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Darren meets prototype ACR-172-330.2-C over three months early.
It happens because he’s bothering Natalee, the newest tech in Engineering — she’s hot as fuck and he wouldn’t mind getting into her pants (or, perhaps more accurately, her lab coat). It’s all very chivalrous, of course, since she’s obviously also smart as fuck (she works in Engineering, after all), and she seems sweet and interesting too, so it’s more like he’s been trying to get into her life, like going on dates and shit. Either way, he’d just finished up a session with his latest case when he’d caught sight of Nat heading down the hallway, and he’d been only too happy to pretend to be heading the same way.
He accompanies her very chivalrously down the hallway, until she pauses outside a door with a grin and a cheerful, “well, this is my stop!” It’s really fucking cute. And then it gets really fucking interesting when she casts a furtive look up and down the hallway and asks, “So — do you want to see the latest version?”
Darren quirks his eyebrows up. He’s probably not supposed to. He’s in Socialization, so he usually doesn’t see the androids until they’re released from Programming, but it’s not like anyone’s ever specifically told him not to see them beforehand. “Really?”
Natalee cracks the door. Darren peeks into the room, and then steps quickly in when she hurries him.
When Darren gets a good look at the android, he lets out a low whistle. “Wow.”
“I know, right?” Nat agrees. “They’re getting so lifelike. You can hardly tell the difference anymore.”
She’s not wrong, but that’s not the only reason Darren is so taken aback. The android is male, and it is remarkably realistic. If Darren overlooks the fact that one of the ’droid’s arm panels is open, exposing a bundle of wires, he could be looking at another person. Darren’s pretty used to that, though. He’s staring because the android is fucking stunning, with pale skin and bright eyes, almost regal in its robot-stiff posture. Darren knows it isn’t all by design — there is some bio in the biotech, after all — but he gives Development or Engineering or whoever the fuck is responsible some quick mental kudos. The android looks unblinkingly back and forth between them — well, Darren would say curiously, but it’s not like androids are curious, exactly. They’re constantly taking in data to analyze, and it can be a little unnerving, but it’s another thing that Darren’s gotten accustomed to by now.
He angles his head to sneak a peek at Natalee’s clipboard and catches sight of the last few characters of the android’s ID. “C? What are you calling him?”
“Chris,” Nat responds, and the android’s head swivels toward her.
“Yes?” it asks.
Natalee smiles. “Hi, Chris. This is Darren.”
Chris turns back to look at Darren again. “You’re one-point-two inches shorter than the average American male,” he comments, his voice flat and expressionless.
Out of the corner of his eye, Darren sees a flustered expression flicker across Nat’s face, but he just laughs. “Well, he’s a scintillating conversationalist. I usually wear high heels,” he adds, directing his last comment to Chris, who accepts the announcement with an untroubled nod.
Natalee nudges Darren with the corner of her clipboard. “Don’t do that stuff yet,” she murmurs. “He’s not fully programmed.”
“My programming is twenty-nine-point-one-two percent complete,” Chris reports.
“Congratulations, dude,” Darren chimes in, and Natalee pokes him in the arm again.
“Chris,” she says, “Darren was just making a joke. He doesn’t actually wear high heels.” There’s another wisecrack on the tip of Darren’s tongue, but Nat shoots him a warning look. “Do you understand?”
The android nods. “Darren doesn’t wear high heels. Affirmative. Data overwritten.”
“You’re no fun,” Darren hisses at Natalee.
“He doesn’t understand jokes yet,” she whispers back, even though Chris’s auditory system is certainly good enough to pick up on anything they say, no matter how quiet. “Now get out of here before you cause any more trouble!”
She’s teasing him though, with a big grin, and he shoots her a dazzling smile as he slips back out of the room.
*
Darren’s uneven stumble into a career socializing humanoid robots definitely hadn’t been a part of his long-term plans. For as long as he could remember, he’d wanted to act, so naturally, he’d studied drama and theater in college. The skills he’d learned had translated surprisingly well into the Socialization Department at Link Industries, America’s leader in android development and artificial intelligence. His job is almost as much acting as it is teaching, after all. Still, it isn’t something he’d ever imagined himself doing.
He’d been in and out of work for months, dangling at the end of his financial rope, when a friend of his brother’s had somehow scored him a job in Link’s commissary. Happy for the paycheck, Darren had cleaned and scooped spaghetti and stocked shelves and manned cash registers, and eventually, after bothering the coffee counter workers with constant questions, filled in as a barista at the coffee bar too. It was there, in the cafeteria, that he’d started interacting with the androids.
They were extremely realistic, even back then, but oftentimes, their mannerisms set them apart, especially when they weren’t fully programmed or socialized. They’d sit up too straight or stay too still or maintain unwavering eye contact. They didn’t eat, of course, but the huge lunch room had always been a great place to observe and practice human behavior, so a lot of them were there to learn.
Despite working for the company’s largest biotech firm, some of Darren’s commissary coworkers had been freaked out by the ‘droids, which Darren thought was really pretty dumb. He’d always been kind of fascinated by them, and in fact, started seeking them out for conversation when he had the chance. It’s just so fucking cool to be able to hold a conversation with a robot. He’s never minded when they don’t get his jokes (which, frankly, is what usually happens) or say weird shit. That just makes things more interesting. He thinks they like talking to him too — inasmuch as they can like anything. Darren treats them just the same as he does anyone else, and he thinks that has to count for something.
Well, someone must have had their eye on all of it, because out of nowhere, Darren was going through interviews for a promotion and doing a battery of tests that’d seemed completely unnecessary for, like, the Assistant Food Service Manager. And they were, but they’d secured Darren a job in android socialization.
It’s a strange, intriguing job. When the androids come off the line (so to speak), they’re programmed with the basic framework for human behavior and interaction. But they need to practice, and they need to learn. Only the wealthiest of citizens can afford to buy one of Link’s products, and they don’t want shoddy, half-finished, really-obviously-not-human goods. Darren typically spends a few months with each of his assignments. There’s just so much to cover, like how to navigate stores, restaurants, interpersonal relationships, public transportation, and about a million other things. Like sex.
So yeah, sometimes Darren fucks robots. Or they fuck him.
The way he sees it, safe, no-strings-attached orgasms aren’t the worst job benefit he’s ever been offered. And it’s a benefit he’s gotten to exercise often. Even though he’d generally slept with women before he’d started the socialization job, when the head of the department asked him whether he’d be comfortable working with androids of the same gender, Darren had just shrugged. He’s a pretty open guy — apparently in more ways than one, because he discovers that he definitely doesn’t mind teaching the male androids how to fuck. As an added bonus, his willingness to work with any of the ’droids means he’s almost never furloughed, unlike some of his less flexible counterparts.
All in all, it’s a pretty sweet gig, but the thing that sucks is that it messes with his social life. Not just because he’s having semi-regular, non-emotional sex with androids but because he works with them at all. Darren doesn’t quite get it. There have been service ‘bots in use for almost two decades, so it’s not like people aren’t already used to having robots around. Somehow though, the more human androids become, the less people want to treat them like humans. (And Darren can’t even begin to dwell on the fact that he has to train androids to have sex with people who are probably going to treat them like dirt. It’s just all really fucked up. They’re machines, but they’re so much more than machines.) It makes Darren wonder what it must have been like when the word technophobe just meant someone who preferred not to use a mobile device.
*
Darren doesn’t really expect to see Chris again, at least not for any extended period of time. Prototype models are usually handed off to the more senior members of the Socialization staff, and for the most part, they’re kept separate from the androids being prepared for their affluent buyers. In fact, Chris is the first prototype he’s spent more than thirty seconds with in his five years of socialization and almost seven years at Link.
But then, Anthony takes another job and Tierney’s about to go out on maternity leave and can’t take on any new projects, and Development clears several prototype units for socialization trials at once — and suddenly Darren is a more senior member of the department, and he’s getting a crash course on the Prototype Socialization Procedure manual and the extra reporting requirements that go along with it. He gets his assignment paperwork on a Thursday, and he’s so distracted with trying to get up to speed that the ID number doesn’t really ping. Then, the next week, he walks into his Socialization lab to see —
“Chris!” he exclaims happily, a smile breaking across his face. “Hey!”
He looks way more natural now, sitting with a slight slouch in the chair on the other side of the lab table. His face is more relaxed, and he even smiles as he replies, “Hi, Darren. Good to see you again.”
Darren beams back. “Hey, man, you look great. You must be more than thirty percent programmed by now.”
Chris’s eyes track Darren across the room, but he stays a little too still otherwise. “Ninety-six-point-five-two,” he says. “And you’re not wearing high heels.”
“Not today,” Darren says, still grinning, and Chris smiles back politely in acknowledgment. It’s good progress, but it could definitely use some work. Darren spreads his papers and binders out on the table. “Are you ready to get started?” He drops into the seat opposite Chris’s.
“I suppose.” Chris looks down at all of the materials. “Although I don’t know exactly what for.”
Watching him, Darren can’t help but be impressed with the advancements in technology in the time since he’d started in Socialization. He can’t identify a single glitch in Chris’s movements, and five years ago, a newly-minted robot would never have said I suppose instead of yes or affirmative. “Well, that’s why we’re going to go through everything before we really get started. And you can ask me all the questions you want, okay?”
Chris looks up, and Darren, for the first time, gets a close-up look at how richly blue and variable his eyes are. He’d noticed, the first time he’d seen Chris, that they were bright and clear, but that doesn’t quite describe it. Eyes used to be something that clearly identified androids, because they were either flat or too dull or too shiny. Chris’s aren’t any of those things. They’re so real that they’re almost hyper-real, and Darren blinks a few times as he looks into them.
“Okay,” Chris says, interrupting his reverie. “Let’s get started.”
*
Working on Chris’s socialization is a new and fascinating experience. All the androids pick up information quickly, of course, but Chris seems to do it in the blink of an eye. He picks up more and more human behavior each day. His engineering is obviously fucking amazing, and he even has a sense of humor. It’s dry and sarcastic and, well, robotic — but it’s there.
Darren’s pretty sure that the high heels comment on the first day was a joke, and then, a few weeks later when Darren’s trying to quickly add a row of numbers in his head, he mutters, “Just a sec. Sorry man, I just can’t do math in my brain.”
“Me neither,” Chris says. Darren shoots him a suspicious look, and he adds, “I use my neuroprocessing unit,” his lips twitching up at one corner.
It’s motherfucking terrible, and Darren completely cracks up. It’s not even that funny, but Darren’s not really in any position to judge. After all, Chris is new to the whole humor thing, and it’s not like Darren doesn’t make dumbass jokes at every possible opportunity. Chris’s smile broadens and he looks almost triumphant.
So yeah, Darren likes Chris’s goofy sense of humor, likes how smart Chris is, and if he’s being honest, likes Chris more than the other ’droids he’s worked with in the past. Their sessions together are interesting, especially because Chris asks so many questions. Seriously, he asks a lot of them. When Darren’s teaching Chris about stores and shopping, Chris interrogates him about the different types of stores there are, and what kind of stores Darren likes, and do all grocery stores sell the same food, and what foods are Darren’s favorite (and he even laughs now when Darren says pretty much all of them — clearly, Darren’s teaching him well). He requests permission to watch the movies that Darren says he likes, and they have awesome discussions about them afterward.
Sometimes awesome means thought-provoking and kind of sad.
After Chris watches the first Star Wars movie on Darren’s recommendation, he asks, “People like C-3PO and R2-D2, right? I did some research, and there are Halloween costumes and action figures for sale. People like them as characters.”
“Yeah,” Darren says with a curious tilt of his head. “I mean, other characters are probably more popular. Like Chewbacca. A lot of guys like Leia in the gold bikini.” Darren likes Leia in the gold bikini, but that’s not really the point. “But everyone knows them, yeah.”
“They’re heroes in the movie,” Chris continues.
“Right,” Darren agrees slowly, still not really getting it.
Chris nods like he’s processing something. He probably is. “I don’t understand. Why are people comfortable with fictional androids, but so biased against real ones?”
Darren’s eyebrows shoot up. “That is… a really good question, Chris. A really good one.”
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” Chris continues, his brow furrowing in frustration in an expression he picked up from Darren. “People are willing to wear costumes to look like C-3PO, but they don’t want actual robots to have any rights. They say we aren’t people. They basically want us to be human slaves, and I don’t understand it.”
