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Cyborg ficcie O_o
This is the first chapter of the (still unnamed) RP-turned-fic between ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
girl_starfish and yours truly. Since she plays Fei and I play Heero, I think you can guess the pairing. ^__^
The prologue is here.
Chapter One
In its stand-by state, the doll merely looked asleep. Cleaned of the soot and clad in a brand new black bodysuit, it had lost that hint of dangerousness. Its dark lashes brushing its high cheekbones, its bed-tousled brown hair gave it too much of the look of a handsome young man resting to still convey any threat at all.
Wufei made the final adjustments to a device he was wearing, still gazing thoughtfully at the doll that he had sat in a chair at the other side of the room. He had looked through its programming and he had to say, it had the capacity to be one of the most complex AI he had ever seen.
He finished tweaking the settings and nodded. "That should do it... Now, time to see if you were worth all this bother, Heero."
He pressed a button on his control panel, and waited for the combat doll to reactivate.
On the other side of the room, the doll's eyes fluttered open slowly. Apart from that, it didn't move.
"What is your status, fighting unit Heero?" Wufei asked, biting back a hint of trepidation.
"All clear and ready," answered a toneless voice. The doll turned its eyes toward him, clearly waiting.
Wufei smiled in satisfaction and approached it to have a better look. The features stayed blank, as unexpressive as when it had been deactivated. But the eyes... They were a surprising, intense gunmetal blue, decidedly unnatural. The color must have been a leftover from the pleasure doll that had served as a template, there was no way Lowe had gone through the pain of finding this stunning shade by himself.
"Systems reading?" he asked, making sure a last time that the doll was in top form.
"Everything reads 100%. Waiting for orders," went the toneless voice again.
"Excellent," Wufei said, satisfied. He looked the doll over a few seconds longer, then went back to business. "Information check. Your owner's name?"
"Odin Lowe."
"Correction," rectified the trainer, unsurprised by the answer. "Your owner is now Chang Wufei."
The doll didn't react, and Wufei wondered if it had understood. "Who is your owner?"
"May I see the proof of ownership, sir?"
If he hadn't known better, Wufei would have thought it was looking slightly contemptuous. It was the eyes. They were so cold.
The man picked up a handheld data screen and passed it over to the doll who took it and plugged in, reading the data at its source. It was impossible to tamper with it and not leave traces for an AI to find.
"Would you like to check my finger prints as well?" Wufei asked, slightly annoyed at the loss of time, but knowing that it was necessary.
"Yes, please. And your retina imprint as well, sir."
He raised an eyebrow. "You have the equipment to do a retina scan?" he asked, vaguely impressed, placing his hand on the screen to confirm his fingerprints. The doll nodded soberly in answer.
"Please open your eyes wide," it asked, looking him right in the eye. Wufei found the expression slightly defiant and wondered if it was just anthropomorphism talking. He seemed to have troubles remembering that it wasn't human.
He stood in front of the unit, slightly bored with the routine. It would have been easier to download the ownership data directly while it was sleeping, but AIs had troubles with accepting data that they had not been conscious to see arriving.
Finally satisfied, the doll leaned back. "Owner name: Chang Wufei. Awaiting orders, sir."
Good! he was finally free to begin working seriously on his new challenge. "Turn off system analysis mode and enter training mode."
The doll's look turned inward as it obeyed.
"Are you done?" A nod. "Good. Do you remember your last battle?"
"Yes sir, up until the last ten minutes and twenty-four seconds of it, sir," answered the doll after a few seconds where it tried to retrieve the lost data.
Wufei snorted. "I'm not surprised. You went out of control," he informed the doll.
Heero blinked slowly in answer, taking in the information.
"You disobeyed orders and destroyed the opponent's doll and part of the stadium."
It tilted its head on the side, clearly confused. The gesture was strangely childish, humanlike. It had probably acquired it from one of its previous owner's acquaintances. " That goes against my core programming, sir," it informed him, as if doubting Wufei.
"Well, core programming or not, you did it. I have the match video taped if you don't believe me."
The doll blinked, again, waiting for more information.
"You were slated to be destroyed. Your value as an experimental unit alone saved you from destruction."
That made sense, Heero thought. If what his new master said was true –and he didn't have any reason to be lying, since Heero was legally his –then he should have never awoken at all. The thought was... repellant.
