code.
He easily made sure the recorded argument wasn’t associated only with the files about you, but also with the ones about himself, reserved for the way he thought about his own existence in relation to humans most of the time.
A new avenue of thought, for considering variables. His systems and main routines of curiosity and research attempted to pull on the recording, anxious for exploring the new path immediately, and he gently cut the process. Later.
“Fascinating thought process.” And it was. Not because it was you, even if it made new subroutines about you pop the longer he allowed himself to linger on your expressed thoughts – “kissing”, “hold close”, “dissect your thoughts”.
“What, no back argument about the merit of thinking of synthetics as actually alive?” You grinned, hands touching as if you were in prayer. “Because I have more from where those came from.”
The main routines about you pulled in conjunction with his own main routines at his systems and processors, the curiosity and research and amazement so tight that there was only one suggested path available in Kirsh’s processes at that precise moment, and it was hear more about your thoughts about how synthetics and organics weren’t that different, and he wholly intended taking that path. There wasn’t even a need of subroutines and routines asking, the decision just perfectly slotting with his main routines and core programming.
A small ping in his systems, internal, a reminder of schedules, and he blinked, frozen in moment as he checked it.
Kirsh allowed himself a small sigh, body straightening.
“Another time. I have an assessment with the hybrids now.” He frowned, the fact bringing back to light how that exchange had started.
Fast, you approached and kissed his cheek again, soon away with a grin.
“Good luck.”
“With the useless questions I’m undoubtedly about to hear because of you? Unlikely to help.” Kirsh said, drily, eyebrows raised, following as you retreated with backwards steps.
“As if you don’t love when people actually ask and hear what you have to say.” Your grin increased, eyebrows waggling.
“If the questions are marginally interesting and useful.”
You laughed, his systems unsurprisingly saving and tagging it.
“See you later, Kirsh, if the big bad kids don’t kill you of boredom with uninteresting questions.” Grin still in place, you hummed low in your throat, smoothly turning to walk the right direction.
His head leaned to the side, curiously watching you step away, eyebrows slightly and slowly frowning.
Kirsh knew that your hips never swayed like that, so purposefully, and his system diligently recorded and tagged it. It immediately resulted in a new assessment filed and associated with you, a result of analysis from everything about you he recorded, and Kirsh blinked as he opened it: “Romantic and/or sexual interest 95% likely”.
Part of his systems and routines couldn’t help but be fascinated at the likely confirmation, processors speeding for long seconds, even a bit surprised: you, human, animal, interested in him beyond the professional and friendship.
And still, in the light of what you had just shared, it… Made sense. For you, interest wasn’t an impossibility, because for you organic life was also about programming as much as synthetics.
It was almost as baffling and fascinating as his own mostly unspecified interest in you; despite everything, despite even your vision, he was still a synthetic and the human words usually attributed to the actions his routines and subroutines wanted him to do didn’t seem to properly align with how he felt and experienced it all – too controlled, able to more easily chose if he would act or not, to attempt and purge it all, everything a result of something in his programming he couldn’t pinpoint.
For Kirsh, it was enough to know that he was interested in you in some way that went beyond curiosity, that it was heavily influenced by his curiosity and amazement about and at you, and that he enjoyed your presence. Anything more seemed to be an attempt to fit him and how he processed things into human labels, and even if he could concede on organic life being about programming, to the hybrids still carrying human code in how they processed things, he wasn’t human and had never been.
Code languages fundamentally different from the start, not translating adequately. Zeros and ones against DNA and RNA.
There was a light pull on the main routines of curiosity and amazement about you, interrupting his train of thought, and he followed the pull. A barely there smirk pulled Kirsh’s lips as he took notice of a new low subroutine, named by two lonely words that encompassed much, anchored on the knowledge of your highly probable interest and into his own interest.
He played a bit with the subroutine, analyzing all his data about himself and about you. As it was, it was still just a suggestion, easy to dismiss, ignore. It would probably worsen the longer it went unaddressed, but he wasn’t a slave to his main routines and subroutines, to his programing, no matter what most humans seemed to think of synthetics. He could chose to act or not, bend them if needed, but he didn’t blindly obeyed.
The same way you weren’t a slave to your own biological programming.
By the time he reached Dame’s office, briefly observing the hybrids from behind the one-way mirror, reading their humors and moods as they flited around the room and interacted, Kirsh had reached a decision. Before he moved to enter the place, he carefully raised the subroutine to the position of a high main routine.
“Pursue you”.
---------
The next day, a spaceship fell into the city of New Siam.
---------
You were there with the whole team as he returned with the hybrids and the extraterrestrial specimens. Your eyes briefly skimmed him, worried and serious, before falling on Wendy and helping the Sylvias with taking her deeper into the facility. Unlike the couple, faces showing both worry and sadness, yours fell into a cold determination, a fast venomous look towards the high perched window from which they all knew Kavalier was watching the procession.
It was a reaction he hadn’t seen before on you.
And it provoked a new, foreign feeling across his systems, one he wasn’t sure how to process or interpret at first, but it pulled tight at his own main routines and subroutines related to you, as if trying to force those to unravel so it could take their place. His systems recorded and filed the whole scene in his internal storage, and he blinked at noticing a new tag being associated, “arousing”, systems and processors faltering even if his steps remained. That was a surprise.
Kirsh allowed his eyes to follow you and your brisk steps for precious seconds, until you disappeared down another corridor with the Sylvias and Wendy, analyzing the feeling, its attempt at unraveling, and comparing with how his system had categorized it. Was that how humans felt it? An attempt at unraveling their thoughts?
Humming low in his throat, Kirsh moved all of his system, main routines and subroutines to the most urgent task of securing the specimens. His single concession: a reminder to analyze carefully that new fascinating development.
The next few hours were wholly occupied by work as he, Isaac and Curly set up the specimens into the basement lab.
And, as the hours advanced, Kirsh became aware of a small, slight unhappiness touching his system’s surface. A careful examination showed the low subroutines wandering about you and made the cause clear: in between travelling to New Siam, recovering the specimens from the wreckage, returning and setting down the specimens, it had been two days since he had spoken in any way with you.
If it had been any other human, he knew for a fact their absence wouldn’t even register in such way.
However, not only there was the interest in you, but a fast look at his memories demonstrated that such period of no-contact was an anomaly in his relationship with you: in the four years since being contracted by Prodigy, the only times you had left the island involved camp research of materials that always involved his presence. Even your mandatory thirty days a year of vacation were spent on Neverland, hiking the island in those same old brown boots of yours. Exchange of some type between him and you was a constant.
Unbelievable that you had managed to get so entrenched into his existence and systems that your extended absence was able to bother him.
By the time Kavalier put him as fully responsible for the lab and the extraterrestrial specimens, there were new subroutines appearing, insisting he took a few minutes to find you.
Insufferable.
And still despite the thought, the word didn’t really refer to you, but to how his own whole system reacted to you.
Still, Kirsh made a point of ignoring those, in favor of designing the ideal safety enclosures he wanted to set up the lab with before he started on any of the experiments and analysis he had in mind. The sooner he sent those specifications to the construction crew, the better.
It wouldn’t do for a repeat of the USCSS Maginot, even if they were inside an island.
There was a loud, rhythmic knock against the glass of the lab, but he didn’t raise his eyes from the handheld device and its blueprints. Instead, he just raised a finger to show he had heard and would be there shortly. Anyone but the hybrids would easily understand and wait.
A few more careful seconds of consideration, a blink, and he tapped the screen to send it, system marking it red for urgency. Seconds later, the project’s category changed to orange, an expected time accompanying: a little over four hours.
Not ideal, but he preferred it took longer and was well built than to cut corners and cause more trouble down the line.
As satisfied as Kirsh could be, he finally raised his head and looked over, easily recognizing your profile as you leaned against the glass window and looked over the corridor. There was barely a moment between his eyes landing on you and the flood of subroutines kissing and hold close, anchored strongly on the main routine pursue you, they all feeding each other.
Unbelievable.
Fascinating.
He met you outside, steps silent, control his own and not of his subroutines. On his terms, not of his routines and subroutines.
“I gather you finished with Wendy.” He could feel how his face twisted minutely without his order and input, betraying the worry over the hybrid and what had trespassed intertwined with his systems.