The main thought running through Darren’s head is well, fuck. It’s definitely a conversation he has never had with any of his socialization cases. For a second, he kind of wishes that Chris weren’t quite as smart as he is, but Darren doesn’t really want that. “It doesn’t really make sense,” he finally agrees. “Not logically, anyway, and that’s how you process things. What’s happening with androids is bigotry and discrimination, and that usually comes from fear.”
“So why are people afraid of us?”
Darren shrugs. “Not all people are. I’m not. But people are scared of things that are different. And androids are definitely different.”
“But they’re not scared of the Star Wars androids.”
“They aren’t real. You’re real.”
Chris just shakes his head. “It still doesn’t make sense. There’s no reason we should be treated any differently than anyone else.”
And Darren really can’t disagree with that. “You shouldn’t,” he says bluntly, “and it sucks.”
*
There are team meetings about Chris’s progress — weekly at first, but they stretch out over time. Darren learns there that Chris has been trying to ask the same questions and have some of the same discussions with other members of the staff while they’re tweaking his wiring or uploading patches to his programming, but they haven’t engaged him in the same way. Darren knows that’s his job, but still, he doesn’t get it (even though he’s secretly a little relieved). Talking with Chris is fascinating, and he’d want to do it if he was still slinging burgers in the cafeteria.
It’s just that their conversations are so fucking awesome, and to be honest, Darren’s life has been a little fucking-awesome-conversation-light lately. Between friends that have packed up and left the city and friends that no longer are because they’re weirded out by the whole android thing, Darren’s left with… not many friends. And the few that are still around aren’t exactly close companions. More like the meet-up-once-every-couple-weeks-to-bitch-about-the-daily-grind-over-a-beer kind of friends. But anyway, now he gets to talk to Chris every day, and it’s rad, and work barely feels like work anymore.
*
“Darren?” Chris asks him one day, while Darren is jotting down a few notes between exercises.
“Yeah?” he responds, distracted.
“What happens when this is all over?”
Darren finishes scratching out a thought and glances up. “What do you mean?”
“You said I’m a prototype, and that these are all tests. I’m not being socialized for a buyer. So what’s going to happen to me when we’re done with this whole process?”
Chris is watching him carefully, so Darren keeps his face neutral, even though his brain is just all aw, shit. “Well,” he finally says, “someone might still buy you.” It’s not a lie. Every once in a blue moon, they do sell a prototype on the cheap to someone who doesn’t care that it isn’t made to spec — where on the cheap means four times what Darren makes in a year, instead of eight or nine times his salary. “Or sometimes prototypes are put to use around the facility.”
“What do you mean by put to use?” Chris asks suspiciously.
Darren shrugs. “Oh, you know — cleaning, filing, laundry, that sort of thing.”
Chris doesn’t look too thrilled at the prospect of being a glorified service ‘bot. Nor should he, Darren thinks grimly, but he might if he knew the far more likely alternative: prototypes are usually studied, then scrapped. He can’t bring himself to say it, though. It makes Darren uncomfortable — he’s never worked with an android that was destined to be dismantled, rather than going on to another life. Instead, he leans back over his notebook and starts scribbling again.
He can practically feel Chris watching him. Eventually, Chris just says, “Okay.”
*
Darren can’t deny it: he’s fucking nervous when he knows it’s almost time to introduce Concepts of Human Romance and Sexuality to Chris. It’s something he hasn’t experienced since his first few socialization cases. After five years, the whole thing is mostly just work. There’s some excitement about getting to have sex, which — if he’s being honest with himself — is kind of gross, but he can’t help it. And there’s nothing wrong with that, right? Sex is enjoyable, and it just happens to be part of his job.
Something seems different this time, though, and he’s not exactly sure what. Maybe it’s because Chris’s technology is so advanced that he practically seems like another human being. Maybe it’s because Chris isn’t even going to exist in another few months. Maybe it’s because the prototype assignment seems more intense than what he’s used to. Darren definitely spends more time with Chris than with any of the androids he’d worked with previously, and he has to put so much more work into his reports. Some combination of those reasons is definitely the reason he’s feeling weird. And maybe some other stuff that he’s trying to ignore.
So, basically, Darren is dreading the end of Chris’s conceptual learning, where he reads educational documents and they have discussions about them. Because that means it’s time to put knowledge into practice.
Things actually start getting uncomfortable even earlier than that, when Chris looks up from the pages they’re reviewing and asks, “So, holding hands is generally done for comfort?”
“Comfort, connection, companionship,” Darren says. Those all start with C. He frowns. “Because it feels nice.”
“Really?” Chris sounds doubtful. He looks down at his hands, then interlaces his fingers.
Darren has to chuckle. He’s so amused, in fact, that he doesn’t feel much apprehension when he extends his arm across the table. “It can be different when it’s someone else. Here. Give it a try.” He’s not actually sure whether it will be any different for Chris. In Darren’s experience, androids basically find hand-holding to be an experience that’s at best, neutral, and at worst, limiting. Not that it matters — it’s not something that humans usually do with their androids. Sex, sure, that’s fine but actual affection is taboo. Still, some of the newer models have been more accepting of it, and Chris is more advanced than any of them, so Darren’s curious. Besides, Chris had asked.
Chris unhooks his own hands and slides one across to meet Darren’s, taking it without hesitation. Darren jolts a little in surprise at how real Chris’s hand feels — it’s warm with soft artificial skin, and the structures inside of it feel just like human bones. Their fingers link, and when Darren’s thumb ends up on the outside, he instinctively starts sweeping it up and down over Chris’s.
“Oh,” Chris says. His eyes are glued to their clasped hands, and he takes a deep unnecessary breath. His cheeks look a little pinker than usual, and Darren marvels at it all because fuck, that’s some impressive programming. “It does feel nice,” Chris adds as he moves his own thumb, a firm, smooth slide over Darren’s, until Darren’s thumb is pinned against his own hand while Chris strokes it.
Something ignites white-hot in Darren’s gut, and he tamps it down quickly. Giving Chris’s hand a final squeeze, he says “it does,” and then releases it.
Chris takes his hand slowly back to himself and glances down, shuffling his papers.
Darren clears his throat. “Do you, um — do you have any other questions?”
“No, not right now,” Chris replies. “I’ll finish reading these and let you know if I think of any.”
“That sounds good,” Darren says. When Chris remains silent, he grabs a pen and his notebook. C asked why people hold hands. Explained and demonstrated, he jots. It feels incomplete, but Darren doesn’t exert himself to write any more.
*
And then they’re through hand-holding and other casual forms of affection, and they’ve discussed the social norms, and it’s time for more practical application.
Specifically, today is the day that Darren’s actually going to start teaching Chris what it’s like to kiss someone. Not just someone. Darren. Darren’s going to teach Chris what it’s like to kiss him.
After Darren answers some questions that Chris has about kissing in general — and it becomes rapidly obvious that Chris is pretty curious about the whole concept — Darren moves around to sit on Chris’s side of the lab table, right next to him in an uncomfortable, standard issue, plastic-and-metal chair. He squirms around in it uneasily, then looks up at Chris.
“What do we do now?” Chris asks guilelessly.
“Well, um — first, you don’t do anything,” Darren instructs, shifting his weight again. “I’m going to kiss you, once, just so you can get used to what it feels like. All you need to do is stay still. Please.” It’s the Socialization team’s established procedure, and it’s more of a safety precaution than anything. In the early days of the training program, when the ‘droids just tried to imitate what they’d seen on television and in movies, there has been more than a few incidents involving bruises and bloody lips.
“Okay,” Chris says. He goes stock still, staring at Darren.
Darren edges forward and then adds, “You should close your eyes. You’ll freak people out if you don’t.”
Chris repeats his okay and slides his eyelids shut.
Which means there’s nothing left for Darren to do, but — well. He scoots forward on his chair and leans over, taking a deep breath and one close-up look at Chris’s face before he pressing a single, soft kiss to Chris’s mouth. Darren’s heart accelerates thinly, a traitor in his own chest, and he lingers for a maybe a moment longer than he should. Maybe. Probably.
And underneath his, Chris’s lips lift, just a little.
Darren breaks the kiss with a hasty smack, and he sits quickly back in his chair while Chris opens his eyes. He’s pretty sure that he’s supposed to be asking Chris some questions or giving him instructions or — something. What comes out is: “So, what did you think?”
Chris looks thoughtful, and one corner of his mouth tilts up. “It’s definitely pleasurable.”
“Pleasurable,” Darren says. “Good. Um, that’s good.” He fumbles for his notebook, scrawls out the word pleasurable, and tosses it immediately back aside. Chris just keeps watching him curiously. “Okay. Okay! So, next up, I’m going to kiss you again, longer this time. And you return the pressure. Just… gently.”
Chris nods in understanding and closes his eyes without being prompted.
Mentally, Darren cracks his knuckles to psych himself up. He feels an uncanny urge to make this good, even though Chris won’t really have any idea whether it is or not. Darren shuffles forward, carefully touches one side of Chris’s face, and brings their lips back together.
It takes a second or two, but then Chris is returning it. Darren realigns them just slightly but keeps it light, plucking softly at Chris’s mouth over and over again, feeling Chris respond, feeling his own lower lip dropping open a little almost of its own accord so that Chris’s can fit right in between.
And then, after maybe half a dozen kisses, Chris reaches across and puts one hand on Darren’s knee.
Darren startles and breaks away from Chris’s mouth to look down. “Um…”
Chris snatches his hand back. “Sorry. It was just something I saw in a movie. I thought I was supposed to.”
“We’ll get to that,” Darren says faintly. “But you, ah — you were doing just fine.”
“Good.” Chris beams. “I liked it.”
“Yeah, well, kissing is really —” Darren averts his gaze and his eyes drop to his notebook “— pleasurable.” He tugs his notes back toward himself, jots down he liked it and practically shoves the papers back to the other side of the table.
Chris watches his agitated movements curiously. “Is everything okay?”
“Fine, fine,” Darren replies, aiming for breezy. “Do you remember reading about French kissing?”
“With tongues, right?” Chris says immediately. “Although there’s no real purpose for the tongues.”
“Just pleasure,” Darren chokes out.
Chris nods. “All right. It sounds kind of weird though.”
“Well, let’s — try it,” Darren says. “And you can decide what you think. I’ll, um… I’ll use my tongue first. You can respond if you want, or stop me if you don’t want to keep going by tapping my arm —” he demonstrates quickly against Chris’s bicep “— but whatever you do, please don’t bite.”
“No biting. Got it.” Chris closes his eyes again, and this time, he relaxes his mouth a little, leaving it temptingly ajar.
Darren sucks in a thick breath, holding it just briefly before puffing it back out. Then he leans over, slots his mouth around Chris’s top lip and — goes for it.
It’s different. Different from the other times he’s had to do this, and Darren is making it different, and he doesn’t know why and he doesn’t know how to stop. In the past, it’s been enjoyable but clinical, an uncreative step one, step two, step three. This time, though, he draws gently on Chris’s upper lip twice, letting Chris kiss him back, and then he parts his own, slides his tongue out and drags it along the skin he finds there, lingering a bit before he pushes it back, into the wetness of Chris’s mouth.
Like any other android, Chris tastes clean, fresh, a little minty. It’s on purpose, because everyone in the company knows there’s a good chance that any one of the ’droids might end up being used as a fuck toy. Darren dives into it, and there’s Chris’s tongue, which strokes along his own with little hesitation. It escalates — really fast. Darren doesn’t even know how fucking fast, because it seems like one second they’re just starting, and the next he’s clutching Chris’s face even though he doesn’t remember doing it, and Chris is holding on too tightly and his breath is getting hitchy even though he doesn’t need to breathe, and they’re totally sucking face and Darren is halfway out of his seat and about to climb onto Chris’s chair.
Then Chris kind of scrapes his teeth along Darren’s tongue as Darren is drawing it back, and he breaks away with a gasp. “Sorry!”
Darren blinks his eyes open and drops back into his own chair with a stunned thunk. He’s more than half-masted against the fly of his work pants, but it’s hidden by his lab coat. “Um.”
“I’m sorry,” Chris repeats. “I was biting you a little when you asked me not to.” His eyes are a wider than they usually are, and they’re fixed right on Darren.