" I believe that Lowe's premise, that a doll with the ability to think for itself would be useful. However, I believe you lack the necessary ... discipline. It is my goal to retrain you."
The doll didn't answer, merely blinked as it took in the information.
"Tell me, what mode were you battling in?"
The AI blinked again, and its feature changed slightly. Wufei recognized the expression as confusion.
"I ... can't remember, sir. Some of my data seems to be corrupt."
Having his suspicions confirmed, Wufei nodded thoughtfully. "Assume free will mode," he ordered, hoping that the more complete mode would give it deeper access.
"Done, sir."
"Do you remember the battle now?"
There were a few seconds of silence as the doll searched its databases. "I can retrieve some data that may pertain to your request. It may take me ten to fifteen minutes to sort it out though."
"I don't think that will be necessary. I think it safe to assume you battled under this mode?"
"...Not entirely."
Wufei raised an eyebrow, not having expected the answer. So the doll could operate under two simultaneous modes? That was interesting.
"From what I can deduce, my battle mode and my free will mode seem to have been engaged at the same time, sir. I... received a lot of confusing data." He looked slightly confused once again, and slightly frustrated, somehow. "I don't understand how the programs conflicted exactly. I will have to run a scan."
It wasn't a request, noticed Wufei. Visibly, the doll was used to taking care of itself for small things like glitches in programming. He couldn't decide if it was a bad or a good thing. Lowe could have overlooked some problems because he had not thought to check more thoroughly when his doll self-repaired. But it only proved that it was only obedient in appearance, if able to decide of such important things by itself.
"I shall test out your battle mode later. For now I want to work on your free will mode." The doll looked up at him, waiting for more information. "Run the scan tonight after I have dismissed you. I want it ready when I wake up tomorrow," he added to make sure that it knew to do it anyway.
It nodded in approval. Somehow, that annoyed Wufei. It was not supposed to judge the valor of any order given by its owner, just do it.
Deciding to stop the chitchat and begin the training, he walked over to the far end of the room. "Now, come to me," he ordered in a clear voice.
Heero waited for a second, then started forward, a complacent expression on his face, as if it was merely humoring its owner.
"Stop. I did not say walk."
The doll tilted its head on a side in that too human gesture. "You didn't precise a means, sir," it reproached in a matter-of-fact voice that was way too close to all-out insolence.
"You will go back, and you will start again. Crawling."
The doll quirked an eyebrow. "...Allow me to say that it's inefficient, sir," it commented as it turned around to walk back to the chair.
Wufei pressed a button on the wristband he was wearing, sending a jolt of pain through the doll. Heero started visibly, taken by surprise.
"I did not ask for your opinion."
It was staring at him, as if it could not believe he had done that.
"Crawl," he ordered, staring right back. He WOULD make the doll obey him.
"If you do not want me to express an opinion," Heero answered, voluntarily expressionless, "you'd better switch me to another mode. Sir. This is just a respectful suggestion."
"This band," Wufei answered through clenched teeth," has fifteen different settings. Every time I have to ask you it goes up a notch."
He pressed it again. "No more suggestions. Crawl."
The doll tensed up but didn't change its expression, visibly trying not to show pain.
"Crawl," Wufei repeated, pressing on the band again.
Heero fell to his knees. Wufei waited to see if he had gotten through. Slowly, the doll leaned forward, resting his hands on the floor. It was so tense it was shivering.
"I am waiting..."
He couldn't afford to look weak in front of the doll. He pressed again. This time, the doll's claws slid out of their sheaths and pierced the floor.
Why was it so openly disobedient? Where had it learned to be so proud? "Come on, now, what's the point of all this?" he asked, annoyed.
"Battle mode engaged, sir. My hard drive is crashing."
Wufei sighed and ordered: "Complete system reset." The doll toppled over, and it was in seeing its face go suddenly blank that he realized that, while subtle, it had had an expression.
Thoughtful, Wufei turned the band off, then took a cable from the computer and hooked it to the port on the side of the doll's neck, just below its ear. He downloaded the diagnostic function and took some time to read it over.
The AI was definitely more developed than he had thought, to be able to push so far past the "obedience" programming already... Well, not really. It was developed in a different direction. But he supposed a combat doll would not develop its personality in the same direction as a dog-shaped company doll or a business computer would.