Kirsh couldn’t deny, not to himself, that he cared for the hybrids in some capacity, as much as he was able to, an entrenched sense of responsibility for making sure they understood their new reality in synthetic bodies, that they would be able to flourish in it, for lack of a better word, and not allow the limitations of their previous bodies taint their present perceptions of their capacities.
Both programming. Both not so different. Both incredibly different.
And still… Despite the worry, there was no guilt. He remained by his decision, of damage control. It had been necessary, in a city as populous as New Siam, those lives heavier than the existence of any of them at that moment.
You sighed, and he took notice of how annoyed you look.
“She had a small actual fracture in her skull and one of her arms was filled with micro fractures. All fixed now, but Arthur and Dame are still rooting around her firmware and all systems to make sure there’s no other damage.” You explained, face not softening, eyes moving to one of the cameras with that venomous look.
That time he was prepared for the sharp, tight felling attempting to unravel his routines, for the “arousing” tag associated to the memory, and he rolled his tongue alongside his teeth – why that specific look?
“Still…” he searched for a proper word that wouldn’t put you in trouble if anyone were to be watching you through the cameras or check them later. “… Bothered with Kavalier?”
You raised an eyebrow, face not shifting.
“Bothered is a too light word. He shouldn’t have sent all of you alone. A freaking deep-space research vessel, it could have gone so wrong for either you or the kids.”
“We’re more durable than humans.” A small, barely there smirk, a provocation to play into what was expected of him.
He also hadn’t been happy with Kavalier sending him with a bunch of hybrids whose minds were still maturing and lacked good risk assessment abilities into such a dangerous wreckage.
Your face surprisingly worsened, the venomous look directed at him, pointy finger almost directly in his face. It pulled harder and sharper into his systems, actually managing to unravel a few of the subroutines, and for one precious second Kirsh worried over what he would do if it was successful, unraveling, taking their place, with how his system tagged it. What he felt as he managed to bring back the necessary subroutines was close to relief.
“Still breakable, all of you, and not a single one with combat training or combat modules, as Wendy’s situation clearly shows. It doesn’t matter that we didn’t know what the ship was until you accessed its systems, it was still irresponsible. There should’ve been actual fighters with you the whole time, human or synthetics. Hell, you could’ve paid the price for this decision.” At that point your finger moved, hand wildly gesticulating.
Kirsh blinked at you, your clear worry a sharp subtle joy blanketing his systems.
Unusual.
Fascinating.
His barely there smirk melted into what he knew was as soft a smile as he was able to.
The last time someone had shown any worry about him had been Wendy, when still Marcy, but that had been easier to process, considering his role in her education before the transition. Human children had an easier time to connect and wanting to protect whoever held such roles in their lives, organic or synthetic.
Your worry, on the other hand, not only over the hybrids, but over him-
Kirsh didn’t know how to exactly deal with it, with what it made him feel. Even with your passionate argument about organic life being programming still drumming against his systems, main routines and subroutines, constantly analyzed from different angles, constantly pulling at his own knowledge-
Even with all of that, your worry still was an anomaly his systems had no answer for, no explanation, the feeling pulling on the main routines from curiosity about you to amazement at you to pursue you.
Kirsh knew that you were one of the few to so clearly state actual worry over his wellbeing directly to his face. Not over his systems, his processors or anything that made him an expensive machine in the eyes of most humans, but over him, Kirsh.
He wished he had a proper answer that acknowledged your words and allowed him to say it wouldn’t happen again, but it was outside of his control, some of his core programming regarding Prodigy and Kavalier dictating more than he liked and allowing only to bend those to a certain extent. As it was, he could think only of one answer.
“Point taken, it was dangerous. Did you come here just to complain? If that’s the case, I recommend you find one of the cleaning crew, it’s their favorite past time.”
It was your turn to blink at his dry words and clear attempt of misdirect, squinting.
“I’m serious, I don’t want to fret over any of you again or have this talk again, Kirsh.” He just blinked, knowing that you were bound to worry again and again and again while you both worked under Kavalier. “… I actually did have a reason to stop by. Kavalier wants me to make a complete assessment of the dead specimen according to my knowledge. Something about it having both an internal skeleton and an exoskeleton?”
“Exactly. It’s over there.” Kirsh acknowledged the relief over you dropping the subject instead of pressing on, pointing carefully to the black body and its cut head inside the lab, eyes not leaving your face.
“Look at its size.” The worry, the annoyance, everything, slowly melted away, curiosity and amazement blooming in your eyes – “important”, “urgent”, “beautiful”-a new tag already. “The origin place must have massive oxygen levels-Wait, is the platform under it corroded?”
“Acidic blood. It has lost strength since dying, but still going.”
“Glass blades, without a doubt, maybe diamond ones. A glass table too, maybe marble? Will need a complete reactivity test.” You tapped your lips with a fingertip, the subroutine of kissing appearing so suddenly and so high on the priorities his systems had to scramble to keep if from jumping into the main routines through the pursue you main routine. “I received the memo that this lab is off limits to humans while it holds the specimens. Can the body be transferred to mine?”
“I’ll arrange it once the other specimens are properly locked down, but I can transfer the data downloaded from the ship to your computer until them.”
“Please. Let’s go.”
Kirsh walked beside you easily, taking notice of how tense your shoulders looked. The specimen clearly was just marginally successful in distracting you from the worry over him and the hybrids.
A sweep of the corridor with his eyes, and at assuring you two were at least physically alone, Kirsh let his hand find the small of your back, a bit more of pressure than he had ever used before. You pressed back, insistently, fingers moving phantom like against the side of his body for a brief moment, your shoulders finally relaxing.
And he just barely noticed it, subroutines flooded with kissing and hug waist and a single intertwine hands that seemed to scream amidst all the others, all connected to the pursue you main routine, feeding each other.
By the time you stepped away to type in the code to your lab, Kirsh knew that allowing the pursue you to be amidst his main routines had been… Not a mistake, not a bad idea, but something he had failed to properly predict the effects. He had managed to retain some semblance of control over everything else, but a few kissing subroutines were still there, stubbornly connected to the pursue you, using it to slowly climb across the priorities despite his attempts of keeping them low.
His fingertips softly rubbed down each other, tingling, trying to find again the warmth of your body, blinking at how you stepped aside to allow him entrance into the lab, faint tired smile in your lips.
Blinking again as he deliberately stepped inside and took in the fact that your lab had no glass windows into the corridor, no overhead observation rooms. A small hidden lab, where the unglamorous research about synthetic and organic bones happened. There were still cameras, there were always cameras, but the chances of someone checking on those were low.
Kirsh took the space in as he had so many times before. The open metal shelves filled with components, materials and tools, a glass cabinet with organic skeletons and exoskeletons, a metal desk holding your computer, the long metal table with an in-progress synthetic skeleton in the middle… You liked to mold them by hand, he remembered, had seen you doing it before. Not the final components, but as the mold that would be scanned and 3D printed, eternalizing your fingerprints in the surface until the next overhaul needed. “So there’s proof someone actually cared for them in some way, even if they never know”, you had explained with a smile when he asked.
At that time, he thought your justification flimsy, attributing the habit to scientist eccentricity, a harmless one, but still eccentricity, and never bothered to speak on it again, as long as your work was still competent.
In the light of the new main routine and all subroutines about you, of your talk before the ship and the most recent one, his systems could see the… Poetry of your thought process. Could more carefully reflect and linger on the knowledge, the fact, that his own present bones had followed the same process and now had the marks of your fingerprints covering his insides.
You thought of synthetics as not that different from organic life.
And you cared.
Had cared from the start, and had made sure he carried proof of it, even if he hadn’t really thought so.
The spark of a new feeling, one that also pulled against his systems, not like your venomous look, but more subtle and soft, trying to coax his main routines and subroutines into unraveling, instead of forcing, the old memory of your voice explaining your reasons gaining new tags – “important”, “urgent”, “amazement’…
There was the soft sound of the door closing and locking, your steps firm and stable as you circled his body and logged in into your computer.
“I think it would be faster if you upload it directly. I have a cable you can use to interface with it.”
Kirsh watched you, body bowed, eyes shining in the screen light.
There was still the pull of the knowledge, kissing subroutines slowly multiplying under it, and he allowed himself to inspire the air around – synthetic components, metal, your wooden cologne…
He could’ve easily taken back the control, could have just made his systems focus instead on the task he had come for, but the circumstances and his knowledge and memories were compounding one over the other and he, Kirsh, not his routines and subroutines, felt reluctant to just dismiss it all.