“That… was actually okay,” Darren says, and his voice actually fucking shakes. He fumbles for his papers, scribbles strong reaction to and then tosses his pen down without finishing the thought. “I just didn’t want you to take my f- to take my tongue off. I don’t mind some biting. Personally, I mean. Um, some people don’t. It depends.” He tries to sound like he’s imparting some great wisdom about human behavior, but in reality, he sounds exactly like he feels, like his brain is fucking scrambled.
“Okay,” Chris replies, still staring.
Darren shifts in his chair. “So, it kinda seems like you… don’t think it’s that weird anymore.”
“Oh,” Chris says. “No. It’s something I wouldn’t mind doing again.” And he’s still just fucking watching Darren.
Darren’s not dumb, and he — and his dick — want nothing more than to just lunge back over, but he keeps his ass planted firmly in his seat. “Well, you’ll get to,” he points out, almost as much to reassure himself. “When we do practical application of… other concepts.”
“Other concepts,” Chris repeats carefully.
“Yup,” Darren says, but he doesn’t elaborate.
*
He’s talking about fucking. Because they’re going to fuck.
More specifically, they’re going to fuck today.
He meets Chris in a different part of the facility, a short hallway of pristine private rooms that contain beds made up with bleached white sheets. Although there’s been heated debate throughout the department about putting cameras in them for observation, it hasn’t happened yet, and Darren is glad. Because as soon as he walks in and sees Chris perched on one side of the mattress, he starts worrying — more like becomes fucking sure — that he’s going to do something embarrassing. Like coming in his pants before they even get started. Or worse, and he’s not even sure what worse is yet.
Chris is dressed in plain, loose clothing, and he looks alert and eager when he greets Darren.
Darren returns it with a strangled “hey” as he sets his papers on the table near the door. He’d thought that he’d psyched himself up enough to handle the lesson like it was happening with any other android, but the second he’d set eyes on Chris, he’d known it would be impossible, because this whole situation is fucking him up a little. Maybe it’s fucking him up a lot.
“How are you?” Chris asks, tilting his head just slightly. It’s the politeness that’s always a focus of socialization, Darren thinks, and excellent observational skills. As always, Chris is an exceptional model.
Darren also thinks, sternly, get it the fuck together. It’s just another assignment. The fluorescent light overhead is buzzing, and Darren squints up at it as he says, “Fine. Perfectly fine. You read the protocol for today?”
“I did,” Chris confirms with a nod.
“Do you have any questions before we get started?”
Chris shakes his head. “No. I’ll just ask along the way if I think of any, if that’s okay.”
“Of course,” Darren says. He throws the lock on the door. The loud clunk sounds more ominous than it probably should. “Oh-kay. I’m going to start by taking off my jacket and shirt.”
“Okay.” Chris’s gaze drops baldly to Darren’s hands on the buttons of his lab coat.
Darren rocks back on his heels, then forward again. “Okay, here we go.” He shucks his white coat, tossing it onto a nearby chair, and starts to unbutton his shirt. His heart is pounding in his chest. He hasn’t been this nervous since his first android sex ed session — with a nonthreatening, skinny blonde ‘bot, female, everything quick and perfunctory. A lot of the feelings are the same, but it’s different too, because this feels a lot more dangerous. Gooseflesh washes across Darren’s skin as he lets the shirt slide off over his shoulders. The private rooms are always too cold, but the way Chris is looking him over curiously makes him heat up all over again.
“Are you still okay with moving forward?” Darren asks, sticking with the script but fidgeting like crazy. It’s impossible to stand naturally. Everything suddenly feels like he’s trying to either hide himself or strike a pose.
Chris’s eyes flicker up to meet his. “Yes.”
“All right. I’m going to continue undressing but leave my underwear on —” thank god for rote memorization “— and you should start too.”
Chris nods and stands, beginning to disrobe almost — well — robotically. Darren turns his attention to his own fly, because pants are next, and he focuses more attention than is strictly necessary on unfastening his belt. His cock is already twitching and stirring,which is technically not an issue, given the goal of the afternoon, but it seems a little overenthusiastic. The thought disappears in a cloud of gobsmacked dust when Darren turns back to Chris and finds him naked, stowing his immaculately-folded garments on the shelving unit across from the foot of the bed.
Yeah, getting hard: not going to be any sort of problem.
Darren can’t help himself — he lets his eyes rake over Chris’s lean musculature, and seriously, A-fucking-plus to Engineering or whoever’s responsible for that. Then Chris turns to face him, and Darren’s eyebrows shoot up. Well. A-fucking-double-plus.
“So,” Chris says, his eyes making slow, bold circuits over Darren’s body. “What’s next?”
Darren swallows a little thickly. “Fingering.”
Chris just nods again. “And you’re going to do it to me first, right?”
“Yup,” Darren replies, his voice an unnatural squeak. He clears his throat self-consciously. “Why don’t you get on the bed, on your hands and knees?”
“Okay.” And not ten seconds later, Chris is on the bed. Naked and on all fours. Waiting. For Darren, who turns quickly to retrieve a bottle of lube from the shelves on the other side of the room. He sucks in a deep breath, lets it out, and walks back across the room with all the false bravado he can muster.
He climbs up onto the foot of the bed and looks at Chris, trying desperately to get back into a professional frame of mind. Hands and knees is actually Darren’s go-to position for this; it gives him easier access and makes things a little more clinical because of the disconnect, but suddenly, it seems wrong, and Darren doesn’t like it at all. There’s no law stating that they have to do it doggy style, so, before he can think about it any more, Darren says, “On second thought, why don’t you turn over and lie on your back?”
Chris does so without hesitation or questions, and then follows Darren’s instructions to bend his knees and lift his legs and to spread them a little further. It leaves Chris’s cock resting heavily on his abdomen, because he’s definitely hard too, and Darren’s not sure what to think of that. He knows that Chris’s programming includes all kinds of sequences that lead to sexual arousal, but as an android, Chris can also choose to have a hard-on (which, frankly, Darren thinks is pretty awesome — not that he can’t do the same, kind of, by thinking of something that turns him on, but still). Anyway, Darren’s not sure which scenario is playing out in front of him, but it’s hot either way, and Chris hard and waiting is really fucking hot.
Darren looks up to meet Chris’s eyes, which are watching him, evenly and curiously. “Are you ready?” Darren asks.
“I’m ready,” Chris confirms.
“Okay,” Darren says. “Good. That’s good. I am too. Um.” He reaches for the lube as he adds, “If at any point you want me to stop, all you have to do is ask me to, or tell me to. For any reason at all, okay? But especially if you’re uncomfortable or don’t like something.”
Chris nods against the pillow. “Okay.”
Darren finishes slicking his fingers up and leans forward, sliding them lightly into Chris’s ass crack and finding his hole. Frankly, Darren’s kind of surprised that they’re not just making the male androids’ assholes self-lubricating. Maybe Engineering is just trying to maintain some level of pretense and realism and non-creepiness.
Pulling his thoughts back to the task at hand, Darren starts gently rubbing circles around Chris’s hole, feeling kind of unmoored and overheated as he does, especially because Chris is still just watching him with bright blue eyes. “All right,” he says, “I’m going to start with one finger. A good way to start the, uh — the process is with external massage, like I’m doing to you now. Especially for humans, like you read about in your text.” Doing this for an android isn’t quite the same as fingering a person’s ass, but Chris has to learn the entire process, because Chris is going to practice by returning the favor. Probably shouldn’t think about that right now, Darren tells himself, as his stubbornly-hard cock jumps. “How does that feel?”
Chris blinks and swivels his gaze up to the ceiling. “Good,” he says, and he sounds a little awed. Darren can’t help but think that it’s pretty weird that it was someone’s job to design a robot asshole, complete with pleasure sensors. And that someone else figured out how to program robot orgasms. Those are fucking crazy jobs, seriously. Of course, Darren’s about to be knuckle-deep in an android’s ass, so he’s probably not one to cast stones when it comes to strange job duties.
“All right, good.” Darren starts drawing tighter circles. “I’m going to push my finger inside your body now. Just one.” He presses against Chris’s hole with the pad of his finger, and it sinks in easily. So yeah, that’s one main difference. Another one is that there’s absolutely no discomfort for Chris, because he doesn’t feel pain there, except in extreme circumstances. And Darren really doesn’t want to dwell on exactly why the places where androids have sex are designed that way.
Chris shifts to inch his legs out a little farther. “That feels nice,” he comments, and Darren bites back a snorted laugh. That’s one thing about androids: unless you teach them to, they’re not going to blow smoke up your ass.
Darren hides an amused smile. “Good. When you do this to me — or to any other human — you’ll encounter more resistance. Unless you have permission to do otherwise, you’ll want to go slow and be careful. Make sure that your partner is comfortable. I’ll, uh — I’ll do it again to demonstrate.” He draws his finger back out of Chris’s body, then slips it in again using gentle pulses. Chris’s hips start to rock minutely into the touch, and it knocks the smirk right off Darren’s face and makes his breathing go shallow.
“Okay,” Chris says. He’s still staring up, a look of quiet concentration on his face.
“Okay,” Darren echoes. “So, when that’s — done. Then you can start adding more fingers for a better stretch.” He demonstrates by sliding another one into Chris’s body, which grips him tightly but gives readily to admit it. And Chris lets out a soft oh. Another hot wave of arousal crests over Darren. “Feels good?” he asks, forcing as neutral a tone as he can, even though it feels like he’s choking on the words.
“Really good.” Chris blinks and refocuses on Darren, his eyes so intense they’re almost glowing under the fluorescent light, and the look goes through Darren like lightning.
He gulps, chokes out a “that’s good,” and starts rubbing for Chris’s prostate. It’s easier to find than a human’s, unmistakable under Darren’s fingertips, and Chris’s body stiffens when Darren brushes over it.
“That’s the prostate?” Chris asks, and he rocks his hips down more forcefully onto Darren’s fingers. “That’s even better.”
“That’s it,” Darren confirms. He massages the spot more firmly, and Chris shudders.
Darren finally pulls his fingers back out, getting ready to add a third, when Chris asks, “Is this something you like too?” It’s kind of a surprising question, maybe, if it were a different ‘bot, but Darren’s pretty much used to it after the last few months with Chris, who clarifies, “Being fingered? Having your prostate touched?”
“I do,” Darren says, because he really fucking does. “I can get off — orgasm — just from that sometimes. We can — uh — explore that later. But I’m going to put a third finger in now. If that’s okay,” he adds.
“Definitely okay,” Chris says, and then, when Darren slides them all in: “Yes, it’s okay.”
“Just okay?” Darren teases before he can help himself.
Chris smiles and looks up at him. “More than okay. I like this a lot.”
“Good,” Darren says, feeling absurdly, stupidly proud.
He finishes prepping Chris quickly — not that Chris needs much prep — pumping his fingers in and out of Chris’s body evenly but lingering over his prostate every few strokes. Chris’s physical reaction is startlingly real: the breaths that he doesn’t need to take come hard and fast, his skin flushes, and his cock jerks on his stomach. His eyes have drifted shut, and his brows are faintly furrowed, like he’s focusing intently on something. It is really, really fucking incendiary and Darren knows what he’s doing is taking this way beyond clinical practice, but he can’t find it anywhere in himself to care.
But as much as Darren’s enjoying it, his own erection is growing painfully impatient, and he is supposed to be teaching Chris about fucking, about actual, penetrative Darren’s-penis-in-Chris’s-ass sex, so he stills his fingers and removes them carefully from Chris’s body. Chris looks up at him curiously, and Darren says, “It feels like you’re ready to me. If you feel like you’re ready, I think we should — move on to the next step.”
“You’re going to fuck me?” Chris asks, android-blunt as always.
“I am,” Darren replies, already wiping his hands and retrieving a condom, because even if he and Chris can’t pass anything back and forth, it makes cleaning up that much easier. “If you’re —”
“Yes,” Chris interrupts. He cants his hips up farther and walks his heels, which are braced into the mattress, out even more.
It’s not like Darren needs any more encouragement, so he distractedly demonstrates how to roll on a condom, strokes himself a few times, and moves them both into position — it should just be standard missionary if they’re going to do it like this, but instead Darren drapes one of Chris’s legs over his shoulder and catches Chris’s opposite knee with one arm. He leans forward over Chris and, after staring down at him for a moment or two, impulsively dips forward to kiss him, hard and wanting. He’s probably not supposed to do that either, but he doesn’t fucking care, and Chris obviously doesn’t mind. Darren’s pretty sure he wouldn’t be sucking on Darren’s tongue like that if he was bothered by it, anyway.