Its psyche was, from what he had been able to translate from its coding and from what he knew about psychology, beginning to develop a very definite masculine slant, leaving the purely androgynous state of its first months of existence behind. The packaging matched the interior now. Wufei guessed that it wouldn't do to keep calling his doll 'it'.
The systems reset finished, Heero sat up, his face blank, staring right ahead.
"Your serial number?" Wufei asked, verifying that the memory wasn't damaged.
"01-W-0," Heero recited back, still totally expressionless.
Wufei leaned forward to stare in his face. "Your owner?"
"Chang Wufei."
Still that empty tone. Wufei felt worried that his personality had been damaged or even deleted, but then remembered that maybe it wasn't running free will mode. "What mode are you running?"
"Diagnosis mode, sir. Awaiting orders."
"Change to free will mode. And block access to all other modes until I give orders to switch."
"My core programming doesn't allow a total block, sir. This is in conflict with my prime directives," the doll informed him.
"... I see. Is the option to go to battle mode still open?"
"Yes, sir."
Wufei frowned. He had troubles understanding what had possessed Lowe to make the doll able to change modes by its own will. But it was probably an important part of the programming job and he wasn't sure what changing it now might affect. "I suppose this will have to do," he mused.
Meanwhile, Heero was retrieving his memories of what had happened. And he didn't like what he saw.
"Well, Heero, you've wasted quite a lot of my time already. We will keep doing this until you obey."
The doll looked up, entirely unexpressive.
"Crawl."
"Where to, Sir?"
Heero was glad he could gain total control over his facial expression. He was finding difficult to stay neutral.
"Toward me. I will tell you when to stop."
Heero decided to concentrate on crawling efficiently and not on the smugness that was probably written all over his new master's face. He didn't have a clue why it was making his emotion programs fire off so badly. If his owner had permitted it, he would have switched to another mode; they didn't hinder him when he wasn't running Free Will.
When the doll was about one meter away, Wufei cleared his throat. "You may stop," he ordered, taking pity on him; then, because he didn't want to seem too soft: "Remain on your knees."
The doll froze so totally he might have been a sculpture. Wufei walked slowly around him, looking at him thoughtfully. It annoyed him to have to train the doll using only the stick. Maybe he should show him the carrot...
He knelt down to Heero's level, putting a hand under his chin and pushing his head up to meet his eyes. The doll was totally passive in his hold.
"Was that really so hard?" his owner asked. But Heero was running the Free Will mode at about ten percent only, and he didn't see fit to answer. The complicated tangle of emotions that was his burgeoning personality didn't bother him so much at this level, and his owner had never told him to run it high level, only to keep it as dominant mode.
"I expect complete obedience of you, at all times."
Heero kept on staring ahead, unblinking. Wufei was beginning to find it unnerving, and wondered if he was doing it voluntarily. "Disobedience will be punished, but I will reward good behavior."
No answer. Not even a flicker of life in his eyes in response. Now THAT was irritating. How could he teach the doll anything if he tuned him out?
Wufei leaned in and brushed his lips against the doll's. Heero was surprised enough that he let an expression of faint puzzlement float on his features for a few seconds. The trainer felt a sense of satisfaction.
"If you have the capacity for pain," Wufei told him as he pulled back, satisfied, "you have equal capacity for pleasure." He stood, looking down at Heero who, once again, was staring right ahead and looking like he was ignoring him utterly. But if that comforted the doll, he didn't really care to correct him for now. He was the one in control, and they both knew that.
"Operating systems diagnosis?"
Heero turned up the percentage of Free Will he was operating under before he answered. "All clear, sir."
Wufei frowned; something felt weird. "Stand," he ordered, fetching a device to monitor himself what was going on. He plugged it in the port in the doll's neck and stepped back.
"Walk to the other side of the room."
The doll obeyed, extraordinarily silent for something that was made of metal and much heavier than it looked. "Good," nodded Wufei, satisfied by the readings. "Now crawl back toward me."
Heero decided that it would be a bad thing to play with the settings again and dropped to his knees obediently. He began to crawl back to Wufei, wondering why it was such a relief to run simulations of him following the order to the letter and crawling in that direction until he went right through his owner-- not that his core programming would allow it of course.