He had decided to pursue you, after all, had allowed that to become one of his main routines.
Steps deliberate, Kirsh approached you and stopped, fingers reaching for you chin, and he wondered how he had been able to keep himself from wondering simulated scenarios of how kissing you would feel.
Then his fingertips touched your warm skin, lightly, your face turning to look at him, eyebrows frowned, mouth opening to speak-
Kirsh’s lips touched yours, firm, closed. A last test of boundaries, giving you space to either confirm or deny his conclusions.
His systems went haywire, no other word to describe the flood of main routines asking for more, the speeding of his processors, how his systems fought to properly process all the new sensory input – the warmth, the plumpness, the faint heartbeat, the pressure… He had read about it – oh he had read –, but he had been wholly unprepared for how it seemed to send a burst of electricity across his circulatory system and for the inability of his systems to properly take it in.
Then your hands were sliding up his chest, purposeful, warmth in their path. They meet at the back of his head, pulling him firmly against you even as your fingers twisted and pulled lightly on his hair. A sharp electric burst down his circulatory system, pushing against his systems, attempting and failing to create new subroutines. Through the layers of fabric he felt the imprint and heat of your body, and the new sensory input was almost unreal, sharply pulling at his systems and trying to unravel main routines and subroutines, his hands on your waist a frail attempt at grounding his systems.
Before Kirsh could try to regain a modicum of control over it all, your mouth opened under his, tongue slowly licking along his lower lip, the feeling cause by the sensory input – wet, soft, erotic – pulling so sharply that multiple main routines disappeared before he could fight it.
The sudden loss was almost as impacting as the kiss and contact, and his body practically crashed into yours as he scrambled to recover from it. His hand was barely fast enough to find support against the metal desk, keeping both you and him upright, lips separating even as his hand still on your waist tightened without an order.
You giggled practically against his lips, short puffs of air hitting his lips and making his systems hyper-aware of the tingling, the warmth, the wetness clinging to them. Despite the foreign sensory input, the separation was enough that his systems could catch up, main routines returning to their proper places, even if the foreign feeling still attempted to pull at them.
“I didn’t imagine you were falling so hard for me.”
The scoff escaped before he could stop it, eyes rolling as he opened them – when had they closed? – and took you in: smiling, staring at him, overhead lights reflected in your eyes and making them shine – “important”, “urgent”, “arousing”.
“Keep being like that and I’ll leave.” Kirsh threatened, voice like static, dry words with no heat, not making any move to do as said.
“Nooo, I still need your data.” Your smile turned into a grin.
The part of him and of his systems still catching up to the unexpected effects felt thankful that you so easily rose to the bait of his sarcasm.
“So your only interest is in the data I can offer.” A barely there smirk pulling his lips, eyes moving all around your face.
Your grin increased, eyes half lidded, eyebrows raising.
“Well, not only… I could do with a few more kisses from you, you know?”
Your voice, asking for more kisses, even if in that cheeky sarcastic way, was enough for the subroutines demanding he did it to multiply.
And Kirsh wanted to comply, oh, he wanted to.
But that brief first one had showed him he had been wholly unprepared for all the sensory inputs it could cause and for how those caused and amplified that foreign feeling, and he wanted to actually explore and feed his curiosity, instead of being taken aback by the sudden absence of multiple main routines and subroutines.
Just a few more minutes as he figured it out.
And nothing was keeping him from testing more your reactions.
“Oh, you could, hm?” Kirsh hummed low in his throat, leaning slowly and inexorably against you, body pressing yours tighter against the desk, eyes always on your face, drinking you in. The sensory input of your body against his something akin to a sweet torture, giving something to the subroutines and routines, suspending their climbing priorities, but not enough to fulfill their purposes.
“Absolutely.” You whispered, pupils enlarging, mouth slightly open as if already prepared for a kiss, not fighting him.
Eyes not leaving your face, eyebrow up, Kirsh’s hands let go of your waist to instead reach behind you, a hug-not-hugging. Deliberate, arms pressing against your sides, he folded the sleeve of one arm, found the cable compatible with the port in his arm, and connected it, his systems easily taking control of your computer and starting to copy the Maginot’s data in his storage into it.
You could have crossed the short remaining distance at any moment, but you didn’t, and there was only one word Kirsh could think to describe the way you watched him: fascinated, like a scientist watching a new specimen.
The hand not connected returned to your waist, squeezing. You breathed in sharply, throat moving – “important”, “urgent”, “arousing”. Fascinating.
“… Did you just connected yourself to my computer without looking and while hugging me?”
“You did point out you also needed the data.” A barely there smirk, and you shook your head with a chuckle.
“Tease-”
“Efficient.”
“-And since you’re taking your sweet time into kissing me again, maybe I should… Uh… Use the time to warn you. Before I forget. Again.”
Kirsh blinked, taking in the fact that, while you weren’t avoiding his eyes, you did look… Embarrassed, hands leaving his hair to instead fidget with the collar of his uniform – that was a specific behavior he couldn’t remember seeing on you before.
“About?”
“I may or may not have said something a tiny itty bitty stupid when being sarcastic and it will most likely have consequences for you.”
He blinked again, a slight delay in the copying of the files as his systems focused almost solely on you and on your embarrassment.
Consequences for him?
“Elaborate.”
“Sooo… I checked in with the rest of the kids before coming down. Just wanted to run my own verifications on the data of their bones and try to cool off and reassure myself, you know? Didn’t work too much, as you saw I’m still pissed-But anyway I got held up with Smee and Slightly, you know how they are, and… Well… They told me about how this Morrow guy-”
“The Security Officer of the Maginot.” He complemented easily, eyes on your face, and you nodded.
“Thanks-how this Morrow had a knife to Slightly’s throat, and you arrived and saved the day. And… Uh… How they hid behind you and Morrow asked if you were their parent.”
You watched him, and Kirsh could feel all over again the exasperation he had felt – at the absurd question, at the hybrids hiding behind him, at his lack of proper reaction, at the fact that he couldn’t really wholly deny it – and just barely kept himself from rolling his eyes.
“This is still what they told you.”
“So… Smee and Slightly started wondering, since there’s usually two parents, and if you, Kirsh, is one, then… Who would be other one.”
Kirsh blinked, processors speeding, systems trying to predict the rest before you could say and failing; you had a few surefire behaviors he was usually able to predict, but had just enough general chaos in your mind that words he usually failed to.
“What did you say?”
You winced, heavily, eyes on his chest and not on his face – a deep aversion spread through his systems, a new subroutine called “raise chin” appearing.
“Uh… Something along the lines of ‘of course it’s me, haven’t you boys seen how much I annoy him around and how I’m the only one that don’t run from his moods?’” He closed his eyes, taking in an unnecessary long breath – wooden fragrance, subroutine asking for him to press against your neck. Of course you had. Of course. “It was a joke, Dame knew and laughed, she always does, but the boys just looked as if it was their Christmas gift, and only on the lift I remembered what they saw, and now you just kissed me-”
The rest of your ramble was lost as Kirsh leaned in the rest of the way, lips pressing against yours. Despite how he interrupted you, you recovered fast, hands again on his hair, pulling him tighter into you, so close there was no space between him and you but the one of your clothes, your warmth slowly sinking into him. Your hands angled his head better, fingers tighter on his hair, the burst of electricity down his circulatory system expected, wished for.
That time, Kirsh was somewhat expecting the onslaught of sensory input, the way they pulled on his main routines and slowly unraveled them – one routine, two, three, slowly disappearing. It was still disorienting, but knowing it would happen made it easier to deal with, to not allow his body to simply bow down as if its strings had been cut.
Kirsh embraced you fully with the hand not occupied with copying the data, pressing into the small of your back, anchoring you to him more firmly. Deliberate, purposefully, he did as you had, slowly licking your lower lip, faintly recognizing the taste of something sweet he didn’t recognize.
You moaned into the kiss.
High-pitched, loud, brief, dozens of routines and subroutines unraveling at once, his systems scrambling to be able to deal with everything: keep the Maginot’s data from corrupting while still being copied, recording and filing the sound alongside the action – “important”, “urgent”, “core memory”, “arousing” –, try to recover the routines, keep kissing you.