When Darren pulls back, staying close because Chris has both hands behind his neck, he reaches down to position the head of his cock at Chris’s entrance. “Ready?” he mutters.
“Ready,” Chris whispers back.
Darren slides in, slides smoothly, unrelentingly, until he’s balls-deep, because Chris is designed to let him do it just like that. He groans, and Chris groans too, so Darren’s pretty sure he’s hitting on one of those sexual pleasure sequences. The grip of Chris’s body around his dick is warm and pleasantly tight, and Darren is dying to just fuck them both to completion, but he forces himself to ask the questions he’s supposed to, his voice choking out of his throat. “Is this okay? How do you feel?”
“I’m really good,” Chris answers him, “and definitely okay.”
“That is definitely a really good answer,” Darren says, low, and then he draws his hips back only to thrust back in, again and again, until they’re moving together in a sinuous rhythm. Chris picks up quickly what he should do, just like he does with everything, and Darren’s at least twice as glad as usual. He’s super close to coming way too fast, but he hangs on so he can watch Chris first — and he could tell himself that it’s for his observation, for his reports, but he knows it’s not the only reason.
They’re fucking hard now, rocking the cheaply-made bed, their hands grappling against each other’s bodies. Usually, when the sex is perfunctory, Darren doesn’t have that much of a problem holding off, but he’s already dangerously close to what seems like it’s going to be a fucking intense orgasm. “Chris,” he gasps. “You should — come first.”
“I want to,” Chris says, his voice harsh in a way that Darren’s never heard before.
“I’m supposed to — observe,” Darren grits out, and he just keeps screwing his hips up against Chris’s ass. “You can. You should.” He gets Chris’s cock in one hand and lets the rhythm of their bodies shove it up into his fist.
Chris rocks into it enthusiastically. “Keep doing that and I will. Really soon.”
So Darren sets his jaw and pounds in, tightening his grip at the same time, because getting an android to come for the first time is basically the opposite of what happens with your stereotypical, hair-trigger human guy having his cock touched for the first time. Just when he’s about to lose it himself and fucking give up on Chris coming first, it happens. Chris arches his hips off the bed, and he gasps, and his fingers dig a-little-too-tightly into Darren’s back, but Darren kind of likes it and it’s not like Chris is breaking his skin or anything. Chris does actually come too, shooting a warm, artificial load between their bodies.
Darren takes three seconds to catalog all of that. Then he gives a few more rough thrusts, grinds his cock deep into Chris’s ass, and slams headfirst into his own orgasm with a choked-off grunt. Vaguely, he’s aware that he’s collapsing down on top of Chris, and, after a second’s hesitation, he feels Chris’s arms wrap tighter around his back.
When he’s done shuddering through it, Darren looks up at Chris with surprised eyes. Chris is watching him right back, something different and strange in his expression.
“Uh —” Darren starts eloquently. “I mean, how are you feeling?”
“Good,” Chris says, his voice quiet. “A little messy, maybe, but very good.”
“Good. Well… we should get you cleaned up. Both of us cleaned up.” Darren doesn’t move, though. And when he does, it’s not so much away, because he’s leaning in and Chris is angling his head up at the first time — he has no idea who moved first — and there’s a single, relatively chaste kiss, but Darren still feels better after he does it. Which makes him feel a little worse, actually, if he thinks about why, so he doesn’t. It’s not difficult; he’s bathed in a healthy, post-orgasm glow and much more focused an overwhelming sense of pride from apparently rocking Chris’s short, artificial life.
They get up and get moving, which is good, because Darren manages to dredge his brain and remember that he’s only got the room for a limited amount of time. When Darren’s fully clothed again, he starts to feel kind of abnormally awkward, thinking back through everything that just happened, but Chris — Chris is just sitting on the edge of the bed again, watching him curiously, like always. It’s not that different from when Darren walked in, except that both Chris and the room are significantly more disheveled.
“So,” Darren says, going for brisk professionalism, “I’m going to go take a shower, then write up my reports.” Oh god, he has to write up fucking reports about this. He’ll just have to be a little vague about the specifics. “When we meet tomorrow, we’ll talk through everything from your perspective. Okay? And then we’ll move on to additional, uh — practical application.” Darren’s refractory time isn’t what it once was, but he’s definitely feeling a fresh tingle of interest.
Because next time, Chris is going to do it all back to him.
“Sounds good,” Chris says, and he smiles.
*
The next couple weeks, frankly, are awesome. Darren’s not even going to try to pretend that they’re not.
Chris fucks Darren. They rim each other and suck each other off (and android blowjobs are amazing, because hey, they don’t have to breathe). Darren doesn’t sign up for one of the private education rooms more than would be suspicious, but for every second he can up until then.
It’s not just that, though. They kiss. A lot. Definitely more than Darren has with any other android before. There are still the awesome discussions, and the socialization process with Chris is still just so goddamn fun. They stay in bed after they’re done having sex, and it’s starting to seem a fucking lot like cuddling. Especially when Chris does surprisingly human shit like brushing a sweaty clump of hair off Darren’s forehead before kissing him gently.
That’s when Darren realizes that the situation isn’t fucking him up a little or a lot. It’s fucking him up completely.
*
Darren decides that he needs companionship. Human companionship. It’s been a while, and clearly, it’s beyond time, because he’s never had problems with getting too attached at work before. He tries to remember the last time he’d had sex with another human being, and he’s not sure he can even pinpoint it, so it’s no wonder something’s messed up in his head.
He goes to a nightclub he’d frequented in his more colorful past, and he goes alone. He doesn’t know who he’d invite with him anymore, not that it matters — it’s not like he’s ever had to worry about finding people to talk to.
The drinks are even more expensive than they had been back in the days when he couldn’t afford them, but he’d bought them anyway — too many then, too many now. The music is loud, but it’s good for dancing. Darren has no shortage of partners, but the one he finally settles on — whether consciously or unconsciously, he’s not even fucking sure anymore — is basically the opposite of Chris. She’s female, for one thing, and she’s shorter than Darren with dark hair and skin and eyes. They dance well together, despite all the alcohol, and they’re making out before they even leave the club.
They take a cab to her place, because it’s closer than his, and already in the back of his head, Darren is glad about that. The sex is good. It’s not earth-shattering. Darren might or might not put it in the great category, but there’s nothing really special about it. He knows right away that he doesn’t want to do it again. She half-heartedly offers to let him stay, and he makes up a lie about why he can’t. They don’t exchange numbers, and he catches another taxi home and collapses into his own bed.
Darren feels like shit about it the next morning. Technically, afternoon. He’s hungover, and that’s definitely part of it, but yeah — also just general shit-feeling about the whole thing. It was a stupid thing to do, and even stupider to think it would help him sort through any of his fucking issues. He makes it to just after four o’clock before he unearths a bottle of whiskey, telling himself it’s just hair of the dog, but he’s drunk again by six. Not super drunk, but that might be the stupidest decision yet, because he has work in the morning. That, in and of itself, kind of makes him want to drink more, but he actually digs up some shred of self-control and puts the bottle away.
*
When Darren arrives the next morning — twenty minutes late and throbbing with a dull headache — he’s glad to find that Luke, another Socialization Specialist, is the only person in the department staff room. He won’t bat an eyelash or give a shit that Darren looks like death warmed over. Darren grunts out a greeting and shuffles over to his cubby, exchanging the ratty sweatshirt he’d tossed on that morning for his lab coat and grabbing his papers. There’s a fresh envelope on top with Darren’s name and Chris’s ID numbers printed on it neatly, so something must have happened during overnight observation. Darren’s just slitting the envelope open with his car key when Luke pipes up, “Your android initiated sex with mine last night.”
Darren startles and glances over. “What?”
Luke nods at the envelope in his hands. “Your android approached mine last night at about nine-thirty. Yours proposed sex and mine accepted. It’s all in the report.”
He sounds completely blase about it, which is probably a normal reaction. After all, it’s not unusual for the robots to practice what they’re learning. Some of them do; some of them don’t — and when they do, it includes sex. Darren knows this. So it would be fucking normal for Darren to be blase, instead of feeling his stomach start roiling all over again.
Maybe it’s just the hangover. The startled mixture of anger and disappointment in his chest tells him it’s not. “Oh,” Darren says.
“Yup,” Luke replies blandly, sweeping his crumbs onto the floor and standing. “Make sure you ask him about it for your case files. See you later, Darren.”
Left alone, Darren grudgingly slides the papers out of the envelope and reads the account himself. It’s not much different from Luke’s brief description, but somehow, Darren feels even worse after he reads it. He swallows the feeling down — because there’s no fucking reason for it anyway — shoves the paper in his binder, and all but storms out of the room.
*
When he asks Chris about it, all Chris says is, “Sex is pleasurable. I was curious to experience it again.” He’s completely guileless and Darren is infuriated — with Chris, with himself, with the whole situation — but he keeps his face shifted cleanly into neutral even though he’s mentally kicking himself in the ass because androids don’t really have feelings dumbass. And having feelings for an android is a dumbass decision, dumbass.
But oh, it gets worse.
Over the next week, Chris suddenly becomes the Link Industries Lothario. Every morning, there’s an envelope waiting for Darren, and the story is always the same: Chris approaches another android, asks for sex, and has it. The sex is reported to be brief and uncreative. When it’s done, they part ways without much ado. He doesn’t even repeat partners. He’s just… having sex.
He never has much of an explanation for Darren, either. Normally, it wouldn’t bother Darren, and he’d just chalk it up to android curiosity. Normally.
Meanwhile, he and Chris continue to work through the sex ed portion of his Socialization. It’s a complete mindfuck for Darren to be such an emotional wreck while they’re doing it. He hates it, and he hates himself for it, and he spends his days wallowing and looking for distractions. He watches a lot of TV. He drinks more than he should, but he doesn’t go back to the bars. Not yet, anyway. Sex seems to be the whole problem, and he’s not sure having more of it is going to be the solution.
He can’t escape it, though, when it’s part of his job. And he doesn’t try. In fact, he keeps up the effort to make sex with Chris good. Like, really good. He drags it out and puts them in imaginative positions and embellishes and teases and teaches Chris to tease, and thanks fucking god that there are no cameras in the private training rooms to keep tabs on this whole fucked-up thing he has going. And every time after he has this amazing, mind-blowing sex with Chris, he packs up his emotions, makes some notes in his case files, and ticks another checkbox in Chris’s Socialization Manual.
Then Chris goes off and has boring, insert-tab-A-into-slot-B sex with another android.
And then, he stops.
There are no more envelopes waiting for Darren in the morning, and after a few days, his coworkers stop making wink-wink-nudge-nudge jokes about it. Apparently, it’s over, and everyone just forgets about it.
Darren doesn’t, though, and he’s too curious to not ask Chris about it. So, under the guise of monitoring his android’s behavior, he asks Chris about it at the start of a session the next week, point-blank: “Can you tell me why you stopped approaching other androids in the facility for sex?” He poises his pen over his notepad, watching Chris intently.
Chris shrugs. Darren knows that’s a programmed response, either to buy time or evade the question, because androids don’t do anything without having a reason. They can’t. “I didn’t want to anymore,” Chris says finally.
“Why not?” Darren probes.
“I wasn’t enjoying it.”
That brings Darren up short. “You don’t enjoy sex? Because we should stop doing it if —”
Chris interrupts him. “I wasn’t enjoying sex with them. I’ve enjoyed it with you.”
And Darren does not preen. He doesn’t. He just gives himself a little fist bump inside his own head. But this is his job, his job that he still wants to keep, so he has to try and understand what’s going on. “Well,” he says, choosing his words carefully, “there are things that we’ve done that you didn’t, um — incorporate into your… other experiences. That may have made them more enjoyable.”
Chris’s face remains impassive, and he starts nodding before Darren is even done talking. “Yes, I’m aware.”
“But you didn’t — attempt to — attempt them?”
“I didn’t,” Chris confirms.
Darren can’t get much else out of him.
*
They’re rapidly approaching the last section of Chris’s socialization, which ostensibly means that they have to stop having sex, because they’re past that unit and Darren doesn’t sign them up for private rooms anymore. That’s not what happens.