"Stop."
Heero's elbow blades pointed out of the sheaths and retracted smoothly as he stopped moving.
"Much better," smiled Wufei, satisfied. "You may stand."
Wufei circled his doll once again, pausing at his back. Now this was a part of the training he didn't mind as much.
"Maybe it is time to demonstrate the rewards of obedience?"
Out of sight, Heero's fingertips flexed, his claws sliding out and in again.
The trainer unzipped the black bodysuit down all the way, baring down to the small of his back, and looked approvingly at the expanse of smooth, unmarred syntheskin. The repairmen had done a good job.
Heero's claws slid out all the way. He felt... invaded. It was stupid, he was a doll. His body was his owner's property.
"Put your claws back," came the faintly annoyed order.
Heero slid them back in with difficulty. His self-preservation subroutines were hard to override. He wondered why his owner tripped them; he had never had this problem with Odin Lowe.
Maybe that was it. He had never had another owner than his creator. Maybe what he had been supposed to classify as owner-specific reactions were in fact classified as Odin-specific reactions.
Wufei had thought a lot about the way to reward good behavior and reinforce positive associations. Sentient dolls could learn and evolve, like a pet or a child. Were it a child he had charge of, he would have discovered his favorite games, the things he liked and the such, and offered them to him as reward. But dolls of Heero's level of development didn't really have tastes yet. And even if Heero did have burgeoning likes and dislikes out of training and fighting, they weren't known to him yet and he couldn't use them.
As they were supposed to be an outlet for human aggressive tendencies, fighting dolls were wired to be affected by their senses much like a human was. After all it wasn't any interest to see them destroy each other if they didn't even notice.
And as he had told Heero... if he had the capacity for pain, he also had the capacity for pleasure.
He slid a hand down Heero's back, knowing that the pain sensors there will let him feel the touch with excruciating details, guessing that he had never been touched there gently before. The doll tensed under his hand. Wufei stroked the small of his back gently, letting him get used to the sensory input.
"How does that feel?"
Heero tilted his head on the side in that curiously childish way. "I cannot answer this question, sir."
Okay, maybe it was petty to be amused by the faintly bewildered look on the haughty doll's face, but...
He slid an arm around Heero's waist from behind, bringing him back against his own chest, and slid a hand under the suit to caress his front. The fabric slid off the doll's arm, uncovering a slip hip.
Heero analyzed his reactions curiously. Wufei's touch was teasing his skin into life in a way he had never experienced before, and he was at a loss how to interpret it. His spine arched slightly as his owner slid his hand lower, ghosting across Heero's thighs before settling between them.
Wufei was actually starting to enjoy himself when he heard Heero's neutral announcement.
"I am going into sensory overload, sir."
"Ignore," he shot back. He hadn't gotten to make Heero see why it was desirable to obey his owner yet.
"I am not allowed to. That might damage my software. Rebooting in ten seconds."
Wufei left Heero with an annoyed sound, going to the computer to bring up Heero's system scans again. Behind him, the doll sat heavily on the floor as it rebooted, staying hunched over for a few minutes before it straightened up.
Heero sat up straight and waited in diagnosis mode for a few minutes; the setting was automatic after a crash. Then when no orders came, he switched over to the last mode he had been in, which was Free Will. He glanced at his owner; he was working on the computer, ignoring him. Heero used the time to look around the room, memorizing the layout.
"I want you to do the scan we discussed earlier. Run one for each of your modes."
"Yes sir," the doll answered as he began to run the scan.
"Stop. I haven't finished your orders yet. I then want you to practice fighting routines 1 through 3."
"Yes sir," answered Heero dutifully, still running the scans. He wasn't really listening with his whole attention, but he was recording anyway so it wasn't such a big deal.
"I want a print out of the stats of each--paying close to attention to any stress placed on your replacement parts. There is a list on the computer of the work done to repair you if you are interested."
It wasn't a question, so Heero didn't take memory away from his scan to formulate an answer. His owner didn't comment, just stood up and got ready to leave.
"I will be back for more training tomorrow. I expect you to have completely all your tasks by then," he ordered sternly.
"Yes sir," Heero answered absently.
Wufei left the room, locking the reinforced door behind him.
