The Sum of Her Parts

By

DragonLady of Avalon

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

~~Nietzsche

The room was dark.  It had been a long time since H-N-777 needed external lighting to see.  His eyes provided their own light, now, as well as censors that picked up wavelengths in three different spectrums, so he could see even in total darkness...if he chose. 

Choosing.  That implied free will.  It had been a long time since H-N-777 had truly done something because he felt like it.  Mostly he followed orders, using only his secondary thinking if the need arose.

The need arose. 

The previous day, the robot known as D-C-13, a warrior-class cyborg, had been taken offline because of battle damage.  A replacement was needed, and he needed his human senses to pick out a new one.  A robot would only go by what was strong and smart, but a human knew that whatever defects a creature had could be remedied by the Upgrade.  Still, it was best to pick the strongest, physically, because they were more likely to survive the Upgrade.

He sat in a chair, his chrome hands shining against his chrome world.  H-N-777 watched a video screen, surveying his candidates.  There were many, but he was many robots and could focus a lot faster than he had as a human. 

H-N-777 was very, very old.  He had been Upgraded so many times that he was no longer the cyborg he had been in his youth.  He was a Nanobot creation, built out of many millions of tiny machines shaped like little crabs, each infused with his personality and linked together by a network of wavelengths that no human had even thought of on his world.

When D-C-13 had been taken offline, he had been young.  Six months since his first Upgrade, actually, and still rebellious.  The rumor through the internet throughout the entire Collection was that he had sustained so much damage on purpose, to free himself from the Collection. 

What a fool.  Serving the Collection was an honor.  Only animals and the occasional plant couldn’t see that.  N-H-777 supposed that in his youth, he had felt the same way, but that was long ago and he had long since accepted the truth.  He really couldn’t remember what he had been like as and Organic.  That made sense, though, as everything within the Collection did; he was full Mechanoid now.

The video screen blinked, and each time it did a new creature appeared in some sort of display of physical prowess.  Many of them were mere games and sports, but several were actual combat.  Because of this, many of the Candidates were male, since they were often the physically strongest of the species, but several were female, especially in warrior societies were gender wasn’t an issue, or even females were considered the superior fighter.

Many of the Collection were male, especially the warrior class.  Females were often the political leaders and the scientists, but males had dominion over the army.  Not that gender mattered much.  There was a strict, set number, and only when one of the Collection went offline was a new one Upgraded. 

The door behind N-H-777 opened with a whoosh of pressurized air.  Another robot, a young one, only twice Upgraded and still mostly Organic, walked in, his steel boots striking the chrome floor with an echo. 

He was E-C-12, D-C-13’s senior.  Warrior-class do not live long, as a general rule, because of their rough existence. 

H-N-777 hadn’t asked the younger cyborg’s age or race, but he had a guess that he had been young when first Upgraded.  In fact, H-N-777 had overseen it himself and watched the young man’s organic parts replaced piece by piece with superior combat equipment.

H-N-777 did not acknowledge E-C-777’s entrance.  He had settled on a Candidate, a female of an unknown species.  She was participating in some sort of battle exercise, fighting with primitive weapons other Organic opponents and animated targets.

Strange.  Her world was not known to have technology beyond metalsmithing, and that was sorely limited.

She seemed to have some sort of flam throwing weapon, as some of the wooden targets suddenly burst into flame as she snapped her fingers and then cartwheeled past.  She was small of stature, but that was biologically sound because she had wings and a span of thirty feet.  She was light and supple, graceful and surefooted.  For her size, she was very strong and had many biological weapons, including claws and the ability to spit nitric acid. 

She was wonderful.

If robots believed in love at all, let alone at first sight, this would have been it for H-N-777.  This girl-creature had passed all mental diagnostics and was winging her way to passing the physical, so to speak.  She was smart for her race and mature for her age, albeit with some childish ways that many of her kind found fetching in small doses, but annoying after awhile.  Her kind were animalistic, that made her very strong, though she seemed to be at somewhat of a disadvantage to the others.

By “her kind”, H-N-777 reminded himself that he meant the ones she lived with.  No other creatures on her world resembled her, though she resembled many species. 

“What is that?” E-C-12 inquired from the doorway. 

“A female,” H-N-777 answered.  He neither blinked nor shrugged.  Such movements were obsolete.

“I can see that,” E-C-12 answered, displaying his childish organicness as H-N-777 froze the image of the female on a close-up of her face.

She had a certain fire in her crimson eyes.  She loved the thrill of battle, the joy of the hunt.  She was perfect indeed.

“Tell the Council I have found the replacement for D-C-13,” H-N-777 stated, staring at the frozen image.

The female was smiling slyly, somewhat coyly.  She was, apparently, not by the standards of her race a great beauty.  