#internal temperature sensors

[eminemily05]

Well, I did it. I finally cracked and wrote for Ratchet. And an inspired fic, no less

I wanted to give one of my pieces (Kissy Times ) a way that was more open to any readers/viewers. While also having fun building around the moment itself.

I hope I was able to capture the grumpy guy's personality well enough, and I do hope you all enjoy. And it gets a bit more suggestive towards the end, just a warning

This work is 2.2k words and roughly proofread...I may have issues.

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It’s a damn good thing the kids aren’t at base to witness this.

That’s the only thought on your mind as a metal servo slips under your shirt. The touch is gentle, hesitant even. Yet, its owner seems anything but at the moment. As mesh lips slot against yours, the faint rumble of an engine reverberates off the metal surfaces of the Autobot base. Steam slips through the seams of alloy plating, nearly unnoticeable biolights flickering beneath armor plates.

Of course, the feeling isn’t nearly as incredible as the fact of just whose servo is wandering your heated skin. 

Ratchet, mass displaced, yet still towering, had cornered you off to a section of the medbay. His back turned towards the main room so he could keep you from any prying optics that did manage to sneak in. Not that he was even focused on sensing whether any of the team witnessed this moment. All his attention diverted to the melting putty of human against his frame. To which he quickly responded with a supporting servo along the nape of your neck. Taking care to not pinch any skin between the seams of his digits as he cupped it with practiced precision.

Your hands found purchase along the seams of his warm plating. One settling on his shoulder pauldron. The other, gently cupping his audial–which wiggled happily–and pulling him closer into the embrace. Soft puffs of steam warming your fingers from beneath his frame. 

Internally, his scanner was pinging off repeatedly with warning signals for your current state. Easily, it picked up the shift of your breath, the uptick of your bodily temperature, and the steady increase of your heart rate as he practically stole the air from your lungs. His frame pressed flush to your trembling form and heated form. Yet, the feeling from your miniscule and weak EM field told him it was nothing to worry about.

Well, aside from the obvious–and very much annoying–human limits compared to his own alien species. Curse the universe for doing this to you.

Setting a shaking hand against his chassis, you gave a firm–yet gentle–push. It took him a moment to pick up on your silent plea, and he pulled back with a hiss of his pistons. Engine rattling unhappily at the separation. But, your comfort always came first.

Immediately, he was checking you over. A worried click of his vocalizer settling between you. “I…wasn’t too much, was I..?” His bright blue optics dimmed slightly and his finials perked. His sensors hadn’t picked up any physical discomfort, but mentality was always a fickle thing. 

Maybe he read your field wrong? He contemplated, It’s not like it’s his fault it was so fragging hard to pick up on.

Struggling to even get your brain to boot back up, you didn’t even notice the fact that the bot in front of you was having a mini crisis. Scared that scrap, he broke the human. How was he supposed to explain this to the team?

You were absolutely starstruck, your brain sailing high in the clouds on the wings of pure euphoria. When was the last time you had even felt something that good? That kiss had been so far out of this world–pun intended–that your mind was having a bit of a hard time coming back out of the stars. I’m sorry, but too much? You thought silently as his words finally floated into the mush of your hazy thoughts. This man cannot be serious. 

A repeated firm pat against your cheek brought you back. Crash landing your shuttle of daydreams right back down to the hard, serious surface of reality. You blinked a couple times before finally looking up at him. Him and his–very clearly–annoyed expression.

“It would be helpful if you could actually answer me, I do hope you know,” His finals twitched in slight, harmless, agitation. He wasn’t actually mad, just worried. Maybe he wasn’t always able to show it in the best way, but you had known him long enough to learn his tells.

Malleable metal creased slightly under his optical ridges in silent concern. Dimmed optics diligently scanned over your body for any sign of discomfort. Servos drifting over your skin for anything out of place. He cared through actions best, not words.

You couldn’t help the teasing tone that left your mouth, a smirk playing on your lips. “Well, then maybe you shouldn’t take my breath away so easily,” You gave the antenna of his back kibble a slight flick, drawing a stutter from his engine, before wrapping your arms up and around his helm. Messing him was child’s play.

Panic flickered across his features for just a moment. Plating hissing as it rose in stress, his digits gripping as his optics zeroed in on your chest. While generally perverted, you could tell he was checking whether your lungs had actually collapsed.

You didn’t have the heart to tell him that you probably wouldn’t be talking if they had.

“Take your breath away?!” His tone turned frantic, engine roaring loud and causing his frame to vibrate against you, “I didn’t mean to deprive you of air, oh I am a fo–” 

Fortunately, his concerned ranting was cut short when he saw the amused look on your features. Suddenly, his plating drooped with a click and hiss of steam as he gave you a clearly un-amused glare in return. 

“You were using one of your incredibly annoying Earth idioms, weren’t you. Need I remind you to not use those sort of phrases with a Doctor. I would feel this is obvious.”

Playfully rolling your eyes, you dragged a finger along one of his seams. Watching his finals perk slightly at the touch. He seemed to relax…albeit slightly. But hey! Slightly with Ratchet, in any capacity, was a celebration of its own!

“Loosen up Doc–” His wheels spun with displeasure at the nickname, finials flicking down, “You really need to stop thinking so much about it. Oh, and learn a bit more about human culture and phrases. They get so much worse from there.” Ratchet hearing the phrase ‘shit fire and save matches’ would probably send him into a spark-attack and a tirade you didn’t even want to imagine explaining to him…

…Although, the idea did seem quite amusing.

“And fill my processor with useless, and primitive, information? Puh-lease. I’d rather build a space bridge from scrap, than even attempt to understand you humans.” He grumbles, looking at you over. Clearly, still apprehensive about your physical wellbeing 

“You still never answered my question, you know.”

He really was worried about you, wasn’t he? The old softie…

Sighing, you gently rubbed along one of his finials. His helm shifted to follow the touch as you answered, “Ratchet, that was probably the best damn kiss I’ve ever had. Too good, in fact.” You hummed, smirking at him. Mirth sparkled in your eyes. “Have any more experiences you’d like to ‘share’ with me?”

The question was supposed to be playful, a simple teasing jab at his age and probably lack of experience. 

….Apparently, that was not the case.

“Not that you could handle.” He scoffed, the corners of his dermas twitching in a hidden smirk. Plates shifted as steam rolled through them. Your eyes widened like saucers at a sudden peak at his very much tucked away personality. Like a tiger eyeing its next meal through the chain-link of its enclosure.

This fucker! You thought, suddenly feeling like a kid who just watched the last of their favorite treat get swallowed up. How dare he keep sexy secrets from me. 

You sent him a deadly glare, an unappealing whine slipping from your throat. “That’s not fair, Ratch!”

The servo under your shirt shifted upwards slightly, digits caressing the curve of your spine. A breathy keen replaced your quick forming tirade and you couldn’t help leaning into the touch. His expression said it all for you. The medic knew exactly what he was doing.

Then again, he was a quick learner.

“What’s the phrase again? Life’s not fair?”

Oh, how you wanted to wipe that smug look off his face. The digits dancing along your back didn’t seem to want to help your stuttering mind from its predicament.

“Nevermind, no more human phrases for you.” You grumbled, recovering quickly. Knowledge was power, and human knowledge in Ratchet’s servos was like playing with fire. His knowledge of you–your ins and outs–was like dancing through hellflame, though.

Breath suddenly hitching as he leaned in close, he gently bumped his helm against your brow bone. Taking care to shift his chevrons out of the way, lest he accidentally stab you. He moved to speak–which was probably more stupid snark from his stupid (handsome) face in that stupid (attractive) tone–and you instantly took the opportunity to jolt forward. Slotting your lips against his, stalling his engine and actually drawing a surprised whoop of his sirens. The small snort of amusement you gave was incredibly short lived, as his servo gave a gentle tug of your hair.

 Your gasp, with the following undercurrent of a soft moan, gave him just enough of a chance to slip his glossa past your lips. The taste of iron and static charge sat against your tongue, and your eyes fluttered closed. Any sane person surely wouldn’t find enjoyment in such a strange mix of taste. But at this point, sane wasn’t even part of the equation. Not when you got a chance at riding with (on) the party ambulance. The grouchy, moody, but incredibly skilled and fine wine, agedly handsome party ambulance.

Imagining a younger, college age version of this bot sent blood pumping straight between your legs. Fuck, Cybertron had been lucky to witness the glory of prime-time Ratchet. Young, Fast, Energetic, and definitely a great–

The ever learning and observing medic settled his servos down along your hips now. Applying skillful and perfect pressure that pulled soft whines and moans from your mouth, and took you from your fantastical thoughts. You’d revisit those later…in the safety of your room, with the comfort of your…toys.

A quick learner who knew–and catalogued–just where to touch to mold your mind into such hazy thoughts. As if he knew just what you were thinking. Like he was silently saying to you, ‘I may not be young, but don’t think I’ve lost the energy and spunk to break your brains.’ Or something like that. Though, that may have just been your own mind saying that to you. Then again…with magic hands McGee over here, your brain even struggled to make its silent snide comments.

It clung desperately to any rationale it still held, not that any of it would last long enough. Not with eons old, intelligent as fuck, alien medic man pressed right up against you. Rumbling frame and hissing joints steadily working to clog your brain and untense your body. Biolights flashing a very alluring, tantalizing, pattern beneath the cracks of his armor plating. 

Just relax. They almost spoke to you. And damnit if you didn’t want to listen. Because you really really wanted to. You’d need to ask Ratchet about that later…when thinking wasn’t so hard…let alone speaking.

It probably would help if you didn’t have metal, and shockingly soft, lips moving so expertly against yours. Glossa slipping against your lips and pushing your own tongue down. Static sparkling deliciously against the roof of your mouth. A pleasant little buzz.

Ratchet pulled back just slightly, enough to look at your blissed out expression with a soft chuckle. He hasn’t seen that sort of effect since he was back in Medical School as a charged-up, naive mech. But by the gods, he still had it. And with a human, no less.

It made his wheels spin in pure excitement.

Thinking about it, the team wouldn't be back for a couple more groons. Having gone out on a scavenging mission for energon. And the old bot had needed a break for a good while. Optimus would certainly agree…

So, just this once, he supposed he’ll take what he deserves.

Settled in his reasoning, the aged mech slid his servos under your thighs and easily lifted you right up against the metal wall. Your back sat flush against it as his grip held you securely. The show of strength only caused your face to heat up significantly. Obviously, a human was like holding a bag of grapes compared to the metal these bots flung around regularly. But fuck if it wasn’t hot seeing how effortlessly Ratchet could fling you around.

Though you wished he'd just fling you into the nearest bed, this would do fine.

Locking his lips back up against yours, his engine rumbled loudly. Vibrating his entire frame against your body and sending pleasurable sensations down to the aching between your legs that so desperately needed some touch.

His vents and fans whirred at a deafening pace as his servos found purchase along your waist. Digits sunk gently into the plush skin as he held you pinned against the wall with his hips. Your legs settled along the runners of his hip guards and you just barely registered his antenna wagging at the movement. Like some overgrown, metal puppy. How adorable.

You silently thanked the gods that the kids weren’t here to witness this. 

Unfortunately, that was the last sensible thought your brain could make before Ratchet’s skillful touch dipped into your shorts. Completely shattering any rational idea from that moment on. At that moment all you could think was,

Thank you Primus for crafting this hunk of a wonderfully handsome, and incredibly skilled man. But please…just don’t let him break me.

[crying-fantasies]

In health and sickness

Masterlist

Many words could describe him at the moment.

Overprotective, over doting conjunx, overwhelming, overbearing and many others that could be an excellent reflection of his actions and reactions, it's the second one that catches him off guard because he isn't sure if it was due to embarrassment or that it felt like a joke at his expense.

There are little options when his system charge way before the programmed hour, not knowing what is going on before his sensors show him in deep red alarms a focus of temperature in the room and the low registration of CO2 in the room, there is a way too short time for decision making as he finds you looking at the ceiling without blinking, chest hardly moving before a horrendous sound erupts, like an engine got stuck somewhere or a spark giving up, almost like a dying cybertronian or an idiot that consumed some corrosive substance.

He has heard both frequently in the battlefield, that's his excuse to call, and appear, at ungodly hours to the nearest clinic going full police car, poor the souls of any mech on his way while you were hardly battling off the mucus on your throat and the pain of your insides twisting, churning, trying to get whatever kept oxygen out of your lungs.