Gawd, is Fei a bastard or what? O_o
Louiselove, you can rewrite as you see fit. And this has not been betaed yet *hinthint*
girl_starfish and yours truly. Since she plays Fei and I play Heero, I think you can guess the pairing. ^__^The prologue is here.
Chapter One
In its stand-by state, the doll merely looked asleep. Cleaned of the soot and clad in a brand new black bodysuit, it had lost that hint of dangerousness. Its dark lashes brushing its high cheekbones, its bed-tousled brown hair gave it too much of the look of a handsome young man resting to still convey any threat at all.
Wufei made the final adjustments to a device he was wearing, still gazing thoughtfully at the doll that he had sat in a chair at the other side of the room. He had looked through its programming and he had to say, it had the capacity to be one of the most complex AI he had ever seen.
He finished tweaking the settings and nodded. "That should do it... Now, time to see if you were worth all this bother, Heero."
He pressed a button on his control panel, and waited for the combat doll to reactivate.
On the other side of the room, the doll's eyes fluttered open slowly. Apart from that, it didn't move.
"What is your status, fighting unit Heero?" Wufei asked, biting back a hint of trepidation.
"All clear and ready," answered a toneless voice. The doll turned its eyes toward him, clearly waiting.
Wufei smiled in satisfaction and approached it to have a better look. The features stayed blank, as unexpressive as when it had been deactivated. But the eyes... They were a surprising, intense gunmetal blue, decidedly unnatural. The color must have been a leftover from the pleasure doll that had served as a template, there was no way Lowe had gone through the pain of finding this stunning shade by himself.
"Systems reading?" he asked, making sure a last time that the doll was in top form.
"Everything reads 100%. Waiting for orders," went the toneless voice again.
"Excellent," Wufei said, satisfied. He looked the doll over a few seconds longer, then went back to business. "Information check. Your owner's name?"
"Odin Lowe."
"Correction," rectified the trainer, unsurprised by the answer. "Your owner is now Chang Wufei."
The doll didn't react, and Wufei wondered if it had understood. "Who is your owner?"
"May I see the proof of ownership, sir?"
If he hadn't known better, Wufei would have thought it was looking slightly contemptuous. It was the eyes. They were so cold.
The man picked up a handheld data screen and passed it over to the doll who took it and plugged in, reading the data at its source. It was impossible to tamper with it and not leave traces for an AI to find.
"Would you like to check my finger prints as well?" Wufei asked, slightly annoyed at the loss of time, but knowing that it was necessary.
"Yes, please. And your retina imprint as well, sir."
He raised an eyebrow. "You have the equipment to do a retina scan?" he asked, vaguely impressed, placing his hand on the screen to confirm his fingerprints. The doll nodded soberly in answer.
"Please open your eyes wide," it asked, looking him right in the eye. Wufei found the expression slightly defiant and wondered if it was just anthropomorphism talking. He seemed to have troubles remembering that it wasn't human.
He stood in front of the unit, slightly bored with the routine. It would have been easier to download the ownership data directly while it was sleeping, but AIs had troubles with accepting data that they had not been conscious to see arriving.
Finally satisfied, the doll leaned back. "Owner name: Chang Wufei. Awaiting orders, sir."
Good! he was finally free to begin working seriously on his new challenge. "Turn off system analysis mode and enter training mode."
The doll's look turned inward as it obeyed.
"Are you done?" A nod. "Good. Do you remember your last battle?"
"Yes sir, up until the last ten minutes and twenty-four seconds of it, sir," answered the doll after a few seconds where it tried to retrieve the lost data.
Wufei snorted. "I'm not surprised. You went out of control," he informed the doll.
Heero blinked slowly in answer, taking in the information.
"You disobeyed orders and destroyed the opponent's doll and part of the stadium."
It tilted its head on the side, clearly confused. The gesture was strangely childish, humanlike. It had probably acquired it from one of its previous owner's acquaintances. " That goes against my core programming, sir," it informed him, as if doubting Wufei.
"Well, core programming or not, you did it. I have the match video taped if you don't believe me."
The doll blinked, again, waiting for more information.
"You were slated to be destroyed. Your value as an experimental unit alone saved you from destruction."
That made sense, Heero thought. If what his new master said was true –and he didn't have any reason to be lying, since Heero was legally his –then he should have never awoken at all. The thought was... repellant.