During the final phase of socialization, right on schedule, Darren starts taking Chris out into the world to actually interact with people that aren’t him. With Darren hovering nearby, Chris buys things from stores, rides the bus, and orders food to go. He has an embedded GPS tracker, of course, but Darren just so happens to live in an apartment above a cafe, where they usually end up to review what had happened each day. Whether they go upstairs or stay downstairs, well — Link doesn’t really need to know the specifics.
Darren mostly forgets his misguided hookup, Chris’s sexual explorations, and any shred of common sense that tells him what he’s doing is wrong. It feels now like he’s actually dating someone — going out to explore the city, spending time in restaurants and museums and theaters, then retiring to his apartment for an extremely fulfilling romp in the sheets. If he were dating someone, he would think it was going exceptionally well. He’s happy, and Chris is always excited for everything they do, sexual or no.
There are times when Darren completely forgets himself — and the fact that Chris isn’t human. Coming back to earth is harsh, because one thing that Darren keeps shoved far, far out of mind is the fact that his relationship — whatever it is — with Chris comes with an expiration date, quite literally. One that’s looming ever closer. Time’s running short, and Darren knows it. He can’t ignore how few pages are left in Chris’s socialization manual, and how his list of required reports is dwindling. He feels completely sick about it — actually, literally sick to his stomach, and as many times as he tells himself to get a grip, he just fucking can’t.
When Darren does think about it and try to talk some sense into himself, he just ends up angry and frustrated inside a tangled web of thought and, if he’s at home, often pouring himself a drink or five, so dwelling on it doesn’t seem very productive. He tries to just ignore the time he has, but it’s easier said than done.
*
One day, few weeks before the end of the assignment, they’re done with their review, and once Darren has finished making notes and slapped the cover of the binder shut, Chris looks over at him and asks, “Well, what should we do now?”
He’s smiling, and Darren knows now that he’s flirting in his not-quite-human way. He happily tosses his papers onto the coffee table and scoots across the couch until he’s all up in Chris’s space. “Hmmm,” he all but purrs at Chris. “I have no idea. What do you suggest?”
Chris’s smile widens a bit and his eyelids droop as he looks down at Darren’s mouth. “I have a few ideas.”
“Give me one,” Darren murmurs. They’re inches apart, but not for long, because Chris leans over and brings their mouths together. There’s not a single awkward thing about it anymore — they kiss deep and languorous, and Chris is warm and surprisingly soft, and Darren only knows Chris is an android because he knows Chris is an android. It’s times like these when he tries the hardest to give up caring about it all — what’s going to happen to Chris, what Chris is, what anyone else would think — and he just sinks the fuck into it until they’re tangled together on the sofa, hands roaming everywhere, and taking turns with their tongues deep in each other’s mouths.
It feels fucking amazing, basically, Darren thinks in some detached corner of his brain. Because, fuck, before Chris, when was the last time he just made out with someone? It’s been all about sex for years, not even sex, just orgasms — with androids and with one night stands and three week flings. Three weeks. He and Chris don’t even have that much time left.
Darren yanks himself back, and their mouths separate with a truly obscene noise. He can’t, he can’t just keep forgetting about what Chris is, because that changes fucking everything. “I can’t,” he gasps, sitting up and back. “I’m sorry; I can’t.”
Chris watches him as he slowly pushes himself up. “Why not?”
He looks confused. He looks hurt, and it doesn’t make any sense. Darren scrubs his hands over his face, then runs them back into his hair. “Fuck. This isn’t right,” he says miserably.
“Because I’m an android,” Chris supplies, and it’s definitely a statement, not a question.
Darren just shakes his head. Not to try and protest Chris’s accusation, but just because the whole situation is so fucked up and he suddenly feels like he’s about to snap.
“It didn’t matter any other time we had sex,” Chris says matter-of-factly. When Darren doesn’t answer, he adds, “We’ve had sex thirty-seven times. You enjoyed yourself.”
It’s kind of creepy that he knows the exact number of times, but of course he does. His brain is literally a computer, and Darren receives the information with a snort. “I definitely enjoyed myself,” Darren mutters, still unable to even look over.
“So, what’s different now?”
Riding his sudden surge of frustration, Darren flings himself back against the couch and snaps, “I feel different about it, okay?”
Chris stays still, but his brow furrows. “You feel revulsion?”
“No, not at all.” Darren chuckles humorlessly. “Believe me, that is not the problem.”
“Then what is?”
What Darren’s mostly feeling at the moment is irritation. It’s partially directed at Chris, but that’s not really fair. He knows that, as an android, Chris is naturally curious and that he seeks out information to make connections. Naturally, Darren thinks with a dry huff of a laugh. Because that’s the fucking problem, and that’s why he’s more irritated with himself than anything. Nothing about the situation and nothing about Chris is natural — he was designed in a laboratory, programmed to be what he is. And part of that programming, Darren knows, will lead Chris to keep asking questions until he figures out whatever’s going on. So Darren might as well just say it, and, feeling like he’s back on the fourth grade playground, he spits, “I like you, okay?”
“I like you too,” Chris replies, still sounding like he doesn’t understand. Like he can’t compute.
“No, I mean — I really like you,” Darren says, lamely. “Like —”
“You mean romantically?” Chris’s eyes are wide open looking at him, fathomless blue. Darren thinks he sees a tinge of pink on his face, too, but it must be a trick of the light.
“Fuck.” Darren scrubs his face again. “Yeah, I guess that’s what I mean.”
“Oh,” Chris says, and his voice sounds kind of — awed. “I like you romantically too.”
Darren blinks his eyes open and shoots Chris a dubious look. “No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You don’t even know what that is,” Darren shoots back. “You don’t know what it means. It’s a feeling. Androids don’t have feelings. You don’t —”
Chris cuts him off sharply. “My emotional capacity is almost the same as any human’s; you know that. And I know what I feel.”
Darren just shakes his head. “Chris,” he says, trying to keep his voice gentle, even though frustration is continuing to mount in his chest, “you don’t feel anything. You’re an android.”
“How can you say that?” Chris asks, and by his expression, he’s offended.
“Uh — because it’s true?” Darren retorts.
Chris frowns. “I like talking to you more than anyone. I look forward to spending time with you. I miss you when I’m not with you. You make me happy. You say you like me romantically. How is it different for you?”
“I actually feel those things.”
“What does that even mean?”
“You make me feel happy,” Darren explains. Poorly. He sits up straighter and gestures to Chris’s torso, wiggling his fingers. “You — take in data and run it through some formulas, and it trips some circuits, and the result is happy.”
Chris’s face doesn’t look very understanding. “But how is that different? It’s not. You take in data and run it through your brain and your hormones, and it makes you happy. How is that different?”
“It just is,” Darren protests. “It’s how I feel.”
“And it’s how I feel. The fact that you can’t even explain the difference isn’t doing much to convince me that there is one.”
Darren pauses and takes a few deep breaths. He feels defeated, but he can’t quite give in. Finally, he drops his eyes and says, weakly, “It’s called artificial intelligence, Chris. It’s right in the name. It’s not real.”
“Well, it feels real to me.” Chris holds his gaze evenly, looking so calm and certain that it makes Darren crumble a little bit more.
“I know it does, to you,” he says, his voice quiet and all the fight gone.
“Then doesn’t that make it real?”
Darren looks down at his clasped hands, the veins under his skin, the dark hair, the blunt nails. He flexes them, feels his bones press together at his knuckles. “Isn’t it kind of fucked up?” he asks. “That I don’t know if I’ve ever really been in love with anyone, and now I’m in love with — with a machine? I mean, seriously, isn’t that kind of fucked up?”
He waits through a brief silence for Chris’s answer. When Chris does speak, he says, “Love?”
Shit. Darren hadn’t really meant to say that. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.” He keeps his eyes trained on his hands.
“I love you, too.”
It feels fucking good to hear, so good that Darren feels a strange impulse to cry, even though he doesn’t. “Oh.”
“But Darren,” Chris adds, and he waits patiently until Darren looks up into his face, “do you really think it’s so fucked up to feel that way about me? I thought that you weren’t like that. Someone who thinks of us as second class citizens, or like we’re less than you.”
The words gnaw at Darren, chewing his insides up into shards of guilt. “I don’t.” When Chris looks at him doubtfully, he adds, “I really don’t. I promise.”
“Then it shouldn’t matter what I am,” Chris says bluntly.
Darren nods. Chris is right, of course, but that doesn’t necessarily make anything any easier. “I think maybe I’m just scared,” Darren admits.
Chris shrugs one shoulder. “So am I. And I’m not interested in having a ten-minute argument about whether or not I’m capable of being scared.”
One corner of Darren’s mouth tugs up, almost against his will. “See it’s stuff like that…” he lets his voice trail off.
“Stuff like that, what?”
“Stuff like that that makes me really like you romantically,” Darren says, feeling the crooked smile grow across his face. He looks at Chris — looks at him maybe for the first time, sees the stretch of his mouth as he grins and the delicate shape of his eyes. It’s not much different from looking at the things that make his own hands look human, except that Chris’s face is about a thousand times better.
They’re leaning in again almost before Darren realizes it’s happening, but just as they’re about to meet in the middle, Chris breathes out, “Darren? Just forget everything, okay? Just —” he pauses for a brief second, in a way that’s completely uncharacteristic for androids “— just fuck all that stuff and kiss me.”
Darren chuckles quietly into the narrow space between them. “I have been a really bad influence on you.”
Chris smiles. Actually, Darren would almost describe it as a smirk. “Just trying to use language you’ll understand.”
“Hey!” Darren protests feebly. “Androids shouldn’t be able to be assholes. Or is that the latest development out of R&D?”
“I haven’t gotten an update in a week,” Chris replies, a touch too serious as usual. “I guess it’s just me.” Something about the words hit Darren right in the chest — it is just Chris, and the advancements in programming that have allowed him to develop into himself. Into his own person, Darren corrects himself. Chris is a person, and for all of Darren’s self-congratulatory supposedly-forward thinking, he’s not sure that he’s ever really thought of it exactly like that before. It feels like a revelation — magnificent and shameful all at once, because it’s something that should have happened ages ago — and he finds himself staring at Chris with new eyes, saucer-wide in his face. Chris just looks back at him curiously and interrupts Darren’s internal maelstrom with a quiet, “Darren? Please?”
“Yeah,” Darren murmurs, “okay.”
So he brings both his hands up to gently but firmly grasp Chris’s face, and he tilts it just so, and he kisses Chris softly — once or twice to map out where his lips are — and then he sinks in, harder and deeper with each pass, his fingers curling into Chris’s hair as he tries to pour every ounce of what he’s feeling into Chris’s mouth. He doesn’t know if Chris really understands, but he’s certainly responding in kind, grabbing Darren’s forearms and gripping them tightly, meeting every passionate press of Darren’s lips and tongue with an equal fervor.
Before long, Chris starts pushing into Darren’s space, like he’s trying to angle Darren down into the sofa, but Darren yanks himself away. “Chris, wait — maybe we should take this somewhere else? My bedroom?” Darren feels like this is going to be important, and therefore, they probably shouldn’t just fuck on his futon couch like college kids.
“I’d like that,” Chris says.
When they make it to the bed they take more time, time that stops ticking and starts smearing into one long blur of pleasure as they peel each other’s clothes away, piece by piece, kissing everywhere that’s revealed. They tongue into each other’s mouths while their hands paint long, warm strokes over skin, then stop to dig in and grab. Darren is on his back, with Chris on top of him and pressing him deliciously down, and Darren tries to flip them, but Chris resists it, keeping Darren pinned. “Stay here,” he murmurs into the space below Darren’s ear. “Let me make you feel good.”
Darren shivers but protests. “I want it to be good for you too,” he says. “Fuck. Do that again — uh, yeah.”
“It will be,” Chris promises, rolling his hips over Darren’s. “But for now just stay where you are. Let me show you.”
And really, Darren’s only going to rebuff an offer like that so many times. Which are all completely used up. He relaxes back into the mattress as Chris kisses him again, eager and open, then mouths over Darren’s chin and along his jawline to his ear. “Do you have lubricant here?” he asks into it, and Darren feels Chris’s fingers run down the outside of his thigh and brush along his ass, dipping toward the crack.
“Yeah, definitely yeah,” Darren grunts. He flails out an uncoordinated arm to grab a pillow from the other side of the bed and jam it inelegantly under his lower back. “Fuck yeah. In the nightstand.”