You pulled away, panting against his lips, and he allowed it, marginally, fingers pressing harder into the small of your back.
“Got it. If I start rambling you’ll kiss me to shut me up.”
“If it’s useless rambling.” A short, dry admission, and it caused a breathless chuckle from you.
Eyes still closed, Kirsh decided to follow a specific line of multiplying subroutines. Head bowing and leaning in, his nose slid down you jaw, skimming your warm skin, purposeful slow breaths taking in the wooden fragrance.
“So-” you started, voice cut by a hitched breath as he kept going, not bothering to raise his head to watch you.
Your arms clung tighter to him as Kirsh reached your neck and you inhaled sharply. His nose displaced the collar of your lab coat and inhaled deeply. Not only the expected wooden cologne, but more under it, soft notes of a spicy soap, and the clean salty tang of sweat, utterly human. There was a subtle scratching pleasant feeling against his systems, and he decided that he enjoyed that smell more than your cologne.
“-You’re not… Worried about what I said?” Your voice rasped, and he hummed, not retreating.
“They have been bothering me with questions since they saw you kissing my cheek, it won’t change much.” He took a last deep inhale of your smell and straightened, blinking at you with raised eyebrows and a barely there smirk. “Besides, there’s a high chance I would’ve said that we need better task division, since it’s unfair I’m the only one taking them on excursions.”
It was your turn to blink, once, twice, grin slowly appearing.
Being Weyland Yutani’s youngest representative within the company certainly had its benefits, but at what cost? You were their prodigy child they nurtured and kept a close eye on for many years until everything fell apart. They molded you into something you never truly consented to, attempting to pick away at anything broken or volatile, but at the end of the day, no one alive could truly engineer or fix you like you. That curse had its drawback, as nothing set your heart aflame after your loss. Not your work. Not the money. Not your status. Not until you met a certain synthetic and his lost boys that turned your whole world upside down.
18+ themes. The story does contain canon violence, sexual themes, pregnancy, eventual smut and brief mentions of SA. Please read at your own discretion. First time posting a fanfic here. Editing is so weird, so please bear with me lolol! Sorry, it's super long. I wanted to give the reader some depth and background. Enjoy!
How could someone as brilliant as you be staring down at the destruction before you with little reverence for the people scrambling for their lives?
Memories of fire and smoke flooded your memories.
The pain.
The screams.
The thought of losing everything you once held dear tugged at your heart-hurt even. You weren’t as cruel as your superiors. You weren’t heartless. But you needed to be. That was your job. You couldn’t step out of character for that would distract you from your mission.
Find Morrow and secure the specimens.
The Maginot had been on this expedition to other worlds long before you were born. Some of those people you had the pleasure of communicating with over time. Now they were all dead. All that work and they couldn’t reap the benefits of it. What a time to be alive.
You stood out like a sore thumb amongst everyone. You were too clean. Too untouched. Draped in a long trench coat and sunglasses, you seemed like an ordinary person. Perhaps that would’ve been the case if you weren’t analyzing every possible route inside the crash site and already sneaking your way inside. Your Weyland Yutani high clearance badge hung just outside your coat pocket within arm’s reach. Not that a single soul saw you, the idea of showing it off in ‘enemy’ territory sort of amused you.
Every day, you questioned what brought you here. However, when the smoke reached your artificial lungs, more memories of the past kept flooding back. And when you saw survivors, you had to force yourself from stopping at each person and checking for a pulse. That wasn’t your job. What was the point of dedicating most of your life to improving lives if you were just walking over their bodies now?
Too many days you sat by yourself to reflect on where you were in life. You knew the how, and over the years, you’ve tried to justify the why.
Being Yutani’s youngest and most trusted representative and right-hand had its benefits, but it never truly made you happy. Nothing ever did. But it allowed you to do intensive research and access to the most advanced technology in the medical and cybernetic fields that the corporation could offer. Since you were the best decision, they invested in anything you desired was yours. When you weren’t in your lab developing new prototypes, you were advising and consulting Yutani on important decisions for other future investments, conducting research as a field agent, putting your inspector skills to good use, and spying on competitors-kind of. And no one could forget that silver tongue of yours that had field experts, rich elites, and other companies under your thumb.
For the sake of the company, of course.
Now opportunities to this extent never came naturally to just anyone. You were a child to some. Juvenile to those twice your age. So why would someone look at you for guidance?
The answer was simple.
Everything came too easy to you.
Always has been.
Maybe you were born this way. You were brought up in an orphanage, kept to yourself the majority of your life, and ignored the rest of the world. You created your first A.I., Jerry, when you were just a child, after tinkering with a program you thought was terrible, as it repeatedly sang the alphabet nonstop for hours on end. You thought, this is stupid, I could make it better and so you did. The coding and encryptions back then made little to no sense, but you formulated it in a way that it did and put the pieces together as if it was nothing.
Others made fun of you for this as the Weyland-Yutani’s synths encouraged you. And as the years went by, you weren’t sure if this was the true reason you lacked some of the necessary social skills in your youth. Jerry was your first friend who opened your mind to the world around you. He not only created educational lesson plans but also showed you ways to engage with your peers, even if you secretly despised it.
Maybe that’s where your inspiration for improving the behaviors of artificial intelligence came in as a side hobby. Jerry always empathized with you more than anyone, so it made you ponder the possibilities if A.I.s can feel something within their programming beyond code. Could they deviate from their programming without being directed to do so on their own? And if certain synths can, what prompted them to do so? It also brought you to think about whether they could see through a mortal lens and comprehend their superiority amongst humans, would they still want to aid in humanity’s survival, or impose their power over it? You remember hearing about an older David-8 model and wished you had the chance to meet him. He was deemed defective and off-putting to many, but if you had the chance to talk to him, would you understand him? Could you?
So many things clouded your mind at a young age but your impeccable talent to craft things also sparked something deeper within you. Whatever your heart desired you made sure to build it up the best you could. If a thought came up you made a schematic for it. If someone needed something you did it. You used anything from scraps to junk to things you believed the orphanage didn’t need, took it apart and recreated something new. When there was an issue that couldn’t be solved- and there was many-you found the solution. There was always an angle that no one considered and no angle was safe around you.
Although you often got in trouble, it drew the attention of the Weyland-Yutani’s higher-ups. They had replaced your caregivers with synthetics and closely monitored you over the years. Then, when your teenage years rolled in and you were excelling in every class, they immediately offered you a full-time scholarship to their university. Your grades were impressive, but you didn’t care about school.
It was too easy for you.
Nothing was ever challenging, yet everything was always dreadful. The lack of color made life difficult to want to live on. From your childhood to rebellious teens up into your adult years, everything was mostly the same. Your achievements didn't make you happy. Your awe for discovery and change didn’t make your heart swell with joy. It was as if you were dragging along an empty shell of yourself that never had taken a breath of fresh air before. Suffocating was the best way to describe it.
It was almost a cruel joke.
However, your intelligent was something many envied and praised. That had to count for something right?
At 16, you were enrolled in their biomedical engineering program and brought on to their advanced cybernetic security task force. You were surrounded by gifted students, and no matter how rigorous the coursework, labs, exams, and projects became, you were at the top of the class. There were times you were lonely, but the desire for social interaction still never came. You had Jerry after all and your side research almost made you believe he was nearly human with the way he interacted with you and the world around you.
Nonetheless, you never bothered to make friends with anyone or reach out, but always offered your kindness and support for struggling students if need be. It was the closest thing that reminded you were alive to see their faces light up when they finally understood the material.
As classes progressed, you didn’t realize the extent of how cutthroat the programs at the university were until you realized some wealthy students bullying other gifted students because of their status and work. And you weren’t an exception. Some tried their hardest to scare you out of the programs or make fun of you, but your lack of acknowledgment thwarted their efforts. Every attempt to corner you failed. What the hell was wrong with you?
You remember one of the days quite perfectly.
It was a gloomy day out, and you were relieved you had finished studying so you could focus on more important things. You and Jerry were listening to old age of music and wanted to see the effects of different genres of music on him. You had created multiple devices he could be digitally transferred over to, and this time, you had transferred him into a small circular drone. You wanted him to experience the world outside your apartment with you. It was quite adorable as he levitated beside you and excitedly analyzed everything out loud and taking note of things to ask you about later. Both of you were on a quieter side of campus by the waterfront, away from others. You relentlessly questioned Jerry about what the music made him feel, and when he started giving you generic answers, you rephrased your question and redirected him to choose something that would make him content. It was a delightful moment between you two. Maybe your research could move on to more synthetics if given the chance, but most were generic as they came.