" I believe that Lowe's premise, that a doll with the ability to think for itself would be useful. However, I believe you lack the necessary ... discipline. It is my goal to retrain you."
The doll didn't answer, merely blinked as it took in the information.
"Tell me, what mode were you battling in?"
The AI blinked again, and its feature changed slightly. Wufei recognized the expression as confusion.
"I ... can't remember, sir. Some of my data seems to be corrupt."
Having his suspicions confirmed, Wufei nodded thoughtfully. "Assume free will mode," he ordered, hoping that the more complete mode would give it deeper access.
"Done, sir."
"Do you remember the battle now?"
There were a few seconds of silence as the doll searched its databases. "I can retrieve some data that may pertain to your request. It may take me ten to fifteen minutes to sort it out though."
"I don't think that will be necessary. I think it safe to assume you battled under this mode?"
"...Not entirely."
Wufei raised an eyebrow, not having expected the answer. So the doll could operate under two simultaneous modes? That was interesting.
"From what I can deduce, my battle mode and my free will mode seem to have been engaged at the same time, sir. I... received a lot of confusing data." He looked slightly confused once again, and slightly frustrated, somehow. "I don't understand how the programs conflicted exactly. I will have to run a scan."
It wasn't a request, noticed Wufei. Visibly, the doll was used to taking care of itself for small things like glitches in programming. He couldn't decide if it was a bad or a good thing. Lowe could have overlooked some problems because he had not thought to check more thoroughly when his doll self-repaired. But it only proved that it was only obedient in appearance, if able to decide of such important things by itself.
"I shall test out your battle mode later. For now I want to work on your free will mode." The doll looked up at him, waiting for more information. "Run the scan tonight after I have dismissed you. I want it ready when I wake up tomorrow," he added to make sure that it knew to do it anyway.
It nodded in approval. Somehow, that annoyed Wufei. It was not supposed to judge the valor of any order given by its owner, just do it.
Deciding to stop the chitchat and begin the training, he walked over to the far end of the room. "Now, come to me," he ordered in a clear voice.
Heero waited for a second, then started forward, a complacent expression on his face, as if it was merely humoring its owner.
"Stop. I did not say walk."
The doll tilted its head on a side in that too human gesture. "You didn't precise a means, sir," it reproached in a matter-of-fact voice that was way too close to all-out insolence.
"You will go back, and you will start again. Crawling."
The doll quirked an eyebrow. "...Allow me to say that it's inefficient, sir," it commented as it turned around to walk back to the chair.
Wufei pressed a button on the wristband he was wearing, sending a jolt of pain through the doll. Heero started visibly, taken by surprise.
"I did not ask for your opinion."
It was staring at him, as if it could not believe he had done that.
"Crawl," he ordered, staring right back. He WOULD make the doll obey him.
"If you do not want me to express an opinion," Heero answered, voluntarily expressionless, "you'd better switch me to another mode. Sir. This is just a respectful suggestion."
"This band," Wufei answered through clenched teeth," has fifteen different settings. Every time I have to ask you it goes up a notch."
He pressed it again. "No more suggestions. Crawl."
The doll tensed up but didn't change its expression, visibly trying not to show pain.
"Crawl," Wufei repeated, pressing on the band again.
Heero fell to his knees. Wufei waited to see if he had gotten through. Slowly, the doll leaned forward, resting his hands on the floor. It was so tense it was shivering.
"I am waiting..."
He couldn't afford to look weak in front of the doll. He pressed again. This time, the doll's claws slid out of their sheaths and pierced the floor.
Why was it so openly disobedient? Where had it learned to be so proud? "Come on, now, what's the point of all this?" he asked, annoyed.
"Battle mode engaged, sir. My hard drive is crashing."
Wufei sighed and ordered: "Complete system reset." The doll toppled over, and it was in seeing its face go suddenly blank that he realized that, while subtle, it had had an expression.
Thoughtful, Wufei turned the band off, then took a cable from the computer and hooked it to the port on the side of the doll's neck, just below its ear. He downloaded the diagnostic function and took some time to read it over.
The AI was definitely more developed than he had thought, to be able to push so far past the "obedience" programming already... Well, not really. It was developed in a different direction. But he supposed a combat doll would not develop its personality in the same direction as a dog-shaped company doll or a business computer would.