Nothing too hard, just the main problem being what humans call a virus, Prowl has to download once again the basics of your species and the recently updated papers about the whole deal, how did it came to Iacon when he was so sure the outbreak was limited to Stanix? How is it possible that there is no cure for this humorless pest, almost strangling the medic with his bare servos when the indications of "just let them rest well, a lot of fluids and a healthy diet" were all he could give you apart from medicine to only temporarily placate any symptoms.

Prowl knew that humans had a terrible automatic cleansing and protective program, but it still was ridiculous how it only took a little microscopic individual to have you in the verge of dehydration and suffocation, assaulting as an opportunist in your weakest state of mind to have him saying the same as always: you don't have to work, he'll take care of everything, you don't have to stress yourself because here you're safe, but his words aren't that believable as this is the result of the heat generators in the city falling once again because he can't still keep the energy flow uninterrupted, your little body caught in a decreasing temperature in mere minutes before someone else gave you a heated metal blanket to stop a freezing coma or something worse.

There is nothing left to do, only make it bearable for you, as long as it can last because even the most advanced remedies are lacking and he can't have something better in at least a few more years when he needs them by yesterday when it all began.

"It's okay", you try to calm him, knowing well how under his stoic faceplate he is freaking out, you just have to see how far Prowl is going, this is his second day working from home, his scowl is present as always but the way his door wings move at any sound from the street show just right how in the edge he is.

Somehow, your words seem to make it worse, his angry expression almost scares you, "don't talk back now", is his only response, putting a little cube with warm lemonade next to your side of the berth, internally, you cringe, thinking of the warm but also stinging fluid going down your sore throat, thinking how expensive a single lemon is in Cybertron.

But, above all else, seeing him so on edge puts you in the same circumstances, trying to talk him down from submitting a complain to Stanix's medical officers regarding the virus now in Iacon, he is so engrossed in it, not even putting his datapad down when there is an obvious notification of intruders on your door, Prowl only gives it attention when Bonecrusher ends up decimating the door of the living quarters by brutal force, falling with it and still punching the poor thing, growling and roaring like a wild animal, soon after the rest of the constructicons follow, but they look in a way you've never seen before from them.

Wild gazes, bared dentae, vents puffing out hot air, their armor moves and stands threateningly, they look murderous enough for Prowl to hold you in his servos, almost preparing himself to be attacked before Long Haul claims, "Where is it?! Where is the slag fragger, son of a glitch-?!"

Turns out, Prowl's anger and worry could be felt by them.

Turns out, also, that they don't have his filter of supposed control.

"What? What is this?"

Turns out, easily freaked decepticons, who have very little real interaction with humans, shouldn't enter the medical area of a corny website probably made by a doctor wannabe.

And it shows, in how Hook push them all out of his way when you cough once again, too hard this time, the paper on your hand now with a tingle of blood in between, before any word of assurance can be said from your part Prowl is the first to hold you near, Hook is fast to ask what is going in and someone is already crying out loud for a medic.

So much for a peaceful Saturday morning.

"This will do, this has to do the work", Mixmaster usual anxious movements seem to reach another point, normally steady servos seem to shake ominously when mixing something that smells like bleach, "concentrated citric acid, this'll kill it, show that thing not to mess with us", a drop of the thing reaches the table, an acid like reaction eating away the metal, Long Haul and Scavenger look with dread as the thing keeps eating part of the floor, smoke frizzing out of it, visors wide with obvious panic, the bigger 'con putting a protective servo over you, using his own frame and stopping his partner to get near in his hysteria while the smallest started to cry yet again while clutching your hand between massive digits, said cries only decreasing when you started to promise you were going to be okay, hard to believe when another coughing session appeared again, "it'll work, I swear, only a few sips of it and those parasites will be gone forever!"

Hook shouted too, "it's vitamin C! Vitamin C!", he holds down Mixmaster, who at the end just let's go of the cube with a strangled growl.

Prowl would never admit it but he could act normal if Long Haul was watching over you.

"We should punch them in the faceplates", Bonecrusher keeps going, going from one side of the place to the other, barely kept anger on him.

You try, you really do, to push yourself out of the different blankets above of you, but they have made the sentence of "keep warm to improve the process" a lot more unnecessary, as you're sure at least one of those is your weighted blanket, "I'll be fine" you promise once again, mucus on the nose, throat incredibly raw, pretty sure they can read the increasing fever in their sensors, Scavenger is the one closest to you, and is also the one hearing every word of yours and give it real credit, "this takes a week as much, just let it-"

Another fit of coughing erupted, and this time followed by sneezing, more blood coming and showing like an alarm on the white tissue, and someone shouting "MEDIC!" as if you have just been injured on the battlefield.

You're ready to die from mortification, preparing your lengthy apology to whoever has the disgrace to treat you as Prowl drives back to the hospital with 5 constructicons after him.

.

For my Prowl lovers fellows (sorry for the constructiprowl content but boy I love all of them together) @dundeey, @lovenotcomputed and @ikkosu.

[sunnydbeam]

What materials is Biohazard made of? I guess not everything resists radiation

Indeed! No material is totally resistant to radiation; it always depends on the amount of radiation and the exposure time.

Let me get a little nerdy

I clarify and repeat: I'm not an expert on the subject. I did research for this AU in general and thus determined the right materials for the construction of Biohazard. I may be wrong. But this is sci-fi, and some things are improbable but intentional, like Biohazard's melting rays!

Endoskeleton and joints: titanium alloys, stainless steel, and aluminum reinforced with carbon fiber.

Internal components:

Microchips and components: specifically designed to withstand high doses of radiation and encased in a dense layer of ceramic material within a tungsten protective box.

Sensors made with materials resistant to radiation and high temperatures. Integrated into the endoskeleton and protected by a dense covering material.

Actuators: electric or hydraulic motors made with corrosion- and wear-resistant materials. Located within the joints and protected by the endoskeleton.

Metallic lithium-Ion batteries specially designed to operate in extreme environments, housed in a tungsten protective box, away from sensitive components.

Cooling system: copper tubes and non-flammable, radiation-resistant cooling fluids integrated into the endoskeleton to dissipate heat generated by electronic components and shielding.

Protection systems:

Primary shielding: lead sheets and boron-based composite materials, 1.5 centimeters thick.

Secondary/Exterior shielding: tungsten sheets, 1 cm thick.

Biohazard has numerous limbs and components functioning as redundant systems. In the event of a failure, he can continue operating with backups.

He used to integrate cameras and sensors for remote monitoring and data collection. These are no longer operational.

Being made of very dense materials, he's extremely robust and heavy! You practically couldn't lift one of his arms if he were off!

He was very, very expensive to manufacture as well. The frustration was very great when the project "didn't work".

[bestanimal]

Round 1 - Phylum Arthropoda

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Arthropoda is a phylum of animals that have segmented bodies, possess a chitin exoskeleton, and have paired segmented appendages. They are colloquially called “bugs” though this is often only used for terrestrial arthropods, and sometimes only used for insects specifically.

After Nematoda, this is the most successful phylum, and it is far more diverse, with up to 10 million species! Arthropods account for 80% of all known living animal species. The three major subphyla include the Chelicerates (sea spiders, horseshoe crabs, arachnids, and the extinct eurypterids and chasmataspidids), the Myriapods (centipedes and millipedes), and the Crustaceans (shrimps, prawns, crabs, lobsters, crayfish, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, opossum shrimps, amphipods, mantis shrimp, entognaths, and insects).

Arthropods are so diverse in fact that it is next to impossible for me to describe a model arthropod. They are important members of marine, freshwater, land, and air ecosystems and are one of only two major animal groups that have adapted to life in dry environments, the others being chordates. All arthropods have an exoskeleton and must molt as they grow, replacing their exoskeleton. Some arthropods go through a metamorphosis in this process. They have brains, a heart, and blood (called hemolymph, though some crustaceans and insects also use hemoglobin). They sense the world through small hairs called setae which are sensitive to vibration, air currents, and even chemicles in the air or water. Pressure sensors function similarly to eardrums. Antennae monitor humidity, moisture, temperature, sound, smell, and/or taste, depending on species. Most arthropods have sophisticated visual systems ranging from simple eyes (ocelli) which orient towards light, to compound eyes consisting of fifteen to several thousand independent ommatidia capable of forming images, detecting fast movement, or even seeing polarized or ultra-violet light. Some arthropods are hermaphroditic, some have more than two sexes, some reproduce by parthenogenesis, some by internal fertilization, some by external, some have complex courtship rituals, some lay eggs, some give live birth, some have prolonged maternal care. The first arthropods are known from the Ediacaran, before the Cambrian era.

Propaganda below the cut:

Insects are the first animals to have achieved flight

The smallest arthropods are the parasitic crustaceans of the class Tantulocarida, some of which are less than 100 micrometres long. The largest arthropod is the Japanese Spider Crab (Macrocheira kaempferi) with a legspan of up to 4 metres (13 ft) long. The heaviest is the American Lobster (Homarus americanus), which can get up to 20 kilograms (44 lb).

Many arthropods are popular pets, including various species of crab, shrimp, isopod, crayfish, mantis shrimp, millipede, centipede, tarantula, true spider, scorpion, amblypygid, vinegaroon, mantis, cockroach, beetle, moth, and ant! Some are even domesticated, including silk moths and honeybees.

Many arthropods are eaten by humans as a delicacy, and farming insects for food is considered more sustainable than farming large chordates. These farmed arthropods are referred to as “minilivestock.”

Arthropods feature in a variety of ways in biomimicry: humans imitating elements of nature. For example, the cooling system of termite mounds has been imitated in architecture, and the internal structure of the dactyl clubs of mantis shrimp have been imitated to create more damage tolerant materials.

Spider venoms are being studied as a less harmful alternative to chemical pesticides, as they are deadly to insects but the great majority are harmless to vertebrates. They have also been studied and could have uses in treating cardiac arrhythmia, muscular dystrophy, glioma, Alzheimer's disease, strokes, and erectile dysfunction.

Shellac is a resin secreted by the female Lac Bug (Kerria lacca) on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. It is used as a brush-on colorant, food glaze, natural primer, sanding sealant, tannin-blocker, odour-blocker, stain, and high-gloss varnish. It was once used in electrical applications as an insulator, and was used to make phonograph and gramophone records until it was replaced by vinyl.

One of the biggest ecosystem services arthropods provide for humans is pollination. Crops where pollinator insects are essential include brazil nuts, cocoa beans, and fruits including kiwi, melons, and pumpkins. Crops where pollinator insects provide 40-90% of pollination include avocados, nuts like cashews and almonds, and fruits like apples, apricots, blueberries, cherries, mangoes, peaches, plums, pears, and raspberries. In crops where pollinators are not essential they still increase production and yield. Important pollinators include bees, flies, wasps, butterflies, and moths.

Many arthropods are sacred to humans. In Ancient Egypt, scarab beetles were used in art, religious ceremonies, and funerary practices, and were represented by the god Khepri. Bees supposedly grew from the tears of the sun god Ra, spilled across the desert sand. The goddess of healing venomous bites and stings, Serket, was depicted as a scorpion. Kalahari Desert's San People tell of a legendary hero, Mantis, who asked a bee to guide him to find the purpose of life. When the bee became weary from their search, he left the mantis on a floating flower, and planted a seed within him before passing from his exhaustion. The first human was born from this seed. In Akan folklore, the cunning trickster figure Anansi/Ananse is depicted as a spider. Western astrology uses the crab constellation, called Cancer, and the scorpion constellation, called Scorpio. Dragonflies symbolize pure water in Navajo tradition. In Anishinaabe culture, dreamcatchers are meant to represent spiderwebs and are used as a protective charm for infants. They originate from the Spider Grandmother, who takes care of the children and the people of the land in many Native American cultures. The Moche people of ancient Peru often depicted spiders and crabs in their art. In an Ancient Greek hymn, Eos, the goddess of the dawn, requests of Zeus to let her lover Tithonus live forever as an immortal. Tithonus became immortal, but not ageless, and eventually became so small, old, and shriveled that he turned into the first cicada. Another hymn sings of the Thriae, a trinity of Aegean bee nymphs. Native Athenians wore golden grasshopper brooches to symbolize that they were of pure, Athenian lineage. In an Ancient Sumerian poem, a fly helps the goddess Inanna when her husband Dumuzid is being chased by galla demons. In Japanese culture, butterflies carry many meanings, from being the souls of humans to symbols of youth to guides into the afterlife. Ancient Romans also believed that butterflies were the souls of the dead. Some of the Nagas of Manipur claim ancestry from a butterfly. Many cultures use the butterfly as a symbol of rebirth. And the list goes on…

cute crab eat a strawbebby:

[rinixo]

variables

Tech/Reader | 1.5k | Rated E | smut, afab!reader, oral sex, Tech pov (mainly), Tech internal thoughts, slight possessive!Tech

He had never been one for flowery words, but as he closed his eyes he realized he understood now what the poets meant about devouring one another.

a/n: originally started out as a follow-up to auxilium, but ended up just being better as a stand-alone.

read on ao3

Tech’s sat on your floor, surrounded by communicator parts. He had offered to repair it for you when you mentioned it was malfunctioning. You had agreed, knowing that even if you said it was fine, you'd find it missing one day and returned, good as new, the next.