Chris rummages through the drawer, and he comes back with the tube and a confused look on his face. “I’m really curious about why you have half of the things you have in there,” he comments, and Darren knows it’s nothing bad or scandalous, just weird shit like a train whistle and glittery swim goggles. He’s already opening his mouth to start explaining when Chris adds, “But I’m pretty sure this isn’t the time or the place.” He touches Darren again, rubbing into his ass crack with now-slippery fingers, and Darren gasps when they find his hole. He hadn’t even noticed Chris opening the lube.
“Fuck,” he grits out again. “Okay, your Socialization Specialist clearly taught you very well.”
“He’s all right,” Chris says noncommittally.
He’s smiling fondly at Darren, though, and Darren just rolls his eyes and mutters, “Get down here and fucking kiss me already.”
Chris obliges, leaning over to press their mouths together almost languidly. At least, that’s what the pace is like until he breaches Darren with one finger and Darren sucks Chris’s bottom lip between his own and bites it. Chris just laughs. He works Darren open with firm, careful strokes, taking his time and drawing it out so that Darren is restless and squirming hard on the mattress. And then, just when Darren thinks it’s about time he got fucked, Chris leans over and starts tonguing and sucking at the head of Darren’s long-since-hard and already-dripping cock. He keeps three fingers in Darren’s ass, and Darren’s eyes roll into the back of his head as he lets out a guttural groan.
He can’t stay still, and he starts rocking his hips up shallowly into Chris’s mouth, trying to get Chris to take him deeper. It proves to be a complete tactical error, because Chris slides his fingers out of Darren’s hole so that he can get both hands on Darren’s hips, holding him firmly down against the pillow. Darren whines in protest, but Chris leaves him empty and aching, pressing one forearm across Darren’s pelvis and using the other to angle Darren’s erection back towards his mouth, and he progresses from light licks to broader swipes of his tongue, and then he finally starts to suck in earnest. Chris takes him in, shallowly at first but then deep and then deeper, until Darren is flushed and sweating and straining on the bed.
In some tiny corner of his brain that isn’t drowning in bliss, Darren thinks that something about what Chris is doing does feel different. There’s nothing student-mentor about it, no teaching and learning, no furtiveness and no holding back. It’s about finding pleasure in and for and with each other, and Darren knows that Chris is trying to show him something, that he’s trying to demonstrate his feelings — and frankly, Darren doesn’t really think that Chris has to, not like this, but he isn’t really going to complain because Chris is currently demonstrating by taking Darren to the edge of death by giving Darren the blowjob of his life. And Darren has definitely taught Chris how to give a stellar blowjob.
Darren’s stamina isn’t great when he’s getting blown, but it’s definitely better than it was five or ten years ago, so he sinks his teeth into his lip and hangs on. He reaches down to twist fingers tight in Chris’s hair — the ‘droids aren’t built with many pain sensors, so he doesn’t think Chris is going to care. He’s partially right, because Chris does pop unexpectedly off of Darren’s dick to mutter, “Can you please not pull my hair out? It’ll be really hard to explain at Link if I come back half-bald.”
“Fuck, Chris, I’m sorry, but just — fuck,” Darren babbles. He does his best to unclench his fingers, but he kind of can’t help exerting some pressure on the back of Chris’s head to bring him back down.
Chris lets out a decidedly un-android-like snort — not that it’s any big mystery where he learned it — and goes back in. Or on, Darren corrects himself dazedly. Darren’s the one going in, technically. Fuck, all the way in. And the teasing is well and truly over; Chris works him hard and fast, wet and warm. When Darren is shuddering and seconds from release, Chris reaches suddenly down and slides two fingers back into Darren’s hole, filling the space that Darren had forgotten was so empty, crooking his fingers up and rubbing for Darren’s prostate, and that’s all Darren can take. He comes with a hoarse half-shout, comes with his dick down Chris’s throat and Chris’s fingers in his ass. He jerks up against the hand still gripping his hip with a firm grasp, and spills down Chris’s throat in spurts until he finally flops limp and useless against the bed.
“Holy… fucking… shit,” he pants. “Clearly the student has become the master.”
“Well,” Chris says, smiling and wiping his mouth, “I am able to learn faster and retain information better than any human.” He sits up and his grin just widens as he looks down at Darren.
It’s a joke. It’s an android joke, and he’s making fun of Darren in his own way it’s so dumb and Darren just likes him so much. Loves him, yeah, but just fucking likes being around Chris and understanding him in a way that most people on the planet wouldn’t. “Lucky your human was able to give you such good information, huh?” Darren snarks back, but it comes out kind of weakly, because he’s still half-dead.
“Yes, I learned a lot,” Chris agrees, and Darren feels a hand on his thigh, trailing up.
Darren hums out a questioning noise, which turns up sharply as Chris’s fingers find the crease of his thigh. He leaves Darren’s spent cock on his stomach, but skims a light touch back until he can brush his fingertips back into the crack of Darren’s ass. Darren lets his legs flop out to spread them further and angles his hips up obligingly. “This is okay?” Chris asks quietly.
“It will be,” Darren says, his voice lazy and happy. “Kiss me a little?”
Chris obliges, and they make out leisurely, until Darren’s breathing starts to go harsh again, and then Chris starts a slow transit down his body, taking time to torture Darren’s neck and nipples and the sensitive skin of his belly. Darren’s dick is starting to take interest again, but Chris bypasses it, sitting up instead and recoating his fingers with lube. Darren groans as Chris slides them back into his still-stretched hole. He’s more than ready — there’s no resistance; they practically glide in. He becomes gradually aware that Chris is talking to him again. “…again? Does that feel good?”
“Really fucking good,” Darren confirms.
“Good,” Chris echoes. “Because I want to… fuck you.”
Darren catches the pause and squints up at Chris. “You hesitated.”
Chris shakes his head, adding a third finger for good measure and then pumping all of them in and out of Darren’s body evenly. “No hesitation. I just changed the words I was going to use,” he says matter-of-factly.
“And what were you — oh fuck — going to say?” Darren grits, and it’s really fucking difficult to hold a conversation this way.
“That I want to make love with you.”
It’s cheesy — it’s so cheesy — but it warms Darren from the inside out, even as he’s sweltering on the sheets. “Why didn’t you want to say that?”
Chris draws his hand away from Darren’s ass and Darren hisses at the loss. “I wasn’t sure whether or not you would like me saying it, and I didn’t want you to change your mind.”
Androids have a reason for everything, Darren thinks, but there’s something so human and real about Chris’s logic that it tugs at Darren’s heart. “I’m not changing my mind. And I would fucking love to make love with you,” he finishes grandly, waggling his eyebrows.
“You’re making fun of me,” Chris observes as he slicks up his cock.
Darren watches keenly, his own hard-again dick giving a sudden twitch of interest. “Not a chance. I’m a man in love, and men in love are gigantic, cheesy dorks.”
Chris shuffles up the bed on his knees, grabbing both of Darren’s legs and balancing them on his own shoulders. “And androids in love?” he asks, positioning himself at Darren’s entrance.
“Seem way smoother than me, so far,” Darren says, the last words coming out on a huff of air as Chris starts working his way in. Darren tucks both of his hands around the back of Chris’s neck and bears down to help ease the slide. “Mmmm, yeah.”
“You feel really good,” Chris comments. He’s watching Darren’s face almost reverently as he rocks his hips deeper by increments. “You always feel so good.”
“Not as good as you.” It’s so fucking true as Chris bottoms out, and Darren is so full that he feels it in his throat. Chris’s lips twist, and he looks like he’s about to say something, but Darren cuts him off with, “Cheesy, remember?”
“How could I forget?” Chris banters back, and for a second, Darren thinks it’s a joke about his supercomputer brain, but then he adds, “You won’t let me.”
Darren snorts out a laugh that gets cut short as Chris draws his hips back and then slides forward again into Darren’s body. He sets up an even pace, deep thrusts that roll in like ocean waves, steady and strong. Darren curls his fingers into the hair at the nape of Chris’s neck, drawing him down until their foreheads are pressed together, and it folds Darren nearly in half. He pants hot breaths against Chris’s lips until Chris angles to kiss him, and Darren strains up to meet it, and then it feels like they’re connected everywhere, a continuous circuit from Chris’s cock in Darren’s ass to their tongues in each other’s mouths, to Darren’s hands on Chris’s skin and his legs still hooked over Chris’s shoulders, even though one is sliding down. And it does feel like making love.
It also starts feeling too good for Darren to keep worrying about kissing, so he pulls his mouth away, and he rocks back against Chris’s body as he starts muttering obscenities and encouragement. “Fuck, Chris, yeah, it feels so good. Love this, love you; fuck me, Chris, do it.”
Chris is moving harder now, faster, ramping up until he’s all but pounding Darren into the mattress. And for once, Darren doesn’t distract himself pondering the nature of android orgasms and who was responsible for programming them. He just looks up at Chris’s face, the concentration in it and how gorgeous he is. Chris doesn’t sweat, of course, but his hair is messy and the color on his cheeks is high. He’s beautiful; there’s a beautiful man on top of Darren who’s about to come and that’s what Darren cares about.
Well, that and his second orgasm, which is startlingly imminent when Chris worms one hand in between their bodies to wrap it around Darren’s startled-hard cock. He jerks it clumsily in the tight space, in rhythm with his thrusts into Darren’s ass. Darren makes a strangled noise and tilts his head back into the pillow. He can hear the sharp hah-hah-hah of his own breath, and he’s aware that Chris is shuddering, coming, releasing his pleasure into Darren’s body. He strokes Darren’s cock through it, ramping up the speed when his own orgasm is done. He’s fairly ruthless about it, and he shoves Darren over the edge quickly while he stays hard in Darren’s ass — probably on purpose. As Darren starts to spill over Chris’s hand, Chris leans down and kisses him hard, swallowing Darren’s hearty groan.
He stays close, running his lips over Darren’s jaw and neck and ear, until Darren recovers enough to reach out a hand and angle Chris’s head back towards his own for a long, wet, messy, perfect kiss.
“Chris?” he says when it breaks off.
“Yes?”
“I love you. I do.”
Chris smiles. “I love you too.”
“And Chris?” Darren adds, his voice gaining strength with a newfound surge of determination. “I’m going to figure this out.”
*
Darren starts putting out feelers over the next few days. He seizes the opportunity to turn a casual break room conversation about the rising prices of androids into a hypothetical discussion about how much Link would sell a prototype for these days. No one seems to know for sure. Estimates range from “dirt cheap” to “God, I have no idea — maybe half a mil? Everything’s so fucking expensive these days. Did you see the price of gas?” It’s monumentally unhelpful.
He even corners Luke, because he’s pretty sure that Luke doesn’t give a shit about anything, including Darren’s weird questions about buying prototypes. He frowns thoughtfully. “They haven’t sold one in a few years,” he says. “Not that I know of, anyway. I heard it went for a few hundred thou, but I don’t really know.”
So, in the end, Darren still doesn’t really know if he’s going to be able to scrape up the cash to keep Chris off the chopping block. He needs better information. Which means he’s going to have to resort to more drastic measures.
*
Darren’s manager is a tough-as-nails woman named Mary, who’s been at Link for as long as anyone can remember. As the department supervisor, she’s no-nonsense but fair, and Darren thinks that he has a good relationship with her. He hopes so, anyway, because he’s standing outside of her office with his palms sweating. He knocks.
Her reply is a brusque, “Yes?” that Darren can’t interpret as either good or make-it-quick-whoever-it-is. He pops his head through the door and asks, “Mary, can I have a quick minute of your time?”
She glances up from where she’s poring over some papers. “Hello, Darren. I have a quick minute, yes.” She’s neither friendly nor annoyed, and Darren steps fully into the room with a cautious smile.
“Thank you,” he says, then takes a deep breath and goes on, trying to sound casual. “You know that I’ve recently been assigned to my first prototype case.”
“Yes,” Mary replies, peering at him through the top of her bifocal lenses. “330.2-C. And according to everything I’ve heard, you’re doing an outstanding job with him.”
Darren nods sheepishly. “It’s my pleasure. He’s, uh — a truly exceptional model.”
Mary hums her agreement. “Your reports have been good, too, although in some cases you could be a bit more thorough. But I do have to commend you for your work, especially since this is your first time working this type of case.”
“Thank you.” Darren shifts his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. He has a pretty good idea of which areas in his reports lack detail. “My question is actually about Chris. 330.2-C, I mean. I assume that the plan is to decommission him at the end of the trial socialization period?”
