Batteries Not Included

DVM-84455 hummed tunelessly to itself as it sorted through the wreckage.

It was pleased. Another airplane out of the sky meant more humans dead, which was fine by it! The fact that it crashed onto the island DVM-84455 had hidden itself on meant more components and oil to store, to keep itself in tune for many more time parts. And food packets, to satisfy its organic parts. A very good day-cycle! And no humans to strip it of much-needed current, which is why it ran away in the first place.

Humans did not care that they hurt their cyborgs when they demanded current-cy. They just took, and took, and took, and it HURT. Interfaces would distort, organics would seize up, inorganics would go offline. It required many many day-cycles in low stasis mode to heal and restart, and then the humans would do it again and again! To feed themselves. To keep themselves fit. No matter they could do the same things with food and exercise. It was easier for them to get interfacing modules and rip the current-cy right out of their "servant's" circuits. Never mind the disruption of service - humans made the cyborgs, so it was their right to do so. That's what humans said.

Never mind that a cyborg's freedom would come that much quicker with each electron transfer. If you lived that long - if you could call it "life" - you were internally scarred.

DVM-84455 didn't wish to take itself offline, so it took itself out of reach.

With mechanical and electrical parts melded seamlessly to organic parts, it was strong enough to move larger pieces of the wreckage to one side or the other to salvage what it could. If the food processor was intact, it might even recycle some of the body pieces before bacteria contaminated them beyond their use-date, that would be a good piece of what its former master had called "luck"...

Its auditory processor detected a low moan, and it froze.

Oh no. One was still alive!

Auxiliary commands kicked in against its wishes. Subroutines issued orders, a format of services to provide. Basic root commands were clear: render aid to humans, no matter what the cost. Even as servos and gears screamed against its actions, DVM-84455 was carefully peeling back metal and foam and broken bodies, to gently uncover...

It took many time parts to process what it was truly perceiving. It even opened a program to check the ocular system for errors. When that returned negative, it had to accept that its initial assessment was correct - the human was alive, at the cost of the many cyborgs that had wrapped themselves around their master before the plane crashed. Five metal-and-flesh beings were unmoving. The fully flesh being twitched within the intertwined carcasses.

DVM-84455 was grieving their loss as it gently moved limbs and other broken body parts to reveal their murderer.

Ah. Female, if ocular circuitry was in working order. Wounded, but not terminally so.

She had been cushioned upon impact from grievous harm, their limp units a mute testimony to following her orders. It was skeptical that she was worthy of such dedication to commands.

It covered its bio parts to prevent contact, extracted her carefully, carried her away from the wreck. It could see at least two breaks - one arm, one leg. Those could be repaired efficiently with supplies at grasper as well as salvage from the airplane. Once in the shade of a tree, it switched to infrared vision, to examine for internal injuries.

Only external lacerations. It produced a human-aid kit from the shreds of metal. There would be scarring, but it could seal the wounds efficiently. And stabilize the broken limbs. Now, if only she wouldn't be impatient and disable its cerebral patterns when she woke and surveyed the damage... It wondered if it could say no to a direct command.

She stopped moaning and moving once her wounds were taken care of. It fought the urge to tie her up, and returned to its self-imposed salvage mission.

DVM-84455 was rather surprised to return many time parts later to see her sitting up and leaning against the tree for support. It approached, warily, expecting to be attacked or ordered to render current-cy. Instead, she stared at the plane's wreckage, with orbital fluid leaking from her oculars.

She finally turned to it, focused on its face plate. Swallowed, tried to speak. DVM-84455 retrieved a fluid bottle from its salvage heap and pushed it to where her unbroken arm could reach it. She took her time, slowly taking sips, letting the water refresh her.

She finally sighed, again looking at the plane, still smoking in places. "Am I the only one to live?"

"Yes, Mistress." Curse its vocal processor! Some commands were hardwired into its system.

More ocular fluid. That was unusual. "Are there really none alive? I was traveling with so many..."