He comes over to your place more often, now. The first few times you had hovered anxiously, unsure of if you should find some way to entertain him, worried that you were boring him.

"I enjoy being in your company," Tech had stated matter-of-factly, halting your nervous fussing. Since then, you’d relaxed, going about your own activities while he worked on various projects.

He had built you some clever devices, intended to make your life easier. A tea kettle that would ping to your wrist comm, letting you know when it was at the perfect brewing temperature. A sensor on your door that actually worked, so you didn’t have to risk opening it up just to find some drunk passed out on your step.

Tech struggled to give voice to his feelings. He sometimes lacked the nuance that came easily to others regarding certain topics. It was easier for him to simply do. Every time he soldered a wire or tightened a bolt, it was a little testament to his affection towards you.

The sound of the bathroom door caught his attention. He watched as you emerged, toweling your damp hair, dressed only in underwear, content to let the rest of your body air dry.

He appreciated that you felt comfortable enough to share some of your quirks around him. In fact, Tech appreciated many of the small habits he observed in you - this one included, and not just because you were bare. Sometimes, he found himself musing about them while waiting for data to compile or during hyperspace journeys.

The way you flip your tools in your hands idly. There was a callus on one of your fingers, from the friction, and he could sometimes feel it when you touched him in certain sensitive places.

The lines between your eyes, when you frown. The subtle asymmetry of your brows, one rising higher than the other.

He likes that you don’t roll your eyes when he rambles, sitting through many impromptu lectures in good grace. The way that you’ll remember where he last left off, ask genuine questions, and invite him to continue.

He appreciated how he could sense when you wanted him to kiss you: your eyes darting to his lips, hands tensing and relaxing.

He cherished the tremble of your skin under his touch, whether his palm was spread over your abdomen or between your shoulder blades.

You sat on the edge of your bed, towel draped over your arm, looking humorously at the parts spread out on the ground.

“You’re going through a lot of trouble for me,” you joke. “I’d still like you even if you didn’t fix everything I own.”

“It’s no trouble,” Tech replies softly. Your knee is next to his head, droplets of water evaporating into the dry air. He can see the goose prickles on your skin.

A soft smile on your lips. “Don’t you have to go soon?”

Tech hums thoughtfully. His squamates were becoming suspicious of his increased absences. It was Echo who had approached the topic most directly, weeks ago on a long hyperspace transit back to Ord Mantell.

Tech didn’t know exactly why it bothered him or why he felt somewhat possessive over the knowledge. Over you. He had kept his tone neutral in response, hoping Echo would get the hint that it wasn’t something he wanted to talk about. The former ARC trooper didn’t look convinced but had dropped the subject.

It didn’t stop him from paying you a visit the very next day, however. And the day after that. And most days since then.

“Yes,” Tech decides. “But I want to be here.” Placing his hands on your knees, he pushes himself up and over you. You eye him, leaning back to keep his face in view.

He slots himself over your body, pressing his nose just above your belly button. Your skin, still slightly damp, smells wonderful.

“Tech," you mewl halfheartedly. “I just washed…”

He trails his nose down to the apex of your thighs. “You can wash again,” he breathes, kissing the fabric of your panties over your mound.

You must realize it’s a lost cause because you lean back with a sigh and throw an arm over your tired eyes.

He kisses you through the fabric, suckling softly, The fabric grows wetter between his tongue and your slick. He can see the color of your skin through the translucency, swollen and waiting for him. But he has the time, and the patience, and the desire to make this last.

Pulling the fabric to the side, he flicks his tongue over your clit, making you squirm. Your thighs twitch, and he knows you want to prop them up. He obliges you in this way, letting one of them lift over his shoulder. The other he pats, enjoying the plush way they mold under his hand.

More than one previous lover had made remarks about ‘using his mouth for other things’, insinuating that his clever tongue could be used for more than wit. It had never really sat well with him before, the suggestion that he was too much, too talkative, that his mouth would be more useful to them elsewhere.

Tech didn’t feel that way about you. He could spend hours between your legs, memorizing you through touch and taste alone. He took great offense at leaving any job half-done, and this was no exception. He wasn’t satisfied until you were satisfied, and even then he would be so hyper-focused at times that it wasn’t until you’d pry him away with shaking hands that he’d realize you were moments away from passing out from pleasured exhaustion.

Tech moves the hand on your thigh down to ease two long fingers into you. Glancing up, he can see those lines between your brows, eyes screwed shut. He feels you tense and then relax, caught between adjusting to the new sensation and giving in to the continued assault from his mouth.

He’s careful, delicate almost. His tongue curls around your clit, his teeth just barely creating pressure. You pulse with it and he releases, wanting to draw this out further. He likes when you’re desperate for it, writhing and rambling nonsense. It won’t be until you’ve begged, pleaded, bargained that he’ll let you come. Tech likes to be awash in your praise - it makes his cock throb to hear how good he does it, how good he makes you feel.

It’s more than just physical pleasure, too. Tech supposes he could have stopped himself from falling in love with you. Love was powerful and dangerous. It wasn’t predictable and defied attempts at pathology. It required one to give up control and give in to vulnerability. It wasn’t logical, and it wasn’t something he had ever prioritized before. Lust was much simpler in comparison.

You threw unknown variables into the carefully charted graph of his mind, his perception of who he was, and his place in the galaxy.

It was overwhelming, at times. Something that would need to be parsed out eventually, tallied, and taken inventory of. But for now, he channeled it into attending to your body, focusing solely not on what he thought but on what he could feel, on the lust coursing through him.

The shadows on the wall change and the dimmed lights click on before Tech’s finished with you, pulling back to see you panting. This was some of his best work so far, he thinks, wiping his chin absently. His cock, pressing against his blacks, is achingly hard. He lets it pulse as he watches you, enjoying the edging sensation. He’ll let you decide, once you’ve gathered yourself, if you’d like to go any further. And if you decide that you’re tapped out, that’s all right - just as much as he likes to feel your mouth on him or be buried in your cunt, he likes to sit back and have you watch him stroke himself until he’s coming hard over his hands or spraying over your stomach.

You’ll attempt to apologize later, but he’ll quiet you with his lips. Why should you apologize, when you’ve given him as much as you have? When he desires you so intensely? When you sate the monstrous appetite he didn’t know he possessed? He’d have to find the time, the courage, to figure out what it all meant. What he wanted, what you wanted, and what - realistically - was possible.

But now was not that time, he knows, as you push yourself up and pull him closer. Tech holds your head as your trembling hands pull down his blacks, breath leaving him shakily through his nose as you take him into your mouth.

He had never been one for flowery words, but as he closed his eyes he realized he understood now what the poets meant about devouring one another.

[heartlaboratory]

Claudia, one of your friends, invited you to attend to her beach volley match. The match is held indoor so, given the fact that its summer and in this country summer is also very humid, temperatures are going to be torrid. Beside this fact you're still quite surprised to see that the majority of the players are playing naked, females too (in this parallel univers human are not ashamed by their own bodies). After all sweating is the best way to cool down. She's quite skinny but look really good with that blue bikini, you always liked her so, secretely, you're very happy to see her playing covered just with air. Given the fact that the playground is going to be free the whole day, organizers decided to complete the tournament without skippying to next day.

Some hours have passed and she has played for a lot of time now. Room temperature went higher than 36°C for the whole last matches and now Claudia looks pretty torn. She's always been a warrior, someone who don't surrender easily but all that jumping in this particular condition had an effect on her too. She's covered by sweat, her skin has assumed a reddish tone and her panting has become so deep anyone can clearly hear her fast inspirations and exales. The thing that tunrs on a light in your mind though is the fact that her entire upper body is rhythmically shaking like it's thrusted by a sort of internal earthquake. You suddenly realize that you recently activated a medical app on your phone developped at the laboratory where you work that makes possible medical analises through the phone camera thanks to experimental sensors placed in the camera. You activate the app and feel pretty lifted up by the fact you already added her profile. A thin ensamble of laser rays, almost invisible, is projeced towards her and the selected target orgal (obviously Claudia's heart) becomes visible on the screen. Her heart is beating like crazy, not only considering the pace but also the strenght of each beat, the app says her heart is beating at around 195 bpm but it's probably even higher. It's something that is completely out of any safety zone for someone who is 34 years old... and not even a younger person should push its heart like this. The device can also work as a digital stethoscope and by wearing headphones to listen to her you remained schoked. Her blood is pushed so violently that it's making strange wooshing-like noises by rubbing against her heart internal structures, sounds that almost cover up her slamming valves. Suddenly the software gives a diagnosis: High cardiac risk- probability of a sudden cardiac arrest of 89%-potentially lethal arrhythias occurring. By looking at her detected heart electrical activities, her organ is so over-stimulated that PVCs and VTACs burst are already present. You know exactly what to do, Claudia's life has an 89% probability to end in the next few minutes and it's increasing. You decide to get up from your seat and run towards the referee to show him the analysis of your device. One of the players' heart is going to stop very soon.

A second before you move, on the ecg a strange beat appears and suddenly Claudia's heart interrupts any activity, it doesn't even fibrillate, it just ceases to beat as silence arises from your headphones. Terrified you see her taking a couple of deep breath, the ball she was holding fell on the ground and her left hand is placed in between her bare breasts... after a moment she collapses on the ground.

You have always wanted to place your hand on her chest to feel her heartbeat but now you have to do this to make it beat again. CPR has to be started immediately.

[cozzzynook]

Hot Rod freezing and needing cuddles from Soundwave.

Hot rod is literally freezing and turning a gray blue because his spark medication is affecting his outlier that keeps him warm. So Soundwave comes to take Hot Rod from the med unit and brings him home to their berth covered in blankets and heat pads with packs of energon cyber honey and zinc to help raise his internal frame temperature.

Hot rod is so cold he doesn’t know much of whats going on until he’s laid down in a really warm berth rolled like a burrito with spicy zinc and cyber honey slowly going down his windpipe. As the heat pads bring back color to his frame and he feels a very heavy weight pressing on top of him and a gentle nuzzle he immediately recognizes as Soundwave’s olfactory sensor.

Hot rod is trying to whisper his appreciation and love but it comes out as cold chitter babble and cold wisps that make Soundwave smirk.

Hot rod is warmed up within two days instead of a week

[feroluce]

So this ficlet-ish thing was inspired by @hydrachea, nsfw super genius extraordinaire, but also by the fact that in addition to Boothill's left eye being cybernetic, I like to hc even the parts of him that look human aren't fully natural. I mean the dude eats bullets, after all. I think he should also have vents in his mouth so he can literally blow smoke/steam, it would look super cool. Think Father Gascoigne or Studio BONES' Todoroki. We as a fandom deserve that!!

So anyway, of course, sometimes these vents get blocked up and need to be cleaned manually. Thankfully, Dan Heng is super helpful ☆

Like there's one day where Boothill is lazing around in the archives, fresh off a bounty and happily soaking up the luxury of the Astral Express after however long he's spent tracking his prey through all the dust and dirt with almost no rest.

Boothill likes it in the archives. It's not silent, but it's quiet. There's no music and only muffled voices from outside, but there's the hum of all the computer systems. It makes for a nice place to hide away and recharge when he's just finished exhausting himself.

And besides, Dan Heng is there.

Sometimes the two of them talk back and forth, but today it's mostly quiet...except for-

"I didn't know it was possible for you to get sick."