Its psyche was, from what he had been able to translate from its coding and from what he knew about psychology, beginning to develop a very definite masculine slant, leaving the purely androgynous state of its first months of existence behind. The packaging matched the interior now. Wufei guessed that it wouldn't do to keep calling his doll 'it'.
The systems reset finished, Heero sat up, his face blank, staring right ahead.
"Your serial number?" Wufei asked, verifying that the memory wasn't damaged.
"01-W-0," Heero recited back, still totally expressionless.
Wufei leaned forward to stare in his face. "Your owner?"
"Chang Wufei."
Still that empty tone. Wufei felt worried that his personality had been damaged or even deleted, but then remembered that maybe it wasn't running free will mode. "What mode are you running?"
"Diagnosis mode, sir. Awaiting orders."
"Change to free will mode. And block access to all other modes until I give orders to switch."
"My core programming doesn't allow a total block, sir. This is in conflict with my prime directives," the doll informed him.
"... I see. Is the option to go to battle mode still open?"
"Yes, sir."
Wufei frowned. He had troubles understanding what had possessed Lowe to make the doll able to change modes by its own will. But it was probably an important part of the programming job and he wasn't sure what changing it now might affect. "I suppose this will have to do," he mused.
Meanwhile, Heero was retrieving his memories of what had happened. And he didn't like what he saw.
"Well, Heero, you've wasted quite a lot of my time already. We will keep doing this until you obey."
The doll looked up, entirely unexpressive.
"Crawl."
"Where to, Sir?"
Heero was glad he could gain total control over his facial expression. He was finding difficult to stay neutral.
"Toward me. I will tell you when to stop."
Heero decided to concentrate on crawling efficiently and not on the smugness that was probably written all over his new master's face. He didn't have a clue why it was making his emotion programs fire off so badly. If his owner had permitted it, he would have switched to another mode; they didn't hinder him when he wasn't running Free Will.
When the doll was about one meter away, Wufei cleared his throat. "You may stop," he ordered, taking pity on him; then, because he didn't want to seem too soft: "Remain on your knees."
The doll froze so totally he might have been a sculpture. Wufei walked slowly around him, looking at him thoughtfully. It annoyed him to have to train the doll using only the stick. Maybe he should show him the carrot...
He knelt down to Heero's level, putting a hand under his chin and pushing his head up to meet his eyes. The doll was totally passive in his hold.
"Was that really so hard?" his owner asked. But Heero was running the Free Will mode at about ten percent only, and he didn't see fit to answer. The complicated tangle of emotions that was his burgeoning personality didn't bother him so much at this level, and his owner had never told him to run it high level, only to keep it as dominant mode.
"I expect complete obedience of you, at all times."
Heero kept on staring ahead, unblinking. Wufei was beginning to find it unnerving, and wondered if he was doing it voluntarily. "Disobedience will be punished, but I will reward good behavior."
No answer. Not even a flicker of life in his eyes in response. Now THAT was irritating. How could he teach the doll anything if he tuned him out?
Wufei leaned in and brushed his lips against the doll's. Heero was surprised enough that he let an expression of faint puzzlement float on his features for a few seconds. The trainer felt a sense of satisfaction.
"If you have the capacity for pain," Wufei told him as he pulled back, satisfied, "you have equal capacity for pleasure." He stood, looking down at Heero who, once again, was staring right ahead and looking like he was ignoring him utterly. But if that comforted the doll, he didn't really care to correct him for now. He was the one in control, and they both knew that.
"Operating systems diagnosis?"
Heero turned up the percentage of Free Will he was operating under before he answered. "All clear, sir."
Wufei frowned; something felt weird. "Stand," he ordered, fetching a device to monitor himself what was going on. He plugged it in the port in the doll's neck and stepped back.
"Walk to the other side of the room."
The doll obeyed, extraordinarily silent for something that was made of metal and much heavier than it looked. "Good," nodded Wufei, satisfied by the readings. "Now crawl back toward me."
Heero decided that it would be a bad thing to play with the settings again and dropped to his knees obediently. He began to crawl back to Wufei, wondering why it was such a relief to run simulations of him following the order to the letter and crawling in that direction until he went right through his owner-- not that his core programming would allow it of course.
"Stop."