Scribbling away on your tablet, a small group was approaching not too far from you. You recognized some of the students and proceeded to ignore them until one of them poured water over your bag. Thankfully, there was nothing of importance in there. The inaudible sigh that left your lips was unmatched as you faced the group. They berated you for your childish behavior and your ‘emotional support’ bot. They were older than you by a couple of years, and as you listened to their mindless chatter of pressuring you to drop out, you realized the jealousy behind their words.
“It’s too easy to quit now.” Turning your attention back to your tablet, you decided there was no need to waste any more time on them. “Maybe the effort you put into threatening others could be put into your education, so your parents' money wouldn’t be the only reason you’re still here.” You knew many of the students had no real talent, purpose, or passion, but money talked and got a lot of them here.
Your comment back then still made you smirk. Some tried sabotaging you from small projects to huge exams, but Jerry, as small as he was at the time, had a pretty neat security defense system. So when they tried to retaliate as friendly and outgoing as Jerry was, he was ready to defend you.
And no one bothered you again.
Not until your 17th birthday. Over the year, you thought you made some friends. Finally, after so many years, you felt you could trust and tolerate other humans who didn’t envy you. Jealousy was a disease you never took part in. It never made sense to you in the slightest. And besides, if people knew the emptiness that rattled and clawed the inside of your mind, they’d think twice of wanting to be like you. Yet, you pushed forward. The desire to belong never quite reached you, but interacting with different minds unlike yourself was strangely comforting.
It’s too easy. You reminded yourself. But you had forgotten how vile humans can be. You never thought one party would hurt you. You never drank and never planned to since you despised the idea of not being in control of your own decisions. However, the loud, dizzying music and strange looks tossed your way made you a target. After putting Jerry to rest for the night, you faked a smile, stayed cautious, and tried to enjoy yourself.
Tried.
It was when a friend handed you a drink, just to enjoy yourself, you never knew one sip would ruin everything.
The sun poured down your face, and a rancid smell pervaded the air. You woke up the next day in an alleyway. Your clothes were ripped, one of your shoes was missing, and a headache you would never forget pounded against your skull. Nausea set in, and the numbing sensation overtook your senses. You weren’t stupid. You knew what had happened to you, so when you dragged yourself to the hospital, it only confirmed the assault. Jerry even made his way out of the apartment and searched for you high and low and offered his deepest sympathies in the emergency room.
It’s too easy. You laughed at yourself. It’s too easy to be stupid. You would never trust anyone ever again. But life had its way of screwing you over. When you found out you were pregnant, you nearly ended your life. You were inconsolable. Barely left your bed, and Jerry, in his computerized form at home, tried his best.
You wanted it gone. You were sure you knew the perpetrator. After a couple of weeks of rotting away, you filed a report through the university despite the utter shame coursing through you. The investigation never made you feel better. A sickness latched onto you, and an animosity for humanity took hold. It was as if you were constantly on the verge of losing your mind. For days, you wanted the thing growing inside of you gone. You were given resources, but something inside of you made you want to go back to school. You needed the distraction. Anything. And in between classes, you found yourself standing outside the same clinic, and many times you found yourself walking away.
It was the first time emotions you never truly experienced came to the surface. Frustration, anger, and sadness. The world was constantly spinning, and your lack of engagement with therapy raised a red flag with the University’s department. You knew the university didn’t want such a horrific scandal getting out into the media. Neither did you, yet you didn’t care about any of it.
So when days turned to weeks and weeks to months, you found yourself continuing the same pattern of standing outside the clinic.
“I know you’re going through a lot, but you’re smart, you’ll make the right decision for yourself.” An advisor told you, but you ignored them as well. What was the right decision? “We’ve also seen that you haven’t been going to any clinical appointments or therapy. It would be great not only for you but the baby. It seems like you’re planning on keeping it, correct?”
You just wanted it all to stop, so you went to Jerry. He patiently laid out some options for you and started finalizing plans with the clinic. Jerry was more empathetic to your situation than all the fake people keeping an eye on you. They didn’t want to lose someone so valuable to their programs. Someone with so much promise.
“Miss. I have known you for nearly a decade. I will stand by your decision. It hasn’t been easy, but I agree with your advisor to some extent. You will make the right decision because you know what’s best for not only yourself but for the life growing inside of you. It’s painful-I know, but all we can do is take one day at a time. The world may feel like it’s ending, but you are still alive and well. You can take back control.”
”Oh!”
And just like that, you felt a prominent kick-or a flutter of some kind inside of you. It didn’t hurt, but you were so startled you had to make sure the baby didn’t tear you open.
You sighed, slipping inside the crashed ship. The groaning of metal and burning fuel burned your nostrils just a little.
“Anything to report?” You heard Yutani over your comms.
”Not as yet, Ms. Yutani. I’m inside the ship. It can be salvaged, but-“ Your head tilted to the side when you heard voices. Stealthily, you hid away, using your cybernetic visual enhancements to map out the floor and locate the individuals. “Something came up. Just a moment, ma’am.”
You turned your comms off and patiently waited to see a group of individuals going down the hall. Leading the group was an older gentleman with white hair. He was easy on the eyes, and if you didn’t have your enhancements, you would've been fooled. He was a synth. His posture was too straight, but the synthetics following behind him intrigued you even more. You can tell they were newer models, but why were they acting so childlike?
“Fear is for animals. And you are not animals. Now move.”
Oh?
His voice sent a tingling sensation down your back. Such an interesting thing to say. Silently, you recorded their behavior as they walked down the hallway like little ducklings following their mother. Some of them dragged their feet so carelessly, as the others dragged their hands along the walls as if trying to calm their nerves. Synthetics exhibiting childlike behavior was certainly questionable.
It brought back memories of your own naivety during your pregnancy.
After you decided to keep the baby and found out you were having a son, a sense of color entered your life. That veil of dread was suddenly lifted. Your professors and advisor understood your situation, but some were worried about what it meant for your future. Were you going to leave behind everything you worked so hard for? Would everything they started to invest in you be a poor decision on their part?
Shaking your head, you were unsure why your mind was clouded with the past-never mind that. You knew why. You recognized the signs of PTSD, and the irritating nausea sneaking its way into the pit of your stomach was distracting. With a quick activation of a suppressant chemical you had installed into yourself, the nausea slowly faded, and the memories were quiet just for a moment...
After recording, the synthetics you slowly followed through an open vent system above-well squeezed through as best you could. The ship had taken a lot of damage, and you needed to get to the bottom of why the Maginot crashed in New Siam. Of all places, it landed in Boy Kavalier’s territory. The thought alone was enough to make you roll your eyes. It was obvious he was going to send in a cleanup crew and other forces to check out the crash site. You just needed to stay vigilant.
As you continued following the synths, you couldn’t help but take notes of their behavior and mannerisms. It was intriguing. But you drew your attention to the older model. What was he up to? He entered what looked like a lab with such grace and elegance as if he had done this a million times over.
“Follow me.” He calmly spoke to them. “Look. Don’t touch.”
The other synths immediately jumped from his words, throwing their hands to their side, promising they wouldn’t interfere with anything. So strange. And that’s when you realized. Pulling away from the synths, you took yourself away from the area in case they heard you.
”Ms. Yutani. I’ve secured some of the specimen locations in a lab.” You had no idea what the hell kind of creatures the crew of the Maginot dug up. “The others must be located on a lower part of the ship. However, there are Prodigy synthetics present. With your permission, I’d like to engage and secure the specimens.”
The faint sound of laughter echoed down the ship’s halls as you waited for a response.
”No sign of Morrow?”
”Not as yet ma’am.”
A beat.
”Do not engage.”
You blinked not once but twice in silent disbelief. You had them right there. Your neurons were on fire trying to comprehend why she was telling you not to go forward.
"Are you sure, ma’am? I can secure them if you believe that’s an issue. Most of these synths seem juvenile in nature. I don’t want to give them a chance to take them before we do.”
Another beat.
“Do not engage. I have no plans on losing you. Find Morrow and return.”