...Except for Boothill having to constantly clear his throat. That's the thing about your mark trying to flee into the desert. You either go after them and get sand everywhere (and even worse, sticky sand once it gets all bloody) or you wuss out and lose out on the bounty. Personally, Boothill likes being able to afford to eat.

"Grit's stuck in a vent somewhere, 'n' the usual maintenance ain't gettin' it. I'll prob'ly have ta manually dig it out." But later, when he's not laid out half asleep on Dan Heng's extra futon. Usually after a chase as long as this one took, he can shut down for almost a full day. He doesn't want to get up yet.

Something shadows over him, and reflex demands Boothill's eye open. Dan Heng steps around him on his way to some drawer built in the wall on the other side of the room or something. Boothill closes his eye again.

From under his hat he hears the sounds of rummaging, drawers sliding open and shut, the swish of a long coat. The shadow returns.

"Sit up, just momentarily. I have something to help." And Boothill groans a tired don't wanna, but he does it anyway, he hauls himself upright into a kneel. And then he sits up a little straighter because he realizes Dan Heng is standing right over him.

Dan Heng tells him "open your mouth," and Boothill's jaw pops open without his permission, without even a second thought, and hey, what protocol in there ok'd THAT?!?!

Before he can really unpack whatever the heck that just was, though, Dan Heng murmurs for him to say so if he needs them to stop, and then he's sliding a long, hard rod down Boothill's throat, tipped with some soft little brush he probably uses for all his fancy archival equipment.

Dan Heng tells him the handle of the brush is straight and can't be bent, he needs to move his head to be able to reach the vent in his throat. Boothill hums affirmatively; he can't do anything else with his mouth occupied.

Dan Heng's free hand holds him by his jaw, tilts it up slowly but firmly so he has to look straight up at him.

Boothill feels dizzy.

The cycle of blue blood through his artificial heart whirrs just a bit faster, his temperature sensor pings an internal alarm to warn for imminent overheating. Boothill curls his fingers into the guard over his knee as Dan Heng carefully brushes at the dust irritating him. All other sounds- the hum of running equipment, the occasional beep from the computers, the noise of the crew outside of this room- seem to pull away, until all Boothill can focus on is the steady and measured breathing from the man above him.

"Almost done."

Thank the aeons, maybe one of them likes him after all.

"Your tongue is in the way... I'm going to hold it down, ok?"

Nevermind.

The fingers holding his jaw curl around his chin, thumb slipping past open lips to dip into his mouth and pin down his tongue. One of his teeth catch on the digit, breaking skin just enough to bleed a drop where he can taste it. Dan Heng doesn't even flinch. Another temperature alarm pings off in his brain, then another, then another.

Boothill has never been shy about eye contact but oh, god, it nearly kills him when dull green irises flick away from their task and look down right at him as his mouth is held open. He quickly squeezes his own eye shut for some relief.

With his vision cut off, the rest of his senses automatically recalibrate to compensate. He can hear every breath even more distinctly now, every soft inhale and exhale, feel the strain in his neck, the softness of the brush, the hard floor beneath his knees, the hand holding his jaw and the fingerprints that feel like they should leave burns in his skin, the taste of Dan Heng heavy on his tongue-

Forget it, eye open, eye open!!

"Alright. There's one last pebble stuck."

Boothill had been trained to endure torture, back on his homeworld. It was part of being in a gang, part of being a bounty hunter.

Somehow, keeping himself quiet and still as Dan Heng inches the brush even further down the back of his throat is a profoundly similar experience.

The seconds tick by, Dan Heng's brow furrowing, face growing ever more concentrated and Boothill struggles not to watch him too closely, fights down the noise that suddenly tries to escape him as the brush withdraws-

"Swallow."

Stars and aeons, Dan Heng is going to be the death of him.

Boothill swallows. He feels it when the movement finally dislodges the loosened pebble from his vent.

His face feels shockingly cold now bereft of touch, even though Dan Heng's hands are always cool. He asks to see, and Boothill's mouth is already open again to show him, even as he belatedly realizes he could have just told him it had worked.

"Good." There's the slightest smile on Dan Heng's lips as he finally, mercifully, leans back out of his personal space, goes to put away the brush. "That should feel better now." Boothill spends a moment dizzy and dazed, feeling the need to blink spots out of his eye even though his vision is clear. He still hasn't moved off his knees.

What the fudge.

[sshadowritestoriess]

Hi hi, can I have some ramattra first time HC’s plzz ily it’ll actually make my week omg 🙏💖

Hiii I hope this is sufficient 🫶

Ramattra’s First Time

Outwardly, he wouldn’t seem nervous in the slightest despite it being clear he needs some guidance

He knows how it works, that much is obvious. But he heavily lacks an understanding on how important foreplay is, and that there’s more that can be done during sex than just rutting against one another— so you’ll just have to show him

You’ll likely have to ask him to slow down a couple of times, and after the third or fourth attempt to stop him from rushing into it, he’d eventually give up on taking the lead

“Now what?” Becomes a popular question when he’s checked off something to your liking.

He’s aware he needs to be gentle during such an intimate activity, a stark contrast to the typical brute force he exerts for most of his daily tasks. But he’s still partially rough in his first tries to touch you— you’ll just need to grab his wrist and tell him to be careful, and he’ll try again

But his excitement and steady rise in confidence will result in quicker and rougher movements now and again. So reminders, reminders. Else he may attempt to break you.

He’d definitely find some difficulty in being vulnerable, letting you touch him to get riled up was not something he had mentally prepared for. It’d be a whiplash of internal conflict over how terrifying it is (who would have thought he’d allow human hands poke and prod at him to elicit pleasure) and how nice it feels.

Omnics have far more control over the sounds they can produce and when. It doesn’t take much effort for Ramattra to stifle small noises of encouragement, but in such an exposed and trusting state it is extremely easy to catch him off guard. Dragging a nervous grunt out of him will make him raise a hand to cover his throat, where his vocalizer hides. (He didn’t know he could even make that sound.)

He’d be easily embarrassed if you compliment him on anything— how he looks, how well he’s doing. He thanks you every time very politely, but you can practically hear how bashful he is in the stammer of his tone, as much as he tries to hide it in his body language.

He’d have a preference for the ‘main event’ to be in missionary for his first time, so he can see your face and watch carefully to make sure he’s doing everything right.

He’d express his gratitude to you as he sinks in, agonizingly slow, for being patient with him and trusting an omnic of his model to be vulnerable with you. Maybe a bit cheesy, but he was mostly running words out to keep himself from rushing his full length in with a single shove. A self-induced distraction so he doesn’t harm you by accident.

He would invite you to keep your hands on his chest or the silver handles on his hips, just in case, to give him a small push if he does anything too rough. He was designed with heightened senses— even the smallest amount of deliberate pressure could be detected, so he’d know to take it down a notch.

But he’d do just fine when he starts thrusting, small and shallow rolls of his hips controlled by a surge of nervousness to perform well. He may even begin narrating what this feels like for him; “It’s… like I’m on fire.”

He’d become addicted to your warmth very quickly, hiking your ass higher and pulling your thighs further over his while he arches in closer to you, burying his faceplate into your shoulder and relishing in the way his sensors alerted him toward the rise in temperature.

He’d cage you underneath him with his arms, eerily quiet— focused— on how much warmer he could make you, already experimenting with angle of his hips as he slows his pace and rides into you with differing strokes.

And then your walls flutter around him and that would be the first time you hear him moan. This shaken, breathy sound that rumbles from his upper chest, and releases the air vents in his shoulders with a quiet hiss.

He’d notice your reaction to the sound instantaneously— not only seen in the reaction of your face, but additionally in the way your internals hug around him and nearly pull him back inside. He’d be elated that his voice could cause such a response, and he’d become a lot more noisy for you after that

Ramattra would find himself asking every so often “is this alright?”, and you may have to try and stay focused enough to be able to reassure him, or else he’ll stop. It’s hard to tell if he pauses because he’s worried when you don’t respond, or because he’s being smug knowing you can’t.

If you encourage him to try going faster, he might hesitate. But with further praise, he may comply, trying to be quicker while being just as gentle as before.

He’s an extremely quick learner, however. One correct response to anything he’s attempted is immediately memorized and saved, and he will try certain things again exactly as he had the first time to get the best reactions out of you. His first time quickly begins to seem like it’s his hundredth time, becoming an expert in just under ten minutes.

So quickly molded to your liking, trying things you would like, toying with your body like a plaything to earn more praise and encouragement. For Ramattra, it’s so much less about the euphoria he feels from you, and more about how long he can please you before you come undone.

But he still would like an orgasm, so he may get a little selfish toward the end of the exercise. He would whisper to you to please forgive him, pushing into you more rough than before, hammering wave after wave of pleasure into himself until he’s completely overwhelmed his systems.

You will literally have to brace yourself the first time he ‘cums’ inside you, his entire frame would tremble and shake while his limbs go rigid and lock up, until he eventually collapses on top of you with a deep sigh as he’s lulled into a brief unconscious state. But he would be up again in just a handful of seconds, and he’d apologize once more

And, being a machine with a nonexistent sense of stamina, he will make it up to you again and again if only you wish for it. Sex turned out to be a lot more fun than he had imagined, especially with a human, and he’d love nothing more than to show you how eternally grateful he is toward you for letting him play.

[the-s1lly-corner]

Sun x reader who wears headphones

something something UUHUHUHUHUH i need to write more moon stuff because i feel i write more for sun... though idk if thats even accurate LMAO notes: reader is gn, admin projected onto the reader so some of this is unique to him probably, reader is not explicitly stated as ND but given the previous and admin is ND they may be seen as ND/coded, reader works as a daycare assistant cws: none

theres been children in the daycare who wear headphones so hes well aware that sometimes theyre a need for one reason or another, so seeing you with them is nothing new to him!

i think there might be some spare sets stored somewhere in the event that something is broken or goes missing, so you have a backup in case anything happens to yours!

good at reading body language so even if you dont know sign or have an alternative way of understanding him or others around you, he can get a good idea of how youre feeling with a good look!

having in built in sensors makes things easier when he can easily measure things like your heart rate and body temperature if youre internalizing something or otherwise in distress

reading lips isnt an option with him though, since... well he doesnt really have lips that move

knows sign, though!

if you listen to music with your headphones hes interested to know what youre listening to! is it a fun song? is it upbeat? hes curious now!

not listening to anything at all? thats cool too!

generally very understanding and accommodating!

helps educate the kids if they have questions, though he tries his hardest not to speak for you

"everyone is different" kind of thing, you know!

[melanodis]

don't really have much for a caption but i do have batshit insane rambling and more art under the cut

hardware capable of temporarily. read: TEMPORARILY. substituting for the central core to minimize downtime during maintenance

got wiped like 7 different times because he kept questioning his existence until they finally encrypted his imprint so much they had him asking how to use a doorknob

dual core processor equivalent to a PowerPC 970, capable of clocking up to 2.7 GHz for intensive tasks

always looking for """vintage""" computer parts in the hopes that they could be a compatible upgrade, like more RAM for his beautiful big brain ideas (wrong)

stole a network card out of a scientist's computer as a prank once he remembered humor. forgot to put it back and constantly tortures everyone else with his wifi capability

205X specific :

i don't think anyone is exactly jumping for joy at the words "open heart surgery." Especially not when it's you... on a table... alone with a light and a scalpel.

lights are dimmer for power conservation (dogshit battery)

processing power is also reduced unless necessary for hacking

low power mode has a dual purpose; conservation of battery power as well as keeping temperatures low to prevent overheating (huge headache + lots of broken parts)

clear coat has long eroded due to weathering + gel exposure during chamber maintenance

loss of coolant is nearly a death sentence for him and anyone involved due to the particular chemical mixture being difficult to find + reproduce (insanely hazardous to touch or breathe the fumes of)

yeah his radiator is probably rusted over but he's not touching that. it hasn't completely plugged itself so who cares (not him)

built like an old ass car, completely made of metal and doesn't crumple when impacted, leading to... lots of dents and shaken internals. nokia 3310 headass. he couldn't be assed to go through the cosmetic surgery that is fixing one of the newer models after a little fall (unless they're a patient of course)

on a related note, virgil is the robot equivalent of a beater car with the check engine light on and probably 6 other lights on, the underside is completely rusted out and the tires are bald. but it still runs so whatever, drive it into the ground buddy. he genuinely refuses to perform any work on himself unless its something critical. boo hoo nobody cares about some sensors and --- ah. temperature sensor.

i think

that can wait a little longer.