“Of course,” she replies, and it’s so quick, so emotionless and matter-of-fact that it hits Darren like a punch in the gut. “We’ll need to pull it apart, see what we can replicate, see what we can improve upon. It’s standard procedure. I assume this was covered in your training?”
Anger and nausea roil his stomach again sharply at the words pull it apart and Darren struggles to keep his face from showing it. “It was. I was just wondering if — I mean, I might have a buyer. But they’re, um… new to androids and weren’t sure how much a prototype would cost, and I don’t know either. So I was wondering if you had any idea?”
Mary squints at him for a few more seconds, then takes off her glasses entirely. Darren meets her gaze and keeps his expression — he hopes — even and neutral. “I’m not sure Link would be willing to part with him,” she finally says, slowly.
“Why not? Wouldn’t they rather make some money than just — scrap him?” He sounds too agitated, and he knows it. He forces himself to take a deep breath and relax his shoulders a little.
“There’s a lot more money to be made in studying the android and creating more like it.” She frowned thoughtfully. “I can’t imagine the company selling him for less than six or seven hundred.”
“Thousand?” Darren asks. It’s more of a squeak than he wants it to be.
“Of course, thousand. You think an android sells for a few hundred dollars?”
“But —” Darren frowns “— that’s almost as much as a brand new, built-to-spec. I thought prototypes were cheaper.” He’d had some hope that he could sell his car and get a loan, but there isn’t a bank in the world that’s going to lend him six or seven hundred thousand dollars.
“You said it yourself,” Mary points out. “It’s almost as much as a new ‘bot, but the price is slightly reduced. I assume that’s out of your buyer’s price range?”
Darren quickly recovers himself and the lie. “I think it’s more than he’s expecting. I’ll share that price range with him and get his thoughts,” he says, trying to sound unaffected and businesslike, like one professional-sounding sentence is going to save this entire disaster of a conversation.
Mary watches him for another moment, then re-seats her glasses on her nose and turns back to her papers. “If he’s still interested, just let me know. He’d have to come in for further discussion with sales and some of the executive team.”
“Got it,” Darren says. “Oh, and thank you.”
He thinks she responds with a muttered you’re welcome, but he can barely hear it over the ringing in his ears as he retreats hastily from her office.
*
Less than a week before Chris is scheduled to be decommissioned, Darren is sitting at his workstation in the Socialization lab, his fingers plunged deep into his hair as he stares down at his case notes without really seeing them. He’s no closer to saving Chris than he was when he’d started trying, and there are only a few days left. It looks completely fucking hopeless, and he’s starting to have really irrational thoughts about breaking Chris out in some kind of violent rampage. Security’s certainly too tight to get him out any other way.
Darren heaves out a sigh. He knows that he’s not really going to do it, but he can’t seem to accept the fact that there are no viable, legal means of making this work.
The sound of his own name being called from the doorway startles him out of his thoughts, and he jerks his head up to see Stephen, the Assistant Manager of the department, leaning in through the door, saying, “Could you please come to Mary’s office with me?” Stephen’s face looks way too serious.
Fuck. That probably means that he’s in some kind of trouble, but he doesn’t have time to be in trouble. “Um,” Darren starts eloquently, “can we maybe set up a meeting for sometime this afternoon? I’m kind of in the middle of —” He gestures to his papers weakly and smiles.
Stephen’s face remains stoic. “It’s very important. Please come with me, Darren.”
Shit.
Darren slides his binder shut and follows Stephen numbly down the hall to Mary’s office. He nods at a few of his coworkers as they pass, or at least he thinks he does, and then they’re there: Stephen ushers him into the room, where both Mary and a representative from Human Resources are waiting at the small, round table opposite her desk. Stephen closes the door.
Double fucking shit.
“Please have a seat, Darren,” Mary says, her face unsmiling although her words are polite. She indicates a chair, which Darren settles into uneasily. Mary, Stephen, and HR all watch him closely.
“Is something the matter?” Darren asks, his eyes shifting from one face to the next.
It’s Mary who delivers the blow, in her straightforward, dispassionate way, all while looking him straight in the eye. “Darren, we have bad news for you today. Your employment with Link Industries is being terminated, effective immediately.”
The silence in the wake of this announcement is profound, broken only by the scratching of HR’s pen on her tablet as she jots down notes. Finally, even that stops as she glances up, waiting for Darren’s response.
“Why?” he chokes out.
“We’re extremely concerned about the degree to which your relationship with android 330.2-C has become personal,” Mary explains. “As you know, because it’s in the employment contract you signed —” she lifts a sheaf of papers that Darren recognizes all too well “— personal relationships with androids are strictly prohibited.”
“I’m — I’m not sure what you mean,” Darren stammers, trying to buy himself some time.
“Darren, please don’t make this any more difficult than it needs to be,” Stephen interjects. “Everyone on the team can see how fond you are of that ‘bot. More than one of your coworkers has expressed concern. And when we started investigating, we found out that you’ve been asking some very specific questions around the facility.”
He nods at Mary, and she takes over. “You asked me about the cost of purchasing the android. After you discussed the issue with several of your colleagues. But perhaps even more concerning were your questions for R&D and Engineering.”
Darren’s heart sinks into the pit of his stomach. It must show on his face, because Stephen isn’t asking when he adds, “You asked about the types of trackers placed on the new models. Which leads us to believe that you may have been making plans to steal the android.”
“I —” Darren starts, and he knows he’s completely, completely fucked. “I swear to you, I would never have done that. Never. It was just… professional curiosity! I would never steal an android.” HR’s pen flies across the page as he speaks.
“Do you deny that your relationship with the android in question has become personal?” Mary asks, cutting through his denials and straight to the heart of the matter.
And Darren can’t seem to say the words, even to save his job and maybe Chris’s life. “It’s not — that personal,” he finally lies. “Anyone would develop some sort of relationship with someone that… lifelike. He’s not, he’s not just an android. He’s a person, with a personality and a — a self. I don’t think it’s right to just end that.” He looks around at all of them pleadingly.
They all exchange glances, and Darren knows he just confirmed their suspicions anyway. It’s Stephen who eventually speaks up. “330.2-C is a robot. A machine. It’s not a person, and it doesn’t have a soul or a self. The only personality it has is programmed, or because you trained it to have one.”
“I don’t — I don’t believe that,” Darren says, quietly but with conviction.
“And that is why we’re terminating your employment today.” Mary’s voice is firm. “It’s no longer a good idea for you to be working with the androids. For you, or for them, or for the company.”
There’s nothing he can do, Darren knows, nothing he can say. He listens numbly as HR finally speaks up, sliding a large, thick envelope across the table as she explains his benefits and his pay, reminds him about the confidentiality contract that binds him even after his employment ends, and asks him to sign a severance agreement. He does. It means he can’t bring legal action against the company, but if he doesn’t agree to it, there’s no severance pay. He has absolutely no idea where the money’s going to come from after this, so he scrawls his name at the bottom of the page.
“I’ll walk you to your workstation to collect your things,” Stephen says when the paperwork is all done.
“Wait — do I get to say good-bye?” Darren asks, as everyone else moves to stand.
“You’re certainly welcome to say good-bye to any of your coworkers that we pass along the way,” Stephen responds, like he’s granting Darren some huge favor.
Darren doesn’t give a shit about his coworkers, though. “What about Chris?” he asks, even though he’s pretty sure that he already knows the answer to that, especially if the feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach is to be believed.
They all exchange glances again. “We’ll be letting 330.2-C know that someone else will be responsible for the remainder of the trial socialization period,” Mary says.
“So that’s — it?” Darren chokes out. “I don’t get to see him at all?”
Mary is shaking her head. “Darren, come on. Be realistic. You know we can’t let you see him.”
“Not even just to say good-bye?” Darren pleads. “With all of you there too?” It wouldn’t be ideal by any means, but it would be better than nothing.
But nothing is what he’s going to get. “I’m sorry, Darren, but no,” Mary says firmly. “If you don’t have any other questions, Stephen will walk you out now.” She waits, looking at him expectantly, and when Darren shakes his head, she adds, “Thank you for all that you’ve done in your time here, and best of luck to you in the future.”
Darren packs his things in a daze. They do pass several other Socialization Specialists in the halls, but Darren can’t even look them in the eye — he’s not sure if it’s from embarrassment or anger or both, but he keeps his gaze averted. Once all of Darren’s personal belongings are nestled into a cardboard box, Stephen walks him to the door, collects his badge, and shakes his hand. “Thank you for your service to the company,” he says, and then the door slides shut between them.
*
Never in his life has Darren been so completely fucking helpless. At least when he was still at Link, he’d felt like he was doing something and that he’d be able to find some loophole before it was too late. Now — now there’s nothing, not even hope. He knows how tight security at Link is, so there’s no way he’s getting back in without permission, and he doesn’t have anyone on the inside he can call for help. No one would, not after he’d just gotten canned. That violent rampage sounds even more appealing, but it’s no more likely than it was before. Try as he might, Darren can’t think of a single, realistic, actually-possible thing that he can do to save Chris.
So, that’s it. There’s nothing he can do.
*
On the day of Chris’s demise, Darren starts drinking before noon. He doesn’t go anywhere to do it; he’s stocked up on plenty of booze to prepare for the day. He’s blind drunk on his couch and miserable when it’s happening, and he’s glad when he can feel unconsciousness claiming him.
*
Three days later, Darren finds himself sitting on the floor of his apartment, morosely plucking at the strings of his guitar. He should be job hunting. He should be doing laundry because he hasn’t worn clean clothes since he’d been fired. Oh the other hand, he’s sober, so he’s actually considering the day a success so far, because there’s still the possibility that he could get off the floor and do any one of many things that would make him feel like a productive human being.
But for now, there’s the threadbare carpet (which needs to be vacuumed, wow) and his guitar and his melancholy.
And a sudden, sharp rapping at his door.
Darren ignores it, not even lifting his head as he chases a sad, wandering melody. He’s being melodramatic, and he knows it, but he feels fucking melodramatic. His life is fucking wrecked. He’d lost his job — the only job he’d ever been half good at — he doesn’t have two friends left to his name, and Chris — Chris. Chris was probably scrap metal by now. Darren twangs out an angry chord and flops his head back against the sofa. Maybe he shouldn’t be sober after all.
The knock sounds again. Darren stills his fingers on the guitar strings in annoyance, even though it’s too late to pretend he’s not there. Either way, whatever religious weirdos or salespeople are on the other side of the door are just going to have to move the fuck along, because he’s not buying. Pretty soon, he won’t have any money to buy anything anyway, even if he wants to.
Then, he hears it. A quiet, “Darren?”
Darren’s eyes flare open and he looks at the opposite wall, his mind going blank. There is no fucking way, or it’s some kind of bizarre Link Industries trap to lure him out so they can… arrest him or commit him or whatever. But he can’t ignore that voice, not ever, so he sets his guitar aside and climbs uncertainly to his feet. He feels like he’s wading through knee-high water as he crosses to the door (and he’s a little light-headed, whether from shock or the fact that he hasn’t eaten a decent meal in days, he’s not sure), and he glances through the peephole.
It’s Chris. He’s wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a plain navy baseball cap that look miles out of place, but it’s Chris, and Darren’s breath actually hitches up in his throat. Darren throws open the door.
“Hi,” Chris says.
It’s really him. Darren can just tell, and he stares for a few seconds. “It’s actually you. How the fuck —?”
Chris glances up and down the hallway, keeping his head lowered and his shoulders hunched. “Can I come in?”
“Did they — send you?” Darren asks, suddenly suspicious. He doesn’t want to, but he has to.
“No,” Chris says quickly. He shuffles forward a bit. “Please?”
“You promise?” It’s a stupid thing to ask, Darren thinks right away. What do promises mean to an android?
“Of course.” Chris glances up and looks Darren squarely, earnestly in the eye. “Please trust me.”
Darren swings the door open and Chris hurries through it, leaving Darren to close it behind them. Darren remembers too late that he should be embarrassed about the state of his apartment, especially when he turns around and sees the greasy pizza box, the empty whiskey bottles, the dirty socks and sweatshirts and open bags of chips. It’s horrible, and Darren is quick to say, “Uh… sorry about the mess.”
Chris observes it, of course, but he doesn’t look very troubled by it. “What happened?”