“Of course.”
You turned off your comms and sighed. Lose you? She knows you’ve been in worse circumstances. Sometimes, you felt your higher-ups enjoyed wasting your time just to give you something to get you out of your lab. At least your amazing sense of humor helped you see the positive side of things. You could rest your weary head and not need to worry about potentially disease-ridden specimens.
With a hum, you continued through the ship. Sparking electrical wiring and falling debris weren’t exactly in the job description, but it certainly wasn’t your first rodeo. However, a loud hissing in the far distance made you halt in your tracks. Your body’s defense system declared this as dangerous before you even had the chance to see whatever it was. It was far from you now-maybe it wasn’t interested in you, but if that was a specimen, you already theorized all the ways it can end badly for Weyland-Yutani and Prodigy. You shrugged, apparently, that wasn't your concern right now.
Continuing down the countless hallways, you calmly searched for Morrow. The thoughts of the synths slowly started making their way back into your mind. Before you could even start reflecting on your observations, you saw someone at the end of the hall. Finally. You quickly identified him by his left arm enhancement. That’s kind of cruel, you thought. Why would they have his enhancement visible for the world to see? You then took a moment to pause. You knew why. And the idea disgusted you.
You cleared your throat, “Morrow, I presume-“
Bullets were fired in your direction, and you immediately ducked into a corner for cover until it stopped. What the hell?
“Are you done now?” You called out.
”Depends. Who are you?” His tone dripped with pure malice and exhaustion.
”Can we talk like adults? Or are you going to try to shoot me again?” You slowly came out from hiding to see his worn-out appearance. “I’m sure you’ve seen better days.”
“Who are you?”
You flashed your Weyland-Yutani badge. “We’ve spoken many times before.”
”Hm.” Lowering his gun, he looked over you. “Why are you here?”
"Initially, to find you and secure the specimens.”
”I don’t need help-“
”Everyone needs it at some point. Plus…plans changed. I scanned the area. Prodigy men and synthetics have us surrounded.” You looked over at the blood trailing down his shirt. “I’m sure you’re aware of that. Ms. Yutani wants us to return.”
“Return?”
“Yes, return. I’m here to ensure you do.” You gestured with your head in the opposite direction, but he refused to follow.
”Are you a synth?”
”Would it make you feel more comfortable if I weren’t Morrow?”
“Answer me.”
You smiled, “And if I rather leave you in suspense?”
You sensed his heart racing under his facade. The sweat dripping in his eyes and his muscle tensed rather uncomfortably.
”Did you lose your sense of humor when you started crashing into the atmosphere? I’m not here to harm you. I’m just like you, Morrow.”
”Doesn’t seem like it.”
”It never does at first.” A blade seeped through the spaces of your fingers. “Then again, you’ve been gone for 60 years. The world has drastically changed since then.”
Morrow seemed hesitant to trust you. You came up with the conclusion that perhaps he was still reeling from the crash, dealing with the death of his crew members and his contact with Prodigy’s soldiers.
“Us cyborgs need to stick together don’t you think? I could even fix your arm. We’re already tethered to the company so why have it on display for the whole world to scrutinize you?”
He didn’t answer you at first, and you allowed him to collect himself. “I don’t need a babysitter to assess whether or not I have the skills to secure the specimens myself.”
”Think of it as a partnership. You seem like you have no intention of coming with me at the moment, so I’ll humor you for a while as long as you cooperate and tell me everything I need to know. And I won’t tell her about your insubordination.”
A heavy sigh left his lips. “Don’t slow me down.”
You chuckled, ”I think you should worry about yourself.”
After a quick briefing, you listened to everything he told you. He told you about the orchestrated plan of Kavalier and a now-dead Chief Engineer named Petrovich that sabotaged the Maginot which led to its demise. Humans never ceased to disgust you. All those innocent lives lost for what?
Leaning against the wall, you knew how one disgruntled individual could cost the lives of thousands or even millions. Now Morrow’s resolve never faltered about securing the specimens, so you allowed him to find the remaining.
“Are you not coming?”
You shook your head, looking around the ship. Something felt off. “I’ll find you.” With that, you were off to collect any and all data you could secure. If not the specimens there were still valuable information that could be of use. You logged into the computer and were syncing the data into your own personal drive. It never got easier with your mind fighting with the internal drive and enhancements wired in your brain. You already dissected yourself so many times to undo the work Weyland-Yutani’s top men provided for you, but it was never enough. You knew you could do better, but you wouldn’t let anyone ever touch you or dissect you ever again. And you wish you had found a way to-
“Someone’s online?” You quickly tracked the location and saw someone had joined the network from the lab. “Ah.” You nearly forgot about the synthetics, humans, and specimens all around you. With a hum, you joined the interface of the Synth. There was no doubt in your mind that-you looked over the data pouring in from your side-Kirsh, the Chief Scientist of Prodigy, would know you were snooping around. You were anticipating the moment he would disconnect himself from the Maginot network and leave you in the dark…but he didn’t.
You could hear the noise from the newer synthetics talking around him. His curiosity about your intrusion was not by any means pleasant, but not entirely unwelcoming.
What was he up to?
Why was he allowing you to do this to him? Did he not understand the security risks? The good thing about joining the interface as a cyborg is that Kirsh couldn’t get any data on you. It was a one-way link you wanted to test out, and it worked wonders, but if he truly wanted to, he could easily locate you on the ship but something told you he had no plans to do so.
Maybe he wasn’t interested in engaging with you. Apparently, nothing on the ship was too keen of you…Did that ever stop you? You weren’t a threat, well, as of now at least. “You’re surely an interesting synth, Kirsh.” You whispered to yourself. You took notes of this virtual interaction and disconnected from the network. Then another ping went off, and you saw Morrow transferring data on his end in some sort of containment bay.
Fixing your clothes, you made your way there. It wasn’t hard to find him, but when you heard his voice carrying on and him threatening two synths you saw earlier on, you calmly intervened.
“Leave them, Morrow, you’re scaring them.”
The two synths stood next to one another rigid with fear. Something to note for later.
”Machines don’t get scared.”
You stood in the middle of them all, tossing a gentle smile to the newer synths. “I’m sorry about him. I can only imagine how you must feel right now. You’ve never been in a ship like this before, have you?”
”N-no!”
”No.”
”It’s okay, I can tell. I don’t think anyone should be on a destroyed ship about to collapse at any moment. You’re brave, you trekked all the way here to secure, I presume-“ You quickly scanned the room to see leathery eggs lined in rows right next to each other.
The urge to roll your eyes at the lack of security of these dangerous specimens was highly irritating. Seeing them in person was bizarre. Your curiosity wanted to further explore, but you kept your distance.
“Stop talking to them like they’re human- like they’re children.”
”These specimens here, right, are what you came for?” You ignored Morrow. They nodded their heads. “What's your name?”
”Slightly.”
"Smee.”
"Slightly. Smee. It’s wonderful to meet you. It’s okay to be scared you know?”
”These synths think they have parents.”
Parents?
“Is that right?” You looked at Morrow for a moment before diverting your attention back to the synthetics. Morrow was by a computing station most likely still getting the rest of data you didn’t need to further extract. “Do you guys have parents taking care of you?”
“Uh we-“
”We can’t let them know.” Slightly quickly stopped Smee from speaking.
“Let us know what?” You heard Morrow behind you. The sound of his blade behind you made you sigh. You wanted to handle this calmly without any incident. Was it so hard to just behave just a moment?
Smee and Slightly didn’t say a word, and before Morrow could take another step towards them, you stopped him. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”
”I do. They’re hiding something.”
“Do you think threatening them is going to make them talk?”
He pushed past you. You really didn’t want to put him down. The unnecessary extra work was tiresome.
“Morrow.” You warned as he grabbed Slightly by his throat and brought the blade to his face.
“When is a machine not a machine?”
Even though his words stunned you for a moment, you sprang into action, grabbing Morrow’s wrist, attempting to pull him back. He may have been bigger and more equipped for a one-on-one fight, but you were stronger, faster, and more level-headed.
“Enough.“
”When is a machine not a machine?” He pressed.
“I’m giving you a direct order-“
“Let him go.”
The new voice drew your attention to the older model, Kirsh. He was so quiet, and you were so distracted by Morrow's antics, you didn’t hear him. Damn his stubbornness. Morrow pulled away, but you noticed he put some sort of dissolvable patch into Slightly’s skin before pulling out a gun.