[machine-crush-hazard]

gn robot reader/ f engineer doing repairs

1.9k words nothing explicit just flirty

--

Your protocols stipulated that you were to report to a human team member if you required repair or maintenance. You had an entire diagnostic system dedicated to running those checks. But ‘Requiring Repair’ is an incredibly subjective term.

It could be argued that a car approaching the recommended oil change date ‘Requires Repair’, or a car that had impacted a light pole perpendicularly and folded around it, crushing most remaining components, ‘Requires Repair’.

You had neither of these problems. You were having temperature regulation difficulties. You could even still regulate your temperature most days. It was just the occasional overheat that teetered on the edge of a forced shut down.

Obviously you've tried all the software fixes, limiting your background processes in the new summer weather, deleting some new programs you picked up recently in case they were too much strain. You even stopped wearing clothes entirely. It wasn't as though you had anything to hide, you were just a machine. You didn't need to sit on the couch in the break room next to your human coworkers. Cloth was an unnecessary use of resources and the energy that you'd have to redirect to keep yourself cool.

You knew what the last option was obviously. You could clear your external vents without too much trouble, but you didn't have authorization to check your internal fans on your own. That was a repair and had to be reported to a Human Team Member.

They would have to open your casing and see the issue and manually clean your fans. You would have to lie down immobilized on the build table like you had for weeks when they were first moving your program into your current body.

You didn't need a repair or maintenance, so you were fine for now, but once a malfunction was Actually occurring you would enter your Survival Protocol where all nonessential functions would be suspended until a repair occurred. This would, in all probability, be… unpleasant. You intended to, if possible, avoid this situation.

So late one night, long after your coworkers’ shifts ended, you turned down the temperature on the environmental controls in the main break room as low as they would go. You spent the minutes, as the air around you cooled, programming in a two percent efficiency decrease in the coolers for the coming week to compensate for the extra energy usage tonight.

You didn't need the lights or environmental controls, so they were usually deactivated during your coworkers' off hours. Tonight you would need both. Before you turned the lights on you took over the data stream from the security cameras in the room and played the video from last night.

You flicked on the lights and made your way to your improvised workstation. You had a repurposed office chair, a non-electric flat head screwdriver (rudimentary, but it wouldn’t set off your sensors the way unauthorized electric tools would), and a can of compressed air.

You settled backwards in the office chair, the front of your casing pressing into the backrest, your posterior maintenance panel facing the deactivated camera. You picked up the current video output from the camera, dropping the visuals from your eyes. Like this you could look down over yourself and see the seams on your back where you closed. Your vent appeared clear of dust externally at least. 

That was a comfort, it would have been humiliating to be walking around trailing dead skin cells and lint behind you.

You could feel the increased processing already raising your temperature, but the cold air was doing its job. This would be fine, if you used manual tools your internal sensors wouldn't classify this a repair. You thought. It was the best theory you had.

So, bending your arms at an angle that you knew from experience frightened your human coworkers, you started trying to gently pry up the panel. A warning took over your visual data for a moment, marking the risk of panel damage. You did not let out a low growl of frustration, that would be a poor use of resources at the present moment. The sound you made was unrelated to the warning that you dismissed impatiently. 

You tried another spot that seemed to have more of an edge you could slip the screw driver beneath and began again.

Finally finding enough grip, you began applying force… Just as the break room door slid open with a hiss. The surprise caused your calculated angle to redirect and sent the screw driver skittering with force across your back panel leaving behind a long silver scratch through your paint. You focused the camera on the door and saw her.

Her usual coveralls wer slipped off her shoulders and tied at the waist, leaving her in the sleepless undershirt. Her hair was tied up out of her face like she had been working on something.

"Team Lead," You greeted quickly, trying to simultaneously hide the screw driver, stand up, pick up your own visual data again, and drop the camera. In the end, you managed to do none of these but the last. The loss of visual data sent you tripping back into the rolling chair as you tried to push out of it, forcing you to steady yourself with both hands or end up on the floor . Thereby dropping the screw driver to the floor instead, in all likelihood, directly into her view.

"You can call me Dial," She reminds you, "I’m begging you to just call me Dial honestly." She had told you this many times before when the two of you were working together.

Finally you manage to get your eyes back.

"So what are you up to in here?" She asked, she had already made her way across the room to kneel for the screwdriver.

"Up to?" You say, buying time pretending to not recognize the turn of phrase.

"What are you doing?" She clarifies easily with none of the time consuming mocking others might have employed.

"I was..." Your mind spins with possible replies but the clock ticks down too fast leaving only a look of understanding on Dial's face as she spots the can on the table beside you.

"Right, you've been having an overheating issue right? Did you want a hand?"

You stilled. No you did not, but Dial was chief engineer on your development. If she declared it time for a repair that would be enough to put you in maintenance mode.

Coldly you say, "It is past working hours. Your assistance is not required."

"Yeah, of course, I meant more like... off the record? A hand, between friends?"

You zoomed in on her face trying to understand the expression there. Her pulse was a little fast and it looked as if she was chewing the inside of her cheek. Was she nervous?

"Off the record?" You repeated hesitantly.

"Not a repair. Just," She seemed to think for a moment, "exploratory observation of your internal components. If any impromptu tasks are performed and you want them logged for your database later I could do so at that point."

Her wording was so careful, carrying with it a complete awareness of what had been written into your code by the programmers on the team in early days.

"Exploratory observation would be acceptable," You agreed reluctantly.

Relief crossed her face, "Great! Great. Alright you- you should sit down, you're gonna need to be still. I've never opened you up when you're awake before. I don't want to risk jostling anything important while you're standing and could hit your head."

"Yes," you lowered yourself back into the chair and she circled behind you, tugging on her gloves. You glanced back as she dragged a chair over to sit behind you, then resettled facing forward. You heard her reach into her pocket where you knew she kept a small collection of electric tools.

Your casing warmed a few degrees where she placed her hand against it to steady you. There was a tap and a small tug as she opened you up.

"Did you want to pick up the camera feed again?" She said softly, she was very close behind you.

"How did you know about that?" You asked.

"Wouldn’t be the first time. Your not the most subtle. Just because you refuse to call me anything except ‘Team Lead’ doesn't change the fact that we've been friends for nearly two years. You always drop the visuals from your eyes when you need a wider angle. Of course you would do it for this."

“Ah…” Hesitantly you picked up the security cam again and watched as she carefully set your scratched panel aside on the ping pong table beside you.

She clicked her tongue, “Oh, I see why you’ve been having a hard time regulating.”

You fan kicked up in speed at this. 

“Whoa hey, easy there, I gotcha,” Her free hand landed across the side of your torso, your sensors were very aware of the pressure of her hand moving up and down your side thoughtlessly as she leaned in to look over your components.

“Alright well, nothing for it but to start with the compressed air and then see where we're at,” She decided, picking up the can next to you, “This might be a little chilly. Tell me if you need me to ease up.”

“I'll be-” !

A surprised chirp left you as sudden temperature alerts startled through you. 

“Hmm?” She said. Tone: Playful.

“I underestimated the temperature difference,” you admitted stiffly, feeling the difference in the way your fan was moving already.

Her feet were out in front of her, her ankles pressing against yours. Another shot of cool air came and you felt her gloved hand delicately reach inside you to move aside a bundle of wires that sat in the way of the angle she needed.

“Y-” You tried, but failed as sensory data registered from the wires she was moving, “You’re here later than usual.”

“Yeah well, I've been working on something for you. Of the clock.”

You wanted data on her facial expression. Her back was turned on your camera.

You tried to search for the right phrase. You wanted to know what she was working on but was that rude?

“You can ask,” She confirmed.

“What are you working on?”

“New ankles that, if I do it right, shouldn’t need to be replaced every three months from sand damage.”

!!! Ah. That was. Well that was very nice of her. 

“Thank you.”

“‘Course. Anything to reduce table time right?” Tone: Compassionate.

“Right.”

“There you go,” She said, setting down the can, “Your internal temp is dropping already.” The backs of her fingers pressed against the still warm side of your processor. You went very still, trying to force your fan not to speed up and give you away. Her fingertips trailed lightly across the ports and withdrew.

You gave no sign of the disappointment that flared through you as she settled the part of your casing back in place, you sensors coming back online in that panel as she brushed one last touch across the silver mark that ran across your back now.

“We- we could,” You stopped. Letting your systems settle to stop the halting manner of your words.

“Do this again?” She asked, slipping her screwdriver back into her pocket, “Just you and I?” Tone: Hopeful.

“It would be nice,” You agree.

[blametheeditor]

Making It Up As You Go

Plan A: Find a way to stop the giant robot apocalypse.

Plan B: Join forces with one of the previously mentioned giant robots.

Content warnings: Cursing. Mentions of death and violence. Trapping others against their will. Amnesia. Dehumanization.

Eggs will befriend anyone if he's given the opportunity

_____________________

Forced restart initiated.

System reboot-t-ting-

“Oh shit.” 

James wakes up to darkness, a soft voice, and no memory of why he shut down or of who is currently speaking.

Perplexed by the situation at hand, the android initiates a full diagnostic before summoning the logged status report. Finds himself staring at a completely blank section that holds nothing except for the word ‘error’. 

That does not bode well for what the full diagnostic will return with. 

“I did something.” 

At the reminder that, despite having no knowledge as to why he was powered down previous to this moment, there is someone near. With an exceptionally low possibility they can provide the information he is currently missing, but the presence of an unknown stranger is certainly more beneficial than being alone. 

“I don’t know what exactly, but I did it!” 

With the full diagnostic still running, James focuses on the voice as it continues to speak unprompted, isolating it as a recording to be matched with a specific instance in his memory, provided that he has encountered it before. 

Unfortunately, no such matches return, even as a brief encounter alongside another recording. There are no recordings to retrieve period. His memory has been corrupted. 

With rather ironic timing, the diagnostic finally completes, presenting James a long list of external damages that will need to be repaired, along with a staggering amount of errors for retrieving proper information concerning key internal systems, including his memory chip. 

In regards to the numerous dents scattered along his entire body, those can easily fixed and can even be left unattended indefinitely. The tear along his right arm and left leg will need to be examined in order to properly establish when they will need to be mended. It’s the crack in the chip that holds valuable information, including finding someone who can help him repair it, that is the most concerning and must be tended to immediately. 

“I wonder if this thing takes AA batteries.” 

Perhaps his unknown companion will be able to provide such assistance. 

Checking to ensure there won’t be any issues powering on completely, James triggers the sequence to active all external systems. Immediately becomes aware of a less than ideal environment in terms of comfort before his optics have adjusted. Can feel heat directly hitting his temperature sensors claiming he will get dangerously close to overheating soon. Digs his fingers into the harsh ground currently digging into his back. 

“Ooh, what if I hooked it up to a car battery and gave it good electric shock.” 

The possibility that the stranger has been talking about him this entire time only registers now, leaving James with a rather foreboding feeling. It settles as his optics finally recognize the light surrounding him, thankful to see a bright sky rather than someone leering over with the want to scrap him for parts. 

It is then replaced by confusion at the sight of a collapsed building surrounding him, slabs of concrete attempting to hide the sun and sky. With his memory corrupted, he can’t confirm if such a thing was meant to be made like this, though the exposed rebar and crumbling concrete is more than enough to persuade him it was not. Something caused a rather devastating change, and he is at the center of it. 

“I wonder if I can find a bulldozer to-” 

The voice cuts itself off right as James looks to his left. They continue to stay silent as he carefully searches for who it belongs to, leaving him rather confused as to why it seems as though they don’t want to be seen, as well as being unable to locate them, the area seemingly void of any intelligent entities save for himself. 

At the possibility his hearing is still recalibrating and therefore misjudged the direction the voice originated from, James carefully looks toward his right, stopping when movement catches his sensors before he completely looked away. Locks onto something standing in the rumble. Something that looks extremely similar to the way he is designed, only on a much smaller scale. 

The name ‘human’ is all his system can recognize, an error appearing when he tries to recall more information. Depending on the extent of the damage, scanning it may lead to complications of being able to collect information, but not retain or have access to it. He does not require a scan to be knowledgeable of how the human is feeling, however, the facial structure operating identical to how James is programmed. 

The expression of fear unmistakable. 