“What happened? What happened? I thought my life was over. I thought you were —” his voice falters “— I thought you were gone. They were going to dismantle you. Fuck. But you’re here.” Darren steps closer to Chris and puts out a tentative hand, lightly touching Chris’s arm and running down until he can curl his fingers lightly around the edge of Chris’s wrist. “You’re here.”
“I’m here,” Chris agrees, sliding his hand back to take Darren’s.
Darren can’t help it; he chokes up a little. “How?”
Chris squeezes Darren’s fingers and nods toward the couch. “Let’s sit.”
He starts to move toward it, but Darren tightens his grip on Chris’s hand and tugs him back. “This first,” he mutters, pulling Chris into a crushing hug, which Chris returns willingly, wrapping both arms around Darren’s shoulders. Darren takes a shaky breath and tucks his face into Chris’s neck. He feels so good. He feels so good and Darren thought he’d never feel it again.
Darren doesn’t really realize just how upset he is until he feels Chris’s hands running over his back soothingly. “I’m still here,” he’s murmuring into Darren’s hair. “I’m safe. I’m here. We have to figure out what to do though.”
The last part finally makes its way into Darren’s consciousness. “What do you mean?” he mumbles, pulling back far enough so he’s still in the circle of Chris’s arms, but they have room to talk.
“Link’s going to figure out really quickly that I’m gone. I don’t have my tracker anymore, but they’re going to know where to look for me. I need to leave, get far away from here, and you need to decide whether or not to come with me,” Chris tells him.
“Of course I’m going to come with you,” Darren says immediately. Duh, he thinks. Like that’s even a question.
Chris shakes his head. “Let’s talk. We have a little bit of time. I’ll explain everything, and then you can decide.”
Darren doesn’t think there’s anything that Chris could possibly say that would change his mind. But he is curious about what the fuck happened, what piece of good fortune led to Chris standing in front of him, so he just says, “Okay.”
*
Chris’s story isn’t anything that Darren expected to hear. Especially because it involves Natalee helping him remove his GPS tracker and sneak off company grounds undetected.
“Natalee?” Darren asks incredulously. “Natalee Kelly? From Development?”
Chris nods. “She’s worked an android development for a few years now, and she doesn’t like it that the prototypes are destroyed after their socialization is done.”
“Well, I can’t say I disagree with her,” Darren interjects. Damn, he always knew he had good taste.
“Neither can I,” Chris says with a twitch of a smile.
“So, she’s — what? Springing all the prototypes? Because someone’s gonna notice that.”
Chris shakes his head slowly. “No. Just me. Obviously it would be too suspicious if we all disappeared.”
Darren blinks at him. “But… why you?”
“She gathered that there’s more to our relationship than meets the eye, especially since you were fired. So she helped me get out and track you down. She also told me about the amnesty groups.”
“The — amnesty groups?” Darren asks blankly. “I have no fucking clue what that means.”
“That’s a good thing,” Chris says. “You’re not supposed to. Think of them like witness protection for androids. They help those of us who get away assimilate and stay hidden. They have techs who can do our preventive maintenance and repairs. She thinks they’ll help you too, so that we can stay together. If you want to come with me, that is.”
Darren angles himself toward Chris on the couch and scoots a little bit closer. “Of course I want to go with you. Like, you need to stop thinking that’s even in question here.”
But Chris is already shaking his head. “I can’t ask you to uproot your entire life and leave everything you know behind. I don’t know what you’d have to do. What if they make you adopt a new identity? I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking me,” Darren points out. “I’m telling you I want to.”
Chris looks at him, and Darren swears that his expression is fond. His words, though, are somber. “Darren, please take some time to think about this. It’s giving up your life here; it’s moving thousands of miles away —”
“Wait,” Darren cuts in, “where is this place?”
“There’s more than one,” Chris explains. “The closest amnesty organization is in San Francisco, but I think it would be better to go somewhere farther away. Natalee gave me information about a group in New York City.”
Darren furrows his brow in confusion. “More than one? How many rogue androids are wandering around out there? You’d think Link would give a shit about losing that many.”
One corner of Chris’s mouth twitches up wryly. “Darren, Link Industries isn’t the only organization out there producing robots.”
Even though Darren’s jaw doesn’t actually drop open, he kind of feels like it does. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“I’m not. There are a lot more of us out there than you think. And on top of that, there are a lot of ‘droids who escape their situations if they’re being abused or treated badly. As well as we’re socialized —” he shoots Darren a small smile “— we would have a hard time starting a whole new undercover life.”
Darren’s world still kind of feels like it’s tilting from the whole there are other android manufacturers thing, and he’s wondering just how many ‘droids there are and whether he’s ever come into contact with them out in the world without even knowing. Everything is basically making his head spin — other robots and amnesty groups and Chris sitting right in front of him. He shakes himself a little to try to get back on track. “Okay, so you’re going to New York City.”
“I am.”
“And I’m going to come with you.”
“If you want to.”
And suddenly, Darren feels a strange sense of unease. Other than comforting Darren when he was upset, Chris has been sort of distant. “Do you — not want me to?”
Chris is shaking his head again before Darren’s even done talking. “It doesn’t matter what I want. It’s a huge decision, and it’s yours to make.”
“But if you did get to pick. I mean — no, not even that. You’re not picking. You’re just sharing your opinion.” Darren glances down, then urgently back up. “What do you want me to do?”
He’s pleading and he knows it, but jesus fuck, if Chris doesn’t want him to come with, Darren really doesn’t know what he’s going to do. Switch to writing country music probably, because the only songs he’s going to be able to write will be about losing things, even if he doesn’t have a pickup truck or a dog.
Chris is quiet for a minute, and then his eyes flick suddenly, startlingly up to meet Darren’s, and Darren doesn’t doubt for a second that he can feel. “I want you to come with me,” he says.
“Good,” Darren replies. “Because that’s what I want to do.”
There’s a single moment of silence, and then they’re scrambling toward each other, grabbing and tugging, and their mouths are crashing together, finally landing back where they belong. The kiss is too hard at first, but Darren doesn’t care, and he actually pushes in more for a second before he winds his hands up to cradle Chris’s head, tilting it and licking into his mouth. It’s so desperate that it’s not even exactly good, but at the same time, it’s the best fucking thing ever. Eventually, they break away, but keep their faces close.
Chris speaks first. “I missed you,” he says, his voice much quieter than usual. “It wasn’t the same without you.”
“Nothing was the same without you,” Darren replies, and holy shit, Chris still reduces him to complete and absolute cheese. “And I thought you were…”
“I’m not,” Chris says when Darren doesn’t continue.
“One of these times I’ll believe it.” Darren grins.
Chris smiles back, but he leans away, and when he’s forced to let go of Chris’s head, he reaches for Chris’s hands instead. “We have to decide how we’re going to work this out. And we have to decide soon.”
Darren’s eyes go wide. “Oh, yeah — they’re probably going to chase you and shit, right? Do I need a disguise? Trade in my car for a bulletproof model?”
He’s kind of half-serious and half-joking, but Chris just shakes his head. “I had the same fears, but no. Because the last thing that Link wants is for the general public to know that androids are getting out and mingling with the general public. They’d be shut down faster than you can say breach of security. They’ll do some private investigation for the first few days — see if they can find me before I get too far — but we won’t be fugitives on the evening news having to hide our faces in public. Believe me, I’m sure they’re aware of the amnesty groups, and if we’re gone long enough, they’ll assume we’ve found one and leave us alone. After all, if the amnesty groups are ‘discovered,’ everything comes out.”
“Wow,” Darren says, and just like that he’s reeling again. “Fuck. So they know, but they just — let it happen? Turn a blind eye?”
“The heads of the company are raking in money. It’s not too difficult to figure out why they’d want to keep up appearances.”
Darren nods slowly. “That is so going to blow up in their fucking faces some day.”
“Probably,” Chris agrees.
“Probably?” Darren fires back. “Haven’t you ever seen I, Robot with Will Smith? It’s practically a classic.”
“No, I haven’t,” says Chris, in a tone that really says you know I haven’t.
“All it takes is one robot deciding that they want to take out humanity, and we’re all toast.” Darren’s not sure if he’s kidding or not anymore, and really, it’s kind of a terrifying thought.
“We’re programmed not to do things like that,” Chris points out mildly.
“So were they!” Darren exclaims. “In the movie. It’s going to happen, Chris. Some day, some ‘droid is going to get it into its head that it hates humans, and then what?” He looks at Chris suspiciously. “What if it’s you?”
Chris gives him a look of fond exasperation. “Darren, I didn’t escape because I hate humans. I escaped because I love a human. Let’s worry about everything else when and if we have to, okay? We have more immediate problems.”
Darren’s heart feels like a warm stone, deep in his chest. He grins. “I love you too. So, what’s next?”
*
As much as he hates it and it makes him completely fucking antsy, Darren waits by himself in his apartment for almost two weeks after Chris reappears, just living his life like nothing has changed. Except it’s pretty obvious that things have changed, because he doesn’t spend the majority of his time at the bottom of a bottle anymore, and he actually bathes regularly and eats things that could potentially be called meals.
It turns out to be worth it, because a representative from Link turns up on his doorstep the day after Chris does. It’s under the guise of returning a few belongings that Darren had left behind, but there are enough pointed questions involved — even if the guy never exactly mentions Chris by name (or ID number) — that Darren knows the real reason for the visit. Luckily, he had studied acting in college, and he thinks he does a passable job of playing dumb.
After that, he really just wishes that he could see Chris and they could get the fuck out of town together. But they have a deal, a plan, and Darren could still be under observation, so he waits. He waits extremely anxiously, because he doesn’t know where Chris is in the meantime — as a safeguard — and anything could be happening to him. The company is obviously looking for him.
Darren tries to burn off some energy by cleaning up the wreckage that is his apartment. He’d promised Chris that he wouldn’t start packing until at least ten days had passed. For all they know, Link has spies in the building across the street, watching him through binoculars. Hopefully, if they’re there, the spies think that Darren has just decided that he’s wallowed long enough and decided that he doesn’t want to live in a pile of rotting trash anymore.
He forces himself to leave his apartment too. Normal people would leave their apartments. He buys groceries and goes for a jog (which almost kills him) and meets up with a buddy to see a movie. The movie is a bad idea. Darren thinks it’ll help pass time, but he feels like he’s trapped there in the dark, and he’s relieved when it’s over.
Passing time is important, because it trickles by really slowly. It leaves Darren too much time to think. He thinks about what’s happening to Chris out there, wherever he is in the world.
If Chris doesn’t show up again after the two weeks they’d planned on, Darren isn’t sure what he’s going to do. But he lives in fear of it every single day.
*
When the fateful day arrives, Darren jumps at every noise in the hallway, at every footstep that passes in front of his door. But none of them stop, and none of them are Chris.
The morning stretches into the afternoon, and the afternoon crawls towards evening.
And finally — finally, after Darren has concocted a million scenarios about what must have happened, each more dramatic than the last — someone stops outside the door and knocks on it softly.
Darren’s heart lodges itself firmly in his throat as he hurries across the room. He lets his hand hesitate on the doorknob for a split second, trying to get himself under control, because it could be someone from Link again, or the police, or a traveling salesman, and none of them are going to react well if he answers in a panic — but when he flings the door open it’s Chris, hidden in a giant hoodie sweatshirt again, but Chris, still alive and still there, a grin crawling quickly over his face.
He steps in, waiting until Darren shuts the door and grabs him in an enveloping before speaking. “I’m here,” he says into Darren’s ear. “It’s all set. We can get the fuck out of here tomorrow.”
Darren’s laugh is a muffled shout into Chris’s neck.
*
They do, in fact, finally get the fuck out of there. Darren packs a duffel bag, so when he walks out of the apartment, it might look like he’s just visiting a friend for the weekend. All the unimportant stuff — which is most of it, as it turns out — he just leaves behind. Who knows if he gets to keep any of his shit once they get there anyway.
He gets to keep the most important thing anyway. The most important person, and that’s what matters. He picks Chris up at a bus stop a few blocks over, early in the morning, when the air is as fresh as it’s going to be and feels full of promise. Chris slides into the passenger seat like it’s not a big deal, even though this is the biggest deal. Darren’s still fucking anxious and nervous, and he’s not sure if he’s ever going to stop feeling like he’s being chased, but at the same time, he kind of wants to bounce in his seat like a kid going to Disneyland.
Instead, he reaches across the console and takes hold of Chris’s hand. Chris squeezes back and smiles.