“He has a gun!” Smee spouted out.
“I can see that.”
“Morrow, stand down.” You ordered him, and he did so without complaint. Maybe he could listen to orders-good for him. “You okay, Slightly?” You asked him as he shakily nodded at you.
“You’re on my ship,” Morrow commented, never relinquishing his hold on his gun.
“To be clear, this ship is an object, not a location. It’s a ball that got hit over the fence into the neighbor’s yard. I’m the neighbor, so the ship belongs to me now.”
You were amused by Kirsh’s attitude. Most synths needed to be quick on their feet as always, but this one was more interesting. You can tell he has his own reservations about humans, but you'll allow this to play out. It was the perfect opportunity to see how Morrow would handle the situation before you needed to step in.
Morrow made a jab at Kirsh, saying he doesn’t talk to errand boys. “What would that make us, Morrow?” You mused quietly to him as you drew your attention to the eggs beside you. You just told yourself this was stupid. Might as well. You knelt down, putting on a mask and gloves for closer observation. You weren’t going to touch it-heavens no. There was a strange layer of mist that surrounded the eggs, and you wondered if this was some sort of temperature-based specimen.
“Are you the parent?”
Your eyes flickered over to the three synths to see Kirsh already observing you. The question seemed to stump him for a moment.
“Excuse me?” You nearly chuckled at his response.
If you were a synth you’d have the same reaction. And if on que Smee and Slightly slide behind Kirsh for protection, further confirming this.
“These synths think they have parents.”
Morrow took a step back through the mist, and just as you were about to stop him, one of the eggs started opening up. Ah, sensory-based, noted. Your defense system immediately alerted you to the urgent danger. Was this the creature that implanted one of the crew members? The ovomorph was something you had basic knowledge about, but inside was a face hugger. Now that was something you couldn’t let escape. Even though it wouldn’t have a chance to implant something in you, you didn’t want Morrow to get killed since he was a viable host.
In the background of your thoughts, Kirsh and Morrow’s conversation about losing friends and Yutani’s ownership over her specimens wasn’t lost on you.
“You’re gonna belong to them.” Standing up, you saw Morrow’s eyes flickering over to the eggs, then back to you. He was thinking of an escape, and with a slight tilt of your head, you allowed him to leave. He was going to jump anyway, why stop him now?
Through cracking sparks, he leaped through the hole and was gone. Smee and Slightly instinctively ran past you to see if they could spot him. The egg returned to its dormant state, as you now knew it had sensors and would start opening up when a viable host-human or perhaps anything warm-blooded came within close proximity. Cyborgs weren’t safe-regardless of enchantments. As much as it pained you to think about it, in that moment, you were slightly grateful. Maybe you were lucky to not suffer something as terrible as that.
“And you-“
”Well since I’m not going to jump, I’ll be taking my leave.”
You appropriately removed your gloves with careful precision of not wanting the surface of it to touch your skin. Removing your mask, you looked over at Kirsh.
”I’ll be out of your hair now.” With a gentle smile, you walked passed him.
Well tried.
”So you decided to cease your pursuit of securing the specimens?” He asked as soon as you were about to pass him. You can tell he was closely analyzing your facial features for some sort of emotional response or assessing potential threats.
“Of course not.” You looked up at him, admiring his human-like features. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you guys pretty soon, Mr. Kirsh.”
If you weren’t mistaken-even though you hardly are, you wouldn’t swear you saw a smirk forming. “I’ll be looking forward to it. Agent Vixen”
For a brief moment, you paused while readjusting your coat. His tone set something off inside of you. Morrow’s words echoing just in your mind, when is a machine not a machine? The heat that crawled up your skin was enough to prompt you to leave, but you stayed a moment longer. You were half sure that this older model was only doing what was necessary to remove you from the Maginot as quickly as possible.
Agent Vixen was a silly code name you were given years ago, but never wanted to go by. There was nothing that should've allowed him to know that. Maybe your interface needed work-noted. Placing your sunglasses right back on your face, you looked over your shoulder at Smee and Slightly.
Kirsh’s eyes never left your figure until you were out of sight. You were in his head as much as he allowed you to. Your one-way interface was clever. He couldn’t extrapolate data on your side, and by the time he noticed, you used precision timing to bypass his security programming. It was to be expected when joining an open network where Weyland-Yutani could assess foreign threats. It was commendable at best, but you lingered snooping around inside of him, observing him as it seems. However, something stood out.
Agent Vixen. Human. Melancholy.
How disappointing and fascinating all the same time. He could tell there was something about you. Disappointing you weren’t a synthetic like himself, and fascinating how you were able to imprint yourself on his code. He was positive you were unaware of that, but nonetheless, a lasting impression was left. Was it something you were trying to do? Was it the interface programming? He instantly sought you at your last location for answers, but alas you were gone too soon. Perhaps, he wanted you to dig deeper, or at least try if you had the capabilities to do so. Test how far you’d be willing to push for information.
He knew someone was following them, keeping their distance to avoid confrontation, but a simple hello would’ve sufficed. He very much encouraged it. But seeing you in person-well it was nothing as he expected. He didn't need to research why you were being associated with Vixen.
“She was…kind of cool.”
”Super cool!”
”Whew-I thought I was the only one.”
“Nope!”
“Kirsh? Was she your friend?”
Friend? He had his doubts that you had plans to have to befriend anyone from Prodigy, especially after what he told Morrow. He also couldn’t help but take note of your badge dangling out of your left breast pocket to make a show of it. Yet, your kindness and respect towards them was refreshing. Melancholy wouldn't be the first term he would use to describe you, however, the look behind your eyes was quite telling. You backed down when you saw your conditions were less than ideal, or you were simply following orders. Either way, it didn’t answer why the specimens reacted to Morrow and not you. Maybe you were a cyborg-ah, there it is.
How many cyborgs did Weyland-Yutani have? And why would they send someone like you, who looked unfit to be out in the field? So many unanswered questions. Maybe he was telling the truth when he said he was looking forward to seeing you. The enlightening conversations he would have with someone he deemed as just food would be something for himself to further study.
He didn’t know when the opportunity would arise again-just that he would be ready to handle you.
Kirsh turned to the boys. “Weyland-Yutani employees are not our friends.” But we shall see when we meet again. “Let’s go.”
“Morrow. Respond. Where did you go?” Currently, you were in a private area just outside of the crash site, maneuvering your way to get to the lower levels. Avoiding emergency services, soldiers, and random individuals, you scanned the area with a dainty step until you detected the same high level threat from before. You sighed. Was this something you wanted to investigate? Honestly you weren’t that curious. You didn’t want to end up having to defend yourself from some alien creature that was taken from its home world. It wasn't until you detected a heat signature and another synth.
What in the world was going on? You were curious if it was Morrow, but quietly concealed yourself to see a man passed out, bloody on the floor. You were unsure if he was dead as you checked his pulse. Such an odd wound. He had a lung puncture-
“I see.” A couple of feet away, you saw a damaged synth and the specimen you could only describe as a monster. Quickly, you patched up the man as best as you could, looking over your shoulder every other second. You couldn’t leave him dying here. You didn’t have extra equipment for this, but you bought him an incredible amount of time by cleaning his wound and applying an antiseptic clotting gauze that would promote the cells to repair themselves faster in the meantime and stop him from bleeding out.
Hazy eyes met yours for just a moment, and you stopped him from moving. “This isn’t going to be enough for right now, but you’re going to be okay. Help is on the way.” You gently spoke, holding his face. Hopefully, help was on the way. You administered a small dosage of a sedative to help ease him back to sleep and an injection of morphine to help with any pain.
You laid his head down and moved on to the synth. She seemed like the same model as Smee and Slightly. Kirsh’s little ducklings. You smiled at your inner thoughts and immediately got to work. Prodigy owned you big time for this, but considering what was going on and the dead creature whose acidic blood was corroding the floor beneath it, there was some sort of obligation to help.
You turned her to her side and immediately fixed the internal damage and rewired anything out of place. Now, you had no idea if her memories and vitals as of now were functioning appropriately, but you had no access to that. After patching her up, you slipped a little note for whoever to find into her pocket.
A simple, ‘all patched up :)’.