Considering just how small it is in comparison to himself, it is most likely wary about his size. There is nothing he can do to decrease their differences of scale, and James has no desire to accidentally scare possibility the only person around who can assist him. The best thing he can do is remain lying on his back. 

He does move his head for a better view of the human, not wanting to be viewed as disingenuous by not addressing them properly. Unfortunately, such an action was not appreciated, the human suddenly running away from him before he says a single word. 

Not the most optimal reaction in such a scenario. 

James looks around the area to ensure there are no other humans around before carefully sitting up, pausing when a warning flashes concerning a tear in his torso. Looking down to examine the damage, he finds that his suit had been torn, leaving a fairly large gap in his synthetic skin exposed to the elements. 

He would need to repair it, but there are no traces of moisture, and the internal components that are exposed are functioning properly. The same can be said for the gash across his right forearm and left leg. With the confirmation such repairs are not immediately required, he focuses on the human climbing through the building’s rubble. A building that upon further inspection seems to be much more suitable for someone of their stature rather than his own. 

“P-P-Plea-ase,” James stutters, pausing to let his voice box recalibrate before addressing the running figure. “Please, do not be frightened. I have a few questions I would like to ask.” 

They don’t reply back or give any indication his words were understood, continuing to climb to one of the various openings. 

James watches them for a moment, taking note of the frantic movements and the genuine fear as they constantly look back over their shoulder. Despite the motion slowly them down and the clear exhaustion, they are admirably quick. Incredibly nimble as well, jumping over comparatively large rocks and sliding through small crevices. They have nearly made it out of his reach within a fairly short amount of time. 

He can’t allow them to leave, however. He has no knowledge of what lies beyond the building, or if there are areas where the human can hide that would be impossible for him to reach. And considering their lack of a reaction to him speaking, it is more than likely they will disappear the moment they have the chance. 

Before they get too far, James reaches out to grab the human. Sees the wide eyed look of terror when they look back as a powerful scream emits. 

“No, no, no, wait!” does nothing to deter him, his fingers carefully corralling the small form toward his palm, pinning the struggling figure as they punch and kick in the attempt to free themself. “I don’t want to die like this!” 

He admires fighting against an opponent that clearly outmatches them, but he would prefer to not frighten them to the point where they thought such actions were necessary, especially not under the assumption he holds malice intentions. 

“I have no intentions to harm you,” James reassures as he successfully immobilizes the human inside his fist with only their chest and head visible, lifting them closer to properly address them. “I-” 

“Yeah right!” is yelled with such conviction, it leaves James stunned for a moment, allowing the human to continue without interruption. “Where do you think I’ve been, living under a rock? I’ve seen what you’ve done, and I’m not letting it happen to me, Tin Can!” 

Their struggling resumes, continuing the fruitless attempt to release themselves from his grasp. A feat that is impossible considering they are smaller than every one of his fingers and significantly weaker than any one digit. And yet they kick their legs against his palm with what little room there is, twisting their chest to try and gain leverage to bring an arm up. 

Though admirable, it is rather concerning paired with what was said. As if James has proven to be a threat before. That he himself gave a reason to earn such fearful reactions, including running away once they realized he wasn’t shut down permanently. 

Grabbing them possibly didn’t help in building his credibility. 

“I assure you, I have no intention to harm you,” James reassures once more, opening his hand in a gesture he believes will be appreciated. Though no longer confined, the human emits a sound of surprise, falling onto their side in his palm before floundering in the attempt to right themself. “If I have caused any harm prior to this interaction, I sincerely regret such actions.” 

The human’s mouth falls open as bright blue eyes stare at him. “Am I dead?” 

A quick scan provides enough information to confirm he is not. “Though your heart rate may be elevated, there is no need to concern yourself at this time.” 

“Nope I am definitely dead,” the human confidently states despite every indication the opposite is true. “I got a bulldozer, made a path to drive a car in here, hooked the giant robot up to the battery, and then got blown up.” 

“What information do you possess to make such a conclusion?” James asks, curious more than anything. 

“Because there is no way one of you death machines is just holding me instead of crushing me,” he replies. 

Assigning James the title of ‘death machine’ indicates not only has his memory been corrupted, but his previously assigned directive has either been erased or is unable to be retrieved until he can repair his cracked chip. Consequently, any attempt to send in a diagnostic report and request assistance will not be possible. He will have to locate someone to assist such a crucial repair without any information on where to begin such a search. 

The only person who has any knowledge does not seem inclined on aiding him. 

Not wanting to lose his only potential ally, James lifts his hand until they are directly eye level, watching as the minuscule expression closely. Unfortunately, his actions meant to establish earnest intentions earns fear as the human lifts an arm up defensively. 

“My memory is corrupted due to severe internal damage to my system,” James begins softly. “Any-” 

“Woah, woah, woah, time out,” the human interrupts, holding his hands up as if to physically stop James’ words. The android obeys the motion without hesitation. “You don’t remember anything? Like, at all?” 

“Information concerning operation has not been effected. However, any previously logged statuses, recordings, and prime directive is unable to be retrieved until repairs can be made.” 

“Seriously?” the human demands as he stands up, immediately stumbling with a yelp when the palm proves to be a challenge to balance on. He manages to catch his balance before giving James a look of awe. “So you can do whatever you want? No need to follow orders?” 

“Not exactly,” James begins, uncertain of the conclusion being gathered. “There are certain protocols I must follow, only my prime directive is unable to be accessed.” 

The human narrows his eyes. “Sooo, no want to kill humans?” 

“Correct,” the android confirms. 

“That works for me!” An arm is then extended toward James. “My name’s Eggs!” 

To say he fully understands how he was able to establish enough trust with someone for them to ecstatically introduce themself after previously assuming he would kill them would be a complete falsehood. However, James is thankful they were able to come to an agreement, as well as amused with such an interaction. 

“James, model 1920-9-12-12518,” he responds to complete introductions. 

His assumption they are now equated is proven wrong when Eggs doesn’t lower his arm. Instead, he moves it up and down pointedly while wearing a pensive grown. “You just gonna leave me hanging?” 

It seems as though there is a common ritual for introducing yourself. “I am unfamiliar with human customs.” 

“Oh we are going to be best friends,” Eggs grins. “See, this is called a handshake. Whenever you meet someone or make a deal, like you promising not to stomp on me, you shake hands!” 

The moment understanding flashes across the looming face, Eggs realizes maybe he shouldn’t have offered to shake hands with a giant robot capable of holding him inside said hand. 

But it’s too late now! Especially when he can see its other arm moving, and he knows better than to let the robot’s size trick him into thinking it’s slow. Oh, no, no, he’s seen these things almost teleport once they’re chasing after someone. He would know, because he was one of the people getting chased. 

You think he wouldn’t be so trusting considering said mentioned scenario. But even though these things have size on their side, it also makes it really easy to tell what they’re thinking. Thank fuck they’re designed to look like humans, or else they’d have the greatest poker faces of all time. 

Point is, this particular robot isn’t lying. And since Eggs, you know, watched it crash through a skyscraper before immediately shutting off, he’s pretty sure that’s good enough proof that something got damaged. Oh, and the wires hanging out of its arm! And leg. And the fact Eggs investigated the port in the back of its neck and rummaged around a bit to see if it would give him the robot’s plans for world domination. 

He won’t tell James about that last part. 

Despite fully believing this particular robot no longer wants to kill all of humanity, that doesn’t make the sight of a hand reaching for him any less terrifying. Even as it only turns into two fingers the closer it gets, those are two fingers strong enough to break every bone in his body. And they’re about to grab his hand. 

Eggs forces himself to stay put, shoving away the overwhelming need to get the hell away from such a large limb. Though he can’t help the flinch when a thumb and first finger longer than he is tall pinch his outstretched hand. Correction, pinch his entire arm. 

Brown eyes bigger than his head lock onto him blowing a large puff of air in relief when nothing cracks from too much pressure. “Does this complete the handshake?” 

He genuinely debates whether or not he should teach the part where you actually ‘shake’. 

...nah, this is good enough. “Yep! Handshake complete!” 

Eggs quickly takes his arm back once it’s freed, looking it over to make sure nothing did happen. It’s not mangled, there’s no blood, and he doesn’t feel any pain so he’ll call this a win! 

All of this is a win. He didn’t think he’d be getting an entire robot after deciding to investigate when it seemed like it wasn’t going to get back up again. The most he was hoping for were parts he could use to build his own giant robot, possibly even find something to use to hack into their systems and hopefully reprogram all of them. 

But now he has an already built robot, minus the want to kill every human on sight! Take that self preservation instincts! 

“Now that we are on amicable terms,” James rumbles amicably. Who even uses words like that? “Do you know why I was shut down previously?” 

“Oh, you mean other than getting thrown through a skyscraper at mac 20?” The man shrugs. “Can’t say I do.” 

The robot stares at him with a look of confusion. “I was thrown into this building?” 

Man, this guy hit his head harder than Eggs thought. “Uh, yeah. One minute, I was minding my own business, running for my life, and the next I hear a giant BOOM. Turned, and then I saw the building falling on top of you. When you didn’t bust your way out, I came to investigate!” 

Against his better judgement, he might add. But again, giant robot friend who won’t kill him on sight! 

“You didn’t happen to see my assailant?” James asks. 

“Nope. Didn’t have a good view from my hiding hole.” 

Actually, now that Eggs thinks about it, that’s a bit concerning. Ever since the robots were unleashed, it was quickly proven nothing could touch these things. Not bullets, not bombs, not even missiles. So unless the military was hiding some secret weapon they only just whipped out to use, it shouldn’t have been possible for James to get used for target practice and lose. 

Well shit. Either something malfunctioned badly, or something else just joined the war on humanity. One that’s either on their side, or just pissed someone was already here wrecking havoc. 

Or, someone is really skilled at using a wrecking ball. 

They’ll think about that later. Right now, he’s only just realizing how banned up James is. It looks like he got into a fight with a building and lost, badly. 

“So, model 19 trillion,” Eggs begins, forcing the giant to focus back on him after looking away. Most likely contemplating the same thing he was earlier. But they’re putting a giant pin in that. “It seems like you need a mechanic my good friend.” 

“Model 1920-9-12-12518,” the robot corrects, to which Eggs only smiles and nods because there is no way he’ll remember that entire sequence. “Is there someone knowledgeable with my system who would be able to make repairs?” 

“Knowledgeable with you system? No, unfortunately not,” Eggs admits. “But, he is knowledgeable. If you can give me schematics, I can fix you up back at my place!” 

Hidden and kept far away from any other robot who’s not reprogrammed and therefore take away any chance they have to survive this. Who would replace the broken motherboard and replace it with a shiny new one with the words ‘kill all humans’ written at the very top. 

“You would be willing to assist with my repairs?” James asks, looking almost relieved. And that’s after Eggs admitted he has no idea what he’s doing. 

“Of course!” the man chirps. “Anything for my new best friend!” 

He sees the fond amusement, knows he’s got James in the palm of- wait, no, other way. Has Eggs in the palm of James' hand, and therefore will protect him from all harm. See, he can do proper analogies. 

“I greatly appreciate it.” James then leans away before turning his massive head. “Which direction would your base of operations lie?” 

Base of operations, he likes this guy. “That way!” 

The moment Eggs points the way home is the moment the hand he became rather comfortable standing in suddenly turns against him, complete with him losing his balance as James starts to move, falling onto his back with a yelp. Before he can try to sit up, the fingers that acted as a rail guard curl in close to pin him down. 

Hopefully he didn’t make the worse decision of his life. 

Suddenly, James stands up, leaving Eggs’ stomach far behind. One look over the edge of the hand and his opinion on the thumb on his chest turns around real quick, thankful the towering being was wise to think about how fragile humans and tall heights do not go well together. 

Still, he would rather get a warning before suddenly getting pinned. 6/10, won’t recommend unless improvements are made. 

At the realization James hasn’t moved aside from standing up, Eggs looks up to see the  giant robot taking in the scenery before tilting his head to stare directly down at the person being held. Huh, so this is what it’s like to be a bug someone caught. Absolutely terrifying. 

“Does this building possess any further use?” 

Eggs glances up at the crumbling ceiling that had been originally designed to be a wall. “Eh, to the birds maybe. But if we want to use it again, we’d have to tear it down completely and rebuild it from scratch.” 

