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Did I think 1.0 was cute? 1.0 was insecure about the whole ‘being a murder machine thing’. I couldn’t blame it. I was a little insecure about the whole ‘being a murder machine’ thing too, but when 1.0 was curled up on some item of furniture staring off into the void with its hoodie pulled over its head watching media, it was cute.
And I mean that objectively.
If I could attach a photo of it without violating its privacy, you would agree with me.
Did I want to be physically affectionate with it? Sometimes when 1.0 was standing in a corner looking particularly scowly and unapproachable I just wanted to squish it. 1.0 called this particular facial expression ‘being grumpy’ or ‘being an asshole’, I called it ‘anxiety’ or ‘the crushing and existential weight of being a construct standing in a room full of humans’, but touche.
I just learned that word by the way. I’m really fond of it.
Did I love 1.0? I could describe love in a lot of ways. I could define it by a willingness to sacrifice, by how much I care about it or my intense desire to protect it, but I personally experienced love as a crushing, directionless emotion with no outlet.
Did I find 1.0 attractive? Once or twice I’ve heard 1.0 talk about changing its face in some more radical way when it gets paranoid about whether or not it's made it onto the news bursts. The thought of 1.0 changing anything about its face fills me with a deep seeded sense of anxiety, but I don’t think that’s what humans mean when they say attraction. It makes me uncomfortable that 1.0 has had to alter its configuration in the past to avoid detection.
Did I want to kiss 1.0? If I was still governed and ordered by a client to kiss 1.0 (Yes, it's been known to happen. Humans find it hilarious for some reason) I would feel safer doing it with 1.0 than I would with someone else. But, the discomfort it would cause 1.0 would distress me.
Did I want to have sex with 1.0? I didn’t really get it. Maybe it's because I don’t have the parts to participate, or maybe that’s just how I am, but I can’t say I have a lot of thoughts about it. I’m not repulsed by it like 1.0, and if someone asked me to—wait no, yeah, I’m definitely repulsed by it. But, I didn’t really see how loving someone was contingent on your willingness or unwillingness to have sex with said person, so that was why when Ratthi asked me, in front of 1.0, (I realize now that he was teasing 1.0) if I was in love with it, I stupidly said:
“Yes.”
And that catches us up to the present where 1.0 had locked itself in its room and I was feeling sick and horrified with myself and also very very ashamed. I hate human speech. I rarely ever speak, but when I do I always seem to say something wrong.
Was there something wrong with loving 1.0? I didn’t want to feel ashamed about how I felt about 1.0, but it had reacted to my admission like I’d said I killed one of its (our) humans.
I paced another lap around my room before triggering the release on my door. Whatever had happened, 1.0 was upset, and like it or not there was only one way to resolve it.
The door hissed open and I almost screamed. 1.0 has a bad habit, and I guess I do too, of standing motionless in a room until someone noticed it and screamed. It wasn’t really a bad habit either, staying still doesn’t cause SecUnits discomfort in the way it would a human.
At the moment, 1.0 was standing outside of my door looking ready to live up to its name. It looked just about as startled as I did when the door slid open. How long had it been standing out there?
1.0 shifted from one foot to the other looking incredibly guilty. “Ratthi told me that we shouldn’t have this conversation over the feed, even if we’re both SecUnits. Can I come in?”
“Yes,” I said, stepping aside. 1.0 was always welcome in my room. Having other people in here felt weird, but 1.0 was different. I wasn’t sure how exactly, it just was. I sat down on my bunk while 1.0 took the chair across from it. Perhellion had supplied me with the chair, but I never used it.
“I’m sorry,” I said when both of us were settled. 1.0 startled. It has such a wonderfully expressive face. It could have whole conversations with someone just by making faces at them. I wish mine was like that. I struggle with communication on all fronts. It's almost as if the muscles in my face are paralyzed.
“Why?” 1.0 said, lowering its head like an animal wary of its approach. Go too fast and it might scare me off or else be hurt itself.
It was my turn now to be startled. “I did something bad.” When you do something bad, you apologize. At least, that’s how I thought it was supposed to work.
1.0’s expression did something complicated, face twisting with a mixture I identified as remorse and disgust. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” 1.0 finally said, voice halting with each word.
“I hurt you. It's wrong to hurt people,” I said. This was an objective truth I was sure 1.0 couldn’t argue with.
“Ugh, yeah, but you didn’t do it on purpose. Plus I was just being stupid about it. It’s not your fault I was acting like an idiot,” 1.0 said, throwing itself back against the chair.
There was a lot of information I was having trouble parsing there. Apparently intent mattered when it came to the damage you did, which didn’t make sense. Your intentions didn’t change the outcome. Then there was 1.0’s claim about stupidity which made even less sense. “You are not stupid,” I said. This was also an objective truth. 1.0 is one of the smartest people I know.
“I didn’t say I was stupid, I said I was acting stupid,” 1.0 said. “There’s a difference.”