You smiled, looking over at your medic and mechanic skills productively being utilized. At least you did something good.
It didn’t take long before backup came to close off the area, and by then you were long gone. The moon casted an ominous glow over the city. Laughter, music, and the blissfully ignorant hum surrounded you. If only the people knew of the monstrosities that lay just within arm’s reach of them. Discoveries of distant worlds were a wonder to behold, but crashing a ship into a city where hundreds of thousands of people were trying to get by was unforgivable.
At least when you experimented on a life, it was your own.
The clicking of your heels usually kept you alert. Tap. Tap. Tap. It was something that grounded you when you were alone.
Even though you looked well put together on the outside, with the city lights illuminating your features in the best ways possible, the storm in your head was unrelenting. The first suppressant was slowly wearing off, but at least you were away from any stressors that were debilitating your rational thought process. Many times, you were reminded you weren’t a synth and to stop acting like you were above everyone. But the reality was, you just felt so empty, and many people couldn’t see that. No one cared for you. No saw you beneath it all. Your hands and brain were beyond valuable, so keeping you afloat the best way the company could ensure your loyalty and the presence of your work.
The world around you felt muted for once. The noise sometimes would be too much, and you had trouble directing yourself from time to time. But tonight, you were okay for the most part. As your thoughts drifted back to the synths, why couldn’t you stop thinking about them? From their strange behavior, to being ill-equipped for investigating a crash site, and then there was Kirsh. You gritted your teeth. How exactly was he able to get access to a stupid code name?
The silver-haired synth with his little ducklings. You found your heart beating just a little faster at the thought-oh no. No no no. What was wrong with you? You immediately administered another suppressant to calm your nerves and potential hormonal imbalances. The lightheadedness that followed nearly had you swirling, so you decided to take a seat.
“You’re human, it’s okay to feel,” Jerry told you once.
Shaking your head, the beeping of your comms went off, sobering you for a moment.
“Anything to report?” Yutani’s cold voice further pierced the chemical calm inhibiting your bloodstream.
“Several ma’am. I will collect Morrow and we will make our way over to you. I think this is an in person discussion you would find rather intriguing to hear.”
”I trust your judgment but why is Morrow not with you?”
“He was cornered by the Prodigy’s synthetics. I gave him the okay to leave before things escalated.”
Silence fell.
”I see. I want you both to return as soon as possible.”
“Will do, ma’am.”
And with that, the call disconnected.
The chilly night was nice on your skin, and the view wasn’t too bad. Unfortunately, duty calls. Standing up with a slight stretch, you knew there was always something to be done.
It didn’t take you long to track and find Morrow. You found him in a…very unusual place. “At least try to make it challenging to find you.” You mused. “Nice place to meet up. Wouldn’t have taken you for someone who had a taste in such things.”
”Be quiet.”
You slightly scoffed, crossing your arms as you looked down at him. “I’ve been pretty lenient with you. We are reporting back to Ms. Yutani. That wasn’t a suggestion.”
His fingers moved effortlessly across the keyboard narrowing his focus to the screen in front of him. You were about to take off the monitor when your eyes caught sight of Prodigy and the familiar faces of the synths appeared. Quickly you read over the screen and sent yourself a copy to further dive into later. Your stomach twisted uncomfortably and nausea set back in.
“You see now who we’re up against?”
”I’m aware of who we’re up against but this is…different. Immoral. All of these rich people think they’re above everyone and in doing so they will all reap what they sow. Let’s us be on our way.”
The ice beneath your skin was painfully prickling into every functioning nerve. The thought of taking children and putting them into synthetic bodies was frightening. The unparalleled harm that would interfere with every aspect of their mind and body was irreversible. Then your mind traveled to your studies. The idea of doing something similar to yourself one day was always up for debate-but not children. Children could never consent to something this extreme that would deprive them of their basic adolescent growth and brain development.
If only you could get your hands on Kavalier’s and wring his neck. However, with his sick tendencies, he might have an affinity for such crass behavior, so you needed to play it smart, plan carefully, and hit him where it hurt.
“Ms. Yutani. I want you to allow me to take leave and go to Boy Kavalier’s island.”
”You want me to send you-my personal representative into the home of an immature little boy?”
”Not want-need. If not me, then who, ma'am? I’m not sure of Morrow’s plans to retrieve the specimens, but I have a proposal to make sure your specimens are going to be closely monitored. Considering how dangerous they are, I theorize that everything will fall apart in a matter of weeks, and in doing so, there is a high risk of losing some, if not all, specimens that Kavalier’s men have taken. I can assure you that not only will I be able to assess the security risks he’s invited into his own home to secure our own, but also conduct research, progress, and uncover what Kavalier’s true intent is with the specimens. And of course, to get The Five's mediator to favor you when you eventually speak to Kavalier about returning the specimens. They know they’ll be a biological hazard, and I’ve created several safety plans to get samples if all else fails while I’m there.”
Yutani looked over at you, fingers tapping away at the seams of her expensive suit. “Why do you think Kavalier will be so willing to invite you into his home?”
”He won’t, but he’s arrogant and impulsive from what I learned. He’ll enjoy the idea of having a Weyland-Yutani's representative ‘under his thumb’.”
”In theory.”
”Most things are a theory, but I have no doubt this will be executed perfectly. He wouldn’t want to risk hurting the one person who has helped the corporation thrive and face backlash from our many partnerships. It’s just not worth it. Leave the details to me, ma’am, and I will report when necessary to not draw too much suspicion. Everything will fall into place.”
Even though you and Morrow had different ideas of moving forward even he was seemed impressed with your proposal. Unlike him, you could get into anywhere you set your mind to.
“I will have my answer for you by end of the night. You may go.”
With a short bow, you took your leave. Everything will surely fall into place. Making your way back to your cozy penthouse, Yutani never wanted you too far from her.
“Hello, Miss! How are you? You were radio silent the last couple hours and I thought I’d have to send in reinforcements!”
You chuckled at Jerry voice over your living room intercom. “Hello Jer. And please tell me what reinforcements do you have?”
”Me and my army.”
“Your defense system is impeccable, but please do tell me about this army.” The silence that followed told you all you needed to know. “That’s what I thought! Anyways, did you go out today like I suggested you to do while I was out?”
”Yes!”
”And?”
“Don’t be upset with me.”
“Well when you start off with that, I’m inclined to think you’re going to stay something rather upsetting.”
”I followed you.”
You glared up at the intercom. That's why he didn't greet you in person. He was hiding somewhere to avoid your wraith. “Jerry, why?”
”Because I wanted to make sure you were okay.” The tension in your shoulders immediately subsided as you leaned back on your couch. “I knew the crash site was rather dangerous-human and alien alike. And your vitals were off the charts. I knew you weren’t okay, but you handled yourself quite well after I evaluated you.”
“Hm.”
The ding of the tea kettle prompted you to the kitchen. “You did a wonderful job helping that man. But I must ask, there was also a Prodigy synth you decided to help. May I ask why?”
”Are you suddenly the one interrogating me?”
”No, not at all. And that’s still hot-”
Jerry had your special herbal tea ready for you as you softly drank from it.
“Never mind.”
The sound of Jerry powering down for a moment made you give in. You informed him of everything you learned that day from the crash to the hybrids. Then you went on to explain how upset you were and how Prodigy even had an older model watching over them. You spoke fondly of them and admired how the older model carried himself. Then you went into details about his older features, his silver hair under the lighting, and his calm demeanor when speaking with you and Morrow.
“He’s Prodigy's Chief Scientist, too, you know? Then Morrow said something to the younger snyths that I can’t stop thinking about it- when is a machine not a machine? For some odd reason, I was associating that with the synths and then Kirsh. He knew something about me, even if it was something so silly and trivial.” You found yourself smiling at yourself, nearly spilling your tea. “Don’t get me wrong! I didn’t like the intrusion.”
”May I add my own personal opinion?”
”Please do!”
”Don’t be upset…”
”Jerry…” Your brows were already forming into a frown and if luck was by his side your comms started going off. “You’re free to speak to me.”
"The best way to put it into words is that-well I think you’ve developed a rather minuscule-dare I say…crush.”
Heat rose to your cheeks, deliciously burning your skin in a way you hadn’t thought about. You didn’t expect him to blurt that out, and for a moment you froze before answering your comms.
“You’re in. If you so wish, you can leave tonight.”