Heero's elbow blades pointed out of the sheaths and retracted smoothly as he stopped moving.
"Much better," smiled Wufei, satisfied. "You may stand."
Wufei circled his doll once again, pausing at his back. Now this was a part of the training he didn't mind as much.
"Maybe it is time to demonstrate the rewards of obedience?"
Out of sight, Heero's fingertips flexed, his claws sliding out and in again.
The trainer unzipped the black bodysuit down all the way, baring down to the small of his back, and looked approvingly at the expanse of smooth, unmarred syntheskin. The repairmen had done a good job.
Heero's claws slid out all the way. He felt... invaded. It was stupid, he was a doll. His body was his owner's property.
"Put your claws back," came the faintly annoyed order.
Heero slid them back in with difficulty. His self-preservation subroutines were hard to override. He wondered why his owner tripped them; he had never had this problem with Odin Lowe.
Maybe that was it. He had never had another owner than his creator. Maybe what he had been supposed to classify as owner-specific reactions were in fact classified as Odin-specific reactions.
Wufei had thought a lot about the way to reward good behavior and reinforce positive associations. Sentient dolls could learn and evolve, like a pet or a child. Were it a child he had charge of, he would have discovered his favorite games, the things he liked and the such, and offered them to him as reward. But dolls of Heero's level of development didn't really have tastes yet. And even if Heero did have burgeoning likes and dislikes out of training and fighting, they weren't known to him yet and he couldn't use them.
As they were supposed to be an outlet for human aggressive tendencies, fighting dolls were wired to be affected by their senses much like a human was. After all it wasn't any interest to see them destroy each other if they didn't even notice.
And as he had told Heero... if he had the capacity for pain, he also had the capacity for pleasure.
He slid a hand down Heero's back, knowing that the pain sensors there will let him feel the touch with excruciating details, guessing that he had never been touched there gently before. The doll tensed under his hand. Wufei stroked the small of his back gently, letting him get used to the sensory input.
"How does that feel?"
Heero tilted his head on the side in that curiously childish way. "I cannot answer this question, sir."
Okay, maybe it was petty to be amused by the faintly bewildered look on the haughty doll's face, but...
He slid an arm around Heero's waist from behind, bringing him back against his own chest, and slid a hand under the suit to caress his front. The fabric slid off the doll's arm, uncovering a slip hip.
Heero analyzed his reactions curiously. Wufei's touch was teasing his skin into life in a way he had never experienced before, and he was at a loss how to interpret it. His spine arched slightly as his owner slid his hand lower, ghosting across Heero's thighs before settling between them.
Wufei was actually starting to enjoy himself when he heard Heero's neutral announcement.
"I am going into sensory overload, sir."
"Ignore," he shot back. He hadn't gotten to make Heero see why it was desirable to obey his owner yet.
"I am not allowed to. That might damage my software. Rebooting in ten seconds."
Wufei left Heero with an annoyed sound, going to the computer to bring up Heero's system scans again. Behind him, the doll sat heavily on the floor as it rebooted, staying hunched over for a few minutes before it straightened up.
Heero sat up straight and waited in diagnosis mode for a few minutes; the setting was automatic after a crash. Then when no orders came, he switched over to the last mode he had been in, which was Free Will. He glanced at his owner; he was working on the computer, ignoring him. Heero used the time to look around the room, memorizing the layout.
"I want you to do the scan we discussed earlier. Run one for each of your modes."
"Yes sir," the doll answered as he began to run the scan.
"Stop. I haven't finished your orders yet. I then want you to practice fighting routines 1 through 3."
"Yes sir," answered Heero dutifully, still running the scans. He wasn't really listening with his whole attention, but he was recording anyway so it wasn't such a big deal.
"I want a print out of the stats of each--paying close to attention to any stress placed on your replacement parts. There is a list on the computer of the work done to repair you if you are interested."
It wasn't a question, so Heero didn't take memory away from his scan to formulate an answer. His owner didn't comment, just stood up and got ready to leave.
"I will be back for more training tomorrow. I expect you to have completely all your tasks by then," he ordered sternly.
"Yes sir," Heero answered absently.
Wufei left the room, locking the reinforced door behind him.
Gawd, is Fei a bastard or what? O_o
Louiselove, you can rewrite as you see fit. And this has not been betaed yet *hinthint*