James doesn’t respond and instead takes a step forward, followed by another. Before Eggs can ask if it’s possible for the giant to not rattle his bones with every step, the giant is stopping in front of a wall of concrete. 

Without a word, a fist is raised to punch a hole right through it like is was made of plaster. Eggs can’t decide if that is the most terrifying thing he has ever witnessed, or the coolest. Good thing James decides for him, punching the wall again to make the hole big enough for a giant to walk through, proving that is the most badass thing ever. 

And now they’re free! Can go anywhere they want to go! As long as James continues to listen to the person outmatched by a single finger. 

Going by how his new best friend looks like a lost Sear’s tower as he looks down at Eggs for directions, it seems like that won’t be an issue anytime soon. ”Do I continue walking in this direction?” 

Eggs shoves at the thumb on his chest, grinning when it moves away so he can sit up. Stares out at the silent city from a bird’s-eye view before pointing toward a familiar building in the distance. “Yes, sir! Second star to the right, on til morning!” 

“Humans utilize astronomy for navigation?” James asks. 

The man wilts at such a classic reference not getting the recognition it deserves. “Nah, well. I mean, some of us know how to, but it was just a movie reference.” 

The robot begins to walk through the street barely wide enough for him to step through without kicking any of the cars parked to the side. “Do humans usually make such references?” 

“Ah, ah, ah, you’ve already asked a question!” Eggs exclaims, lifting a hand up to wag a finger at his confused companion. “If we want this partnership to work out, then we should stick to a quid pro quo bases.” 

James blinks. “What exactly does such a bases entail?” 

“Whenever I do something for you, you do something for me! And vice versa,” the man explains as he settles back down in the hand. “Meaning every time you ask a question, I get to ask one after. Sound fair?” 

The robot thinks over his proposal for a moment. “I agree to this bases.” 

“Awesome,” Eggs grins. “So! What do deadly robots do for fun?” 

He thought it would be a good question to get the ball rolling. Besides, this is the first and possibly only time anyone will be able to ask these things such a question. Of course he’d like to know the important things like why these giant robots are here as well as how, but he has a feeling those answers will need to come later. After he manages to make humanity so lovable James couldn’t possibly go back to killing them once his memory is restored and then proceed to fix it later. 

For now, he’ll throw in a fun question. One he has been dying to know. 

Apparently James is as well because the robot looks a bit unsure on how to answer. “Androids don’t exactly have anything that would categorized as ‘fun’, nor would we have time allocated to such activities.” 

Well that’s lame. “So you’ve never seen a movie before?” 

“I will answer once you have answered my previous question,” James says, and Eggs swears there’s a smug look on the billboard sized face. 

“Fine,” Eggs huffs. Crosses his arms as he flops against the robot’s fingers. “Some people enjoy making references to movies, shows, books, and video games, but not everyone does. Now spill, have you ever seen a film before?” 

“I have not,” and ooh Friday movie nights are going to be mandatory. “Why do you refer to me as deadly?” 

Well that was unexpected. He thought this would be a good bonding moment to learn about each other. Which it is, but it’s also the opportunity for a certain someone with corrupted memory files to ask questions that have most likely been piling up ever since he rebooted. He failed to realize there would be more pressing questions then what someone’s favorite color is. 

Eggs looks up at James watching the ground to not step on a stop sign before glancing back at the person he’s carrying. The person who might’ve hurt his feelings by first running away, and by second continuously calling him a killer robot. 

Do robots have feelings? Specifically ones that can get hurt? 

“You have a couple of friends,” Eggs murmurs. “Who are complete assholes and may or may not have grabbed every single person they find before taking them to who knows where while wrecking every building they assume is hiding someone just to grab them as well and don’t always check to make sure no one’s in the blast zone when it comes crumbling down.” 

He offers a smile up at James. One that says please forgive him for lumping this particular robot in with them, he didn’t know James was a good guy! It’s not his fault his friends, or possibly just coworkers, have been committing such heinous crimes against humanity. 

It’s quiet for an entire minute save for the thunderous steps walking over asphalt, James looking everywhere but at Eggs as he thinks. 

Finally, the robot addresses him directly. “It is your turn to ask a question.” 

The man hisses through his teeth. “You okay?” 

“I still require repairs,” James says. “Are you still willing to assist with them?” 

Okay, one, it’s absolutely adorable how literal James takes all of his questions. Two, that right there is proof James enjoys his company, and now there is nothing the robot can do to get rid of him they are officially inseparable. 

“Of course I am,” Eggs grins. “You might have forgotten about your reputation, but I didn’t, and I was happy to offer my services! Sorry, James, but you’re stuck with me.” 

A smile tugs on the robot’s mouth. “That is good to hear.” 

Eggs kicks at the nearest finger. “Which part, the me helping with repairs or you being stuck with me?” 

He should’ve seen it coming, but the finger he kicked suddenly nudging him back made him jump in surprise. “Both.” 

Fuck yeah, best friends for life! Just a man and his robot- “STOP!” 

James immediately obeys, freezing the moment Eggs yelled. He doesn’t say anything as the man then carefully looks over the edge of the hand to confirm where exactly they are. Doesn’t even seem annoyed he was screamed at for a mistake the designated guide made because he forgot to keep an eye out. 

Good news, they made it! 

Bad news, Eggs forgot to give a heads up about a special guest coming over for dinner. 

“Mind dropping me off at that back door?” he asks, pointing to the metal door visible from their vantage point tens of feet above every building within a mile radius. Looks back at James to see if the robot is happy to help him down, only to find a hand blocking his view as it reaches for him. 

There’s no stopping the shrill scream as the same fingers that pinched his arm before for a handshake now pinch his chest, effortlessly snatching him up even as he tried to run away. He’s then lifted up before getting lowered down, down, down until he’s let go a foot above the ground, falling onto his back with a yelp. 

Okay, that was his fault. He should’ve clarified what he meant by ‘drop off’. That’s something they’ll definitely have to work on. 

It takes Eggs a moment to regain his breath, wheezing as he sits up. Nearly chokes on air when he sees James kneeling down in front of him, looking absolutely massive. 

Eggs feels like a doll with the giant sitting among buildings that were sparred the wrath of bloodthirsty robots, especially when he waves up at those thoughtless eyes as they stare down at him. “Wait there!” 

Without waiting for an answer, he quickly stands up, darting over to the door James literally dropped him next to. Knocks ‘shave and a haircut, two bits’ to prove it is, in fact, the Eggs Benedict in the flesh. 

He hears the sound of multiple locks getting undone before the door opens to reveal a hand. Not just any hand, though. One that would’ve yanked him inside before he could say ‘hello, hello’, meaning Eggs quickly jumps out of the way. 

“What the hell are you doing?” a voice from the darkness demands. “There’s a giant nearby. Get inside before it sees you!” 

“Don’t worry, no one’s getting grabbed today!” Eggs promises. “I found someone I’d like you to meet!” 

He half expects the door to slam shut. But no matter how many times Scott threatened to lock him out, he knows the older man never will. Eggs is too lovable to be abandoned! 

That doesn’t mean Scott doesn’t have his limits when it comes to Eggs’ shenanigans, and considering James walked right next to the building, it’s not surprising the first thing the older man does is glare when he peers out. 

“Eggs, I know you felt the footsteps. Get inside or else-” 

He sees the moment Scott spots James, the man’s face going completely pale within seconds. 

Before Eggs kills him with a heart attack, he clears his throat loudly. “Scott, meet James! James, this is Scott!” 

The robot tilts his head slightly. “Do we complete a customary handshake?” 

Oh shit. “Let’s do it later.” 

“Eggs,” Scott whispers almost too softly for the person in question to hear. “You did not.” 

Eggs beams. “I did! He followed me home and everything! Can we keep him, pleeeeease?” 

Scott slams the door shut.

[spacefrontier]

Launch of an Ariane 5ES, carrying the Georges Lemaître ATV (ATV-5) to orbit. July 29, 2014.

ATV-5 was the fifth and final Automated Transfer Vehicle launched by the European Space Agency. Georges Lemaître carried 6.6 tonnes of experiments, spare parts, clothing, food, fuel, air, oxygen, and water to the International Space Station. With a total mass of 20.3 tonnes, ATV-5 was the heaviest spacecraft ever to be launched by an Ariane rocket.

Georges Lemaître ATV approaching the International Space Station. August 12, 2014.

In addition to transporting cargo, ATV-5 conducted two experiments: LIRIS (Laser InfraRed Imaging Sensors), a new autonomous rendezvous sensor that would allow future spacecraft to dock with uncooperative targets, such as orbital debris or sample capsules. LIRIS was used to dock with the ISS instead of the normal sensors. Break-Up Camera, which recorded the ATV in infrared as it disintegrated during atmospheric reentry. A reinforced black box was used to transmit accelerometer, magnetometer, and temperature readings to an Iridium satellite, but nearly 6,000 images were lost.

NASA 1, 2, 3, 4 ESA

[usafphantom2]

This story reminds me of a movie I heard about when my Dad was still flying the SR-71 called “The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!

In 1977, Buz Carpenter and John Murphy’s TDY at Mildenhall, United Kingdom, was extended to support the air tattoo celebration of the Queen's silver jubilee open house. This would be the first public display of an SR-71 since the record-setting speed record in 1974 from New York to London in under two hours

The SR-71 would be part of the static display but roped off so that people could not touch the aircraft. We were advised that, indeed, the Russians were coming. To prevent the Russians or anybody else from exploiting the display. No sensors were left on the aircraft, all fuel had been removed from the tanks, and the plane was heat-soaked to an ambient temperature to prevent infrared cameras from discovering the aircraft's secrets, internal structure, and support systems. We four crewmembers Buz Carpenter, John Murphy, JT Vida, and Tom Alison were standing around the aircraft, answering questions from the crowd when sure enough the Russians showed up in numbers. They took numerous regular and infrared photos. Some of the Russians even had hidden microscopes.

They were a site to see coming up like a convey of quails. It looks like the Salvation Army had outed them. Their dress sense was from a 1930s movie about American mobsters. They were wearing double-breasted suits made from a rougher cloth than one normally sees.

The head of the Soviet delegation is a former MiG-23 fighter pilot who’s quite relaxed and talkative in his demeanor. He asked John and me to drop in on Vladivostok ( the USSR) as a gesture of peaceful relationship.

We just quipped “please forward that request to our state department” 😆. Buz Carpenter

I found this story in Paul Crickmore‘s new book Lockheed Blackbird Beyond the Secret Missions, the missing chapters.

Linda Sheffield

@Habubrats71 via X

[booleanean]

Day 9 - Aphrodisiacs - Robots with Dicks

"Oh fuck, yes, yes," Carla panted.

She heard Felix scribble something on his clipboard. For an AI postdoc, he was oddly attached to pen and paper.

The Mk1's chassis had been completed weeks ago. Carla had stared at it, stood in the corner of their basement workshop, waiting for Felix to finish training the AI, until finally she couldn't take it anymore.

"Yes, harder, faster." Carla moaned as the robot's control loop interpreted the commands and thrust into her with greater intensity.

Every inch of it was as good as she could make it, artificial filament muscles covered in variably translucent silicone to visually measure performance, hydraulic actuators in the torso visible behind 3D printed transparent aluminium. Strength was about twice what the strongest human could achieve without modification or drugs, dexterity on par with the best industrial robots from ten years ago, but on a fully mobile base. It was the peak of humanoid robotics, right at the very bleeding edge of technology. Their research paper was going to omit certain additions she'd made to it, though she had been half tempted to see if they could win a Nobel and Ig Nobel for the same project.

Felix looked up long enough from his clipboard to stroke her hair.

"Feel good?"

"Oh fuck yes, I'm close."

Even the penis attachments were works of art. Integrated in a special modular pelvis, she'd created two prototypes. The one that was rocking her world right now was a basic steel shaft with an internal set of ducting keeping it at body temperature, and a separate network of microtubules dispensing lubrication along the entire length. Pressure transducers and temperature sensors fed back into the control loop, letting the robot respond to her physiological responses as well as her voice commands.

She was saving the other prototype for the full AI integration test. The basic functionality worked the same as a mammalian penis. Silicone stood in for flesh, with a body safe hydraulic fluid for blood, filling corpora cavernosa made of custom designed aerogel. It even had realistic skin that slid along the basic structure. The sensors were also inspired by biological systems, with increased density in the tip. The piece de resistance was a realistic set of testicles, weighted properly, that contained most of the operating mechanics and a fully functional ejaculation system tuned to mimic anything from a pathetic little dribble to a pressure and volume any porn star would sign away their immortal soul for.