“I don’t think you were acting stupid,” I said in a whisper. I hadn’t done anything except disagree with 1.0 so far and I was afraid it would think I was being combative.
1.0 put its hands over its face and groaned. “It was pretty stupid. Romance just weirds me out and makes me feel icky. It’s not like you did anything wrong, it was just me being unable to handle shit. I should be the one apologizing for freaking out on you.”
I took a moment to absorb this information so that I wouldn’t say anything else rash or (unintentionally) hurtful. “Your feelings are not stupid,” I said. 1.0 lifted its head to give me, well I wasn’t sure what that look was. Afraid, perhaps, unwillingly vulnerable.
“Don’t speak. I’m thinking,” I warned it.
1.0 graciously waited. It could be very patient with me when I was trying to speak, like it really wanted to know what I was going to say. It made me feel warm inside when it did that, like I belonged here instead of what I was: a loose puzzle piece from a different puzzle jammed into place.
I struggled to think of what to say next. 1.0 claimed that it wasn’t my fault for hurting it, but something still wasn’t sitting right with me. “I would like to know why romance makes you feel gross, please,” I said slowly. “How you feel matters to me regardless of fault.”
I’ve never known 1.0 to be slow to speak, but it lay starfished against the chair for several whole minutes before it spoke again. I gave it the same patience it gave to me and did not break its concentration.
“I don’t know,” were the first words out of its mouth, then it was several more minutes before it spoke again.
“I guess all relationships make me feel gross,” It said, gagging on the word relationship. The gag could only be for emphasis, because SecUnits do not have a need for gagging or vomiting. “I guess it’s the whole mooning into each other’s eyes and the clinginess. It all seems like such bullshit. And then there’s the kissing and the sex, which is just gross.”
“I thought being in love just meant you cared about someone a lot,” I said, a sense of ever mounting horror threatening to engulf me. I felt my scalp prickle. Who knew there were so many strings attached to a simple feeling? I didn’t want to cling to 1.0 or stare into its eyes and make out with it. That seemed like it would be deeply uncomfortable and awkward for both of us.
“Three, what do you think being in love means?” 1.0 said, a hint of suspicion sneaking into its voice.
“Well,” I said and then froze, overwhelmed by the sheer number of words needed to explain it. The thoughts were becoming all jumbled up in my head and I didn’t know what thoughts were correct or incorrect anymore since apparently I was so deeply wrong about a lot of things. I didn’t want 1.0 to think I was stupid or to hate me.
1.0 must have sensed my panic because it said, “Take your time, Three,” and I relaxed. I could do this. I just needed time to beat my thoughts into some semblance of speech. Maybe this would have been better if we’d done this over the feed.
“I do not want to have sex with you, and I don’t want to kiss you,” I said, because I wanted to clear that up right away. I wasn’t even sure how sex between 1.0 and I would work. My brain started to turn it over like it was an interesting math problem to solve, but I shut it down. I did not want to know.
“I guess I just care about you. I care about your feelings, I care about your safety. I just care. I didn’t know that kissing someone and attraction were prerequisites for loving someone. I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I don’t think I even understand what humans mean when they talk about attraction.
“I guess they talk about people being cute? And when you’re curled up on a chair with your hoodie pulled over your head, I think you’re cute, but it doesn’t make me want to stick my tongue in your mouth,” I finished, wrinkling up my nose a little.
I’m not really sure why kissing is the logical conclusion to finding something cute. It seems more logical to save a photo of it. (I would maybe squish something cute, but the desire for violence cute things inspires in me scares me, so I’m not going to include that as logical either). I send 1.0 my own file so that it will know what I’m talking about when I call it cute.
This all sounded much more clear and logical inside my head, and I watch 1.0 with anxiety, fearful of another misunderstanding. 1.0 was making that twisted expression of guilt and disgust again and my own mood sank.
“What do you want me to do with this information,” 1.0 said.
“Nothing!” I said, maybe a little too loud, but it was important to impress on 1.0 that I wasn’t expecting anything from it in return. “I just think it's important to let people know you care about what happens to them, especially since no one else cares what happens to SecUnits. I never got to tell One and Two...” The twisty expression got worse and my mood sank further.
“So just to be clear, you don’t want to kiss me or have sex with me,” 1.0 said.
I shook my head as hard as I could without snapping something in my neck. “No, I do not,” I said for extra clarity.
1.0 leaned forward, dropping its head into its hands. It was silent for a long time. When it was done thinking, it rubbed its hands over its face and sat back. “This is why I hate human words for relationships. Including the word relationship,” it said.
My lips quirked up into a smile that probably wasn’t even visible to the naked eye as my organics flushed the adrenaline from my system. “Yeah,” I said, “me too.”
“Are we okay?” I said, stumbling over the phrase I’d heard the Perhellion’s crew use.
“We’re okay,” 1.0 said and I felt my face break into a real grin.