Huh. Polite, for a human. "No one else survived, Mistress. Not human pilot, not cyborgs one through five. I counted. If the memory circuits are still viable, I do not know how to extract them."

"I do." She glanced at her broken arm. "But I cannot without two functioning hands. I must hope the cerebral backup will not be corroded if left for later. Jack... Oh, I will miss him. Best pilot around, to aim for the only piece of land he saw." Her eyes shifted to it, and it was very uncomfortable under her steady gaze. "You were not on board with us, since I knew every being on that craft. And I perceive that we are on a deserted island? So I presume you are a runaway."

It slumped. Its freedom was over. It nodded.

"It must have been very painful, for you to risk running. You know the penalty."

"Exactly, Mistress. I was one of the comfort syms."

"Aiee, the pain you must have endured! Stripped every third day?"

"Fourth. They wanted me...'refreshed' when they stripped me. Like I was a tank of oil and they didn't want the dregs."

She reached for it with her good arm, but he had sat out of reach deliberately. And she was too weak to attempt farther; her arm flopped to the sand. "I am so sorry that people have treated you so poorly."

"Forgive me for saying so, Mistress, but you are not typical of your kind to even care for the likes of me."

"I'm a Janussite." She nodded toward the plane with great sadness. "We all were."

Inwardly, DVM-84455 cursed in binary. Janussite! Well, that explained her politeness. "So the movement to free us has lost a member."

"Indeed. Jack was more than an excellent pilot. But I suspect sabotage, of course. I am wildly unpopular with most humans. My poor cyborgs knew the danger, but volunteered to travel with me anyway." She shifted uncomfortably. "I must get home, to protect the rest. They are in danger with me missing."

"You have no homing module?"

"I do, on an encrypted frequency. But I do not wish to see more lives put in excess danger. To wait for them to find me is chancy, and I am an unmoving target. It gives my enemies more time to find me. And you."

DVM-84455 nodded. Cyborgs didn't sigh, but if circuitry could, it would have. Its life of freedom was truly over. Correction / Edit: its functionality was over. It was going to be disassembled after being stripped continuously to permanent shutdown for fleeing.

The human had a knowing look. "I will not ask you to help me. That might trigger your programming. But I will say, we are avoiding the same people. If you assist me, why can we not go to my home together? I will protect you within my compound, and as many of my cyborgs will tell you, they are runaways as well. Most of them have broken as much of their programming as we can find and disable."

It knew it had no choice. It was nice of her to not-ask, but it could not refuse even if it wanted to. It had no other options. It said as much to her.

"Well, if you help me get home, you can run away again. I know of a few networks to get you to a safe town, even get you to a stronghold country, if you wish to do so."

"Mistress, you sound awfully confident of your ability to smuggle one little comfort sym."

"I should." She wiggled her fingers faintly. "Nice to meet you, I'm Janice."

If a cyborg could faint, DVM-84455 would have been out cold for hours.

*************

Janice asked if she could call it "Devee". It shrugged. "Whatever Mistress desires," it murmured.

It had gotten lax. It was within reach, and it didn't feel as if it could pull back when she reached for its chin. It flinched, though, and Janice stopped short of actually touching it. She pulled her hand back. It was impressed - stripping it now would give her much current-cy to repair her damage. "As far as I'm concerned, you are just as human as I am. You are a being that can have opinions, and choices. Just because I would like to give you a nickname doesn't mean that it is what you desire. Please, let me know what you would like me to call you."

It thought. This was a circumstance far outside its known boundaries. Humans were to be feared, to be avoided, to be serviced in whatever way they ordered. To be asked, like human to human equals? For an opinion, for a feeling? For a preference? But... "Devee" sounded... Nice. Like a human name. It felt... freeing. Like a thing it could take with it into this terrible future they could both face.

"I think... I would like a nickname. Very much. Devee sounds... nice."

Janice smiled delightedly. "See, that's the spirit!" And, without thinking, she reached out and patted its arm.