She already had plans for another, more futuristic attachment with a direct magnetic nerve stimulator for the clit and g-spot.

"Fuck YES!" Carla screamed as she came.

The sensors in the robot's dick tripped the control loop into a new regime, keeping the same pace perfectly, matching her thrashing movements, letting her focus on nothing but her own pleasure. The impassive face, silicon lips pressed tightly together, eyes scanning her face mechanically, pulled her out of the moment a little but the perfect fucking it was delivering got her close to the edge again right on the heels of her first orgasm. Just before her pleasure peaked, the robot pulled back out of her completely and sat back on its heels between her legs.

"CONTROL LOOP FAILURE, SAFETY MODE ENGAGED."

She screamed her frustration at the abrupt feeling of emptiness and ruined orgasm so tight on the heels of such a good one.

"Fuck, that sucked." Carla tried to catch her breath. "Mk1, go stand in the corner."

"COMMAND UNCLEAR, PLEASE RESTATE."

She pushed it off the bed with her foot, the basic inverse kinematics keeping it stable as it shifted to the floor. At least that was still working.

"Walk forward four paces, turn forty-five degrees clockwise, walk two more paces, then go into standby mode."

Carla pulled at Felix's shirt, trying to get it off over his head while he tried to hold on to his clipboard.

"Are you going to take notes, or are you going to fuck me? The Mk1 clearly isn't up to the task yet."

He froze, then tossed his clipboard aside. They kissed as he fumbled his pants off. He was inside of her seconds later, rock hard. They'd fantasized together about being with other people, but never wanted to make it a reality. The fantasy was hot, real people was too far for both of them. When they'd been working on the Mk1 together, Carla had suggested a little side project. Felix clearly really got off on seeing her with it, he was rock hard.

"Yes, fuck me, fuck me." Carla rocked her hips against him, meeting him thrust for thrust. She held his gaze, urging him on. Within minutes, he had her back at the edge, years of being together had taught him exactly what she liked. She held herself there, holding back, waiting for him.

"Cum in me, fill me, yes, YES!" Carla felt Felix stiffen inside of her and then warmth flooded her. She let go and screamed his name as she came, "Felix, Felix, Felix!"

When he collapsed on top of her, she stroked his back. He was still inside of her, and she could still feel the occasional twitch of his cock.

"Of course! There was no path from the 'partner orgasm occurring' state into the 'partner orgasm starting' state! God damnit, I forgot to account for multiple orgasms in quick succession. Fuck."

Felix kissed her, muffling her last word. He pushed up on his hands, hovering over her, still inside. "The tensor farm should be done testing the latest model by 8pm. If this one is all green, we can probably have it installed by 10 and give it another shot with the AI this time."

"I'll rewire the state machine for the control loop in case there's any red tests still."

This had been their sex life for the last couple of months, since they started the project to build the ultimate sex bot. After, often with Felix still inside of her, they'd discuss ideas about what they could change, or features they had to have. This was the first time after a field test though.

"Did you like watching me with it?"

"Oh yes. God damn, that was hot."

"Would you ever want to try it? Both cocks are self lubricating, you know."

"Mmm, maybe. I want to see if we can get a threesome mode working first though."

After dinner they guided the bot back onto its stand in the basement workshop with a dozen cables leading to various parts to extract telemetry, recharge, and provide data connections for reprogramming. Carla was getting distracted trying to rewire the state machine, each possible transition suddenly causing both real and imagined sense memories. Felix looked tastier and tastier as she worked. He was futzing with parameters, rerunning partial tests on subsystems. The tests had all been green, but he'd had ideas to get everything optimized before their first live test.

By 2am, they had the first version of Felix's AI uploaded to the Mk1. She and Felix had curated a lot of videos from Pornhub over the last couple of months, finding performances they liked. Lots of hotwife scenes and threesomes, some bisexual stuff, but mostly relatively vanilla scenes. Carla had added some scenes where the male performer was a bit more rough than Felix was comfortable with doing himself, spanking and pinning wrists above heads. For vocal interactions, they'd retrained a large language model on erotica and textual descriptions of the scenes in the porn videos, generated by an off the shelf accessibility AI.

There wasn't any actual universal intelligence in the robot of course. This was a sexy version of an AI chat bot that most phones had built in now, combined with a convoluted control loop for its physical interactions. Simply a very clever way of giving the impression that something was smart, when really all it was doing was basic pattern recognition based on a predefined dataset.

"Want to give it a shot?" Felix asked, but Carla shook her head.

"I want you, not the bot."

Shutting the bot down for the night, Carla drew Felix upstairs back to their bedroom. As they made love, they teased each other with all the amazing things they'd do with the robot tomorrow and in the weeks to come.

The next weekend, Carla really had to admit Felix had been right. Her control loop version of the robot's software was good. It got her off just fine, but it was impersonal. As its designer, she had a hard time focusing on herself as she felt it roll into new control regimes. The AI felt much more human. He looked at you, used his hands for more than balance, and even showed some imperfections in his motions. He got (artificially) winded, slipped out, fell over, all the things a real human partner would do. The experience was so much more realistic, she sometimes forgot it was a robot fucking her if she couldn't see him.

She sat at her desk in their upstairs office now, working on the more serious portion of her research. They had run a series of strength and dexterity tests that afternoon, characterizing the robot's ability to maintain precision while assert force at different levels, and she was processing the data. Felix was downstairs in the lab, tinkering with parameters and adjusting the training data for the next version of the AI.

Carla heard the neighbor plug in his bass guitar, the amp turned way up. She muttered under her breath about people not respecting their tools. Didn't he know he could damage the speaker like that? The noise wasn't too bad, but listening to Seven Nation Army played by a spirited amateur over and over again didn't really appeal either. Her noise cancelling headphones were in the basement with Felix though, so for now she'd just suffer through.

Her phone beeped halfway through the neighbor's warmup.

Felix: Robot reacting to bass music. Carla: "music" Felix: He's getting better. Anyway:

The next message was the robot's dick, the biomorphic one, clearly at half mast.

Carla: Is he on? Felix: in standby Carla: Odd. Sensors recording? Felix: Yup, caught it before the buffer flushed. AI parameter log too. Carla: nice

Before she could really get back into her work, the neighbor finished Seven Nation Army. The next tune he played was the Pornhub sting. She almost spat out her drink. He did a pretty good version, though the lack of drums made it not quite perfect.

Before she could get back into her work, Felix yelled from down in the basement.

"Carla, come take a look at this!"

The Mk1 was standing in its alcove, still docked to all the various wires and cables. Felix was standing in front of it, studying the biomorphic cock. It was throbbing like a real one would.

"Remember how it was at half mast during the first song the neighbor was playing? Despite it being in standby? I think I figured out the reason."

The neighbor, who had just finished House of the Rising Sun, chose that moment to play another couple of Pornhub opening stingers. The Mk1 responded, humping the air slightly, his cock throbbing.

"You didn't cut out the intros on the training data so—"

"— now every time it hears bass music, and the Pornhub riff in particular, it gets aroused. It's still in standby, it's barely drawing current, but there's enough residual charge in the artificial muscle fibers for, well, this." He gestured at the robot's midsection, still rocking back and forth.

"Aren't the tensor cores supposed to be off?" Carla watched a slow drop of lubricant fall from the tip of the twitching robot cock.

Felix shook his head, "Some stay on to parse voice commands."

She reached out, touching the silicone cock. It was slick, the lubricant dispensers clearly activated. It was interesting to see that it was apparently simulating precum as well, despite that not necessarily being the focus of their training data. The artificial dick twitched at her touch, and she grasped it firmly, stroking up and down. A slow trickle of fake cum was leaking out the tip now, covering her hand.

"So we're thinking bass guitar is a robo-aphrodisiac then? Because you trained it on videos with Pornhub intros?"

"Mm-hmm."

"That's hilarious."

"And means I have to remove the intro from over fifteen hundred videos, and then retrain and retest the entire model." Felix sighed heavily. "Again."

"There's an ffmpeg command for that, surely."

"The trimming, sure."

Carla kept stroking the robot's cock, watching the artificial foreskin slide back and forth over the head.

"Seems like a shame to waste this though. It really shouldn't be erect out in the open air for too long, it's designed with the idea of at least some counter pressure. Also, it would be a shame to not gather some extra data. It might be interesting to have a robo-aphrodisiac function, though maybe something more specific that won't just trigger if someone forgets to unplug their Bluetooth speaker when they're going to rub one out."

Felix grinned at her, then nodded.

Carla pulled her sweat pants and top off, standing naked in front of the mechanical man. "Mk1, wake up."

The Mk1 went through his wakeup sequence, part mandated by technology, part for show because they were both massive nerds. The cables, mostly plugged in along his arms and back, ejected and retracted into the alcove like Neo waking up in the real world for the first time. The sound effect of Seven of Nine's alcove powering down at the end of her regeneration cycle played, and Mk1 took a single step forward.

"Hello Carla, nice to see you again. What would you like to do today?"

Felix had campaigned long and hard for the robot to say "Please state the nature of the sexual emergency" but eventually she had put her foot down. The chances of that ending up in a version they showed off at their defense were too high, and while Robert Picardo could get it, the Doctor was a bit too acerbic for her tastes.

She walked over to the mattress they kept in the basement for quick tests, standing at the foot. She was in the mood for something a bit more rough than just the vanilla stuff they'd tried with the bot so far, and this heightened state it was operating in seemed to be a perfect opportunity to try that out.

"Take me. Be a little rough."

Before, he'd always asked for confirmation before initiating anything sexual. It hadn't been hardwired, but the AI training data was heavily incentivized towards asking consent first. This time though, with three long, powerful strides he was inches away from her. The intensity of his movements were a little scary, but she had the utmost faith in her and Felix's work. Still, she took a half step back reflexively.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Felix asked.

Carla stood staring at the Mk1, transfixed by his gaze. She knew it was just servos and cameras and tensor cores running a neural network, there was nothing there, but she still couldn't look away.

"I need this," Carla whispered.

With that, Mk1 took one more step, pushing her over and onto the mattress. He guided her down as they tumbled, cushioning her fall a little and making sure her head didn't hit the ground, but it was still an intense experience.

Decided to fight a little, she tried to push him off. He gathered her wrists in one hand and effortlessly pinned her arms above her head.

"Pause," Carla said.

Immediately, the Mk1 froze. He still held her, but the pressure on her wrists was lower, and he held all his weight off of her.

"Good, that still works just fine. Resume."

The intensity the Mk1 showed was unreal. She'd enjoyed him before, but with this added level of robotic arousal added on top, she could finally completely lose herself in the act. There was no room for thinking about kinematics and control loops, muscle fiber force limits, defects, or additions to the training data. There was no worry about her partner's pleasure, no anxiety for her own performance. All that was there was her own pleasure, pure and uncomplicated.

She fantasized about a future where a Mk2 and Mk3 could join in with the Mk1, taking turns getting her off, letting them recharge and refuel in shifts as they spent an entire day teasing her from orgasm to orgasm.

Mk1's synthesized voice, indistinguishable from human despite being produced by a speaker rather than a voice box, let her know how good this felt for him. All artificial of course, but so necessary for a realistic experience. Soft moans, grunts, little gasps. Even simulated breathing growing shorter as he exerted himself. It had still sounded artificial to her previously, but now it just went straight to the pleasure center of her brain, letting her enjoy the moment even more. She came, crying out as he whispered her name in her ear.

Just as her wrists were beginning to hurt, he shifted, pulling her legs up against his chest. The new position let him reach new and interesting places inside of her, the intentional curve she'd put on his cock letting him hit her g-spot. As she approached her second orgasm of the afternoon, he started moaning louder, grunting. When she came, so did he. The twitching of his cock was entirely lifelike, his orgasm forceful enough she could feel it deep inside of her.

She lay there panting, and he emulated her, letting her bask in the moment. Felix had sat next to her on the mattress, watching her closely. She could see his erection clearly in his sweats.

"That looked intense," he said when she looked over to him.

"Oh yes. We definitely need this feature."

"Would you like to continue?" the Mk1 asked.

Carla flicked her gaze down to Felix's sweats then looked him in the eyes. "Join us?"

Felix grinned and started pulling his shirt off.