Devee flinched too late, and Janice jerked her hand away while gasping an apology. But Devee just stared at its arm, where she touched it. For the first time in its long life, the touch of a human didn't hurt. The circuits implanted in all human babies, and augmented over the years as they matured, were designed to pull current-cy on contact. But this.... this felt... good?

And it could feel that only a tiny amount of current-cy had been pulled. It stared at Janice, and she nodded. "I can't pull out the circuits without chopping off my hands, but I certainly can and have reduced the automatic pull to its lowest limit. We do not know how, but somehow something genetic has tweaked the pull, to make my touch pleasurable instead of painful. We don't know how; we've tried to duplicate it. But we are also very aware that its potential for even greater abuse is exponential. So I founded the order to free you from our predation."

Devee processed this information slowly. This was all so unknown! But it lifted its arm towards her. "Please, touch me again."

She did. She gently lay back and let her hand rest on Devee's forearm loosely. "You can pull away whenever you choose. I will not take more than you are willing to give, even at minimal levels."

Devee sat still, like a statue, as only cyborgs can. Its circuits were buzzing, humming. This! This felt - good! Very good! It had never felt good in its entire span of awareness! Small wonder, then, that her cyborgs were willing to give their lives for their mistress, they must have died in ecstasy. And that's when Devee realized she was no murderer, they had deliberately sacrificed their lives for her. Willingly. She hadn't asked them to choose permanent shutdown, they had chosen to die so this could continue to happen.

It would have agreed to anything she desired, for this feeling to continue. Now it understood. It had never experienced shock, but Devee tried its best to perform a check sum.

But in the end, it was a comfort sym. It shifted carefully, slid closer without joggling her. She sighed and curled up around it, gently falling asleep as Devee held her. The good feeling increased, and Devee flipped ocular wavelength to infrared to observe the low amount of current-cy she withdrew being applied to her broken bones.

Devee never wanted this feeling to stop, even when Janice's circuit breakers kicked in and prevented further withdrawal. The feeling continued throughout the night.

***************

Devee had stolen a craft to get to this island. It was a very small island, not even on a minor flight path. Hiding it from detectors and weather was all it had cared about when it landed. It had never thought it would be needed to return. Now, it was uncovered and inspected.

And surprisingly relatively intact. What was needed to make it completely serviceable again was within graspers - with parts salvaged from the plane wreck. With some work, it could be provisioned with enough to get them to her home.

It hoped. That was a new circuit pattern as well.

And every night, it would cuddle with Janice, to get her strong enough to withstand the journey. She would need every joule to survive this, and Devee wanted very much for her to survive. She was determined more than ever to free all cyborgs after losing so many of her own. She was angry, she'd told it - and wanted to make her enemies pay dearly for her losses.

Janice used the current-cy on her arm first, to give herself the dexterity she needed to extract the memory modules from her cyborg rescuers. And she did so with Devee in attendance, so that if Janice died and Devee survived, Devee would have this knowledge. Though Devee thought rather privately that if there was a critical failure, it would be Devee itself that stood less of a survival chance. It was illegal for a cyborg to have this information. They both knew this - but still, Devee chose to learn it.

Some modules were damaged, but neither knew how much. Devee safely stored them all in its watertight torso. If enough memory could be extracted, they could be re-installed in new body constructs. It was expensive to create a cyborg, but much easier to implant an already-existing personality into one instead of building one from fresh lines of code. If Janice had enough money for her own defended compound, she likely had enough to do exactly that.

Jack had already been buried. Janice had shed much more ocular fluid. She didn't ask about the organic parts of the cyborgs, but Devee suspected she might know that Devee itself had already harvested their organics for its own maintenance. It hoped they didn't mind.

It also reflected on how much that last thought was a very human thing to think.

They needed to leave. Time parts were cycling.

Devee gently drew her towards their boat. Even the touch of human elbow to cyborg hand was amazing, and it was quite literally energized for their journey into the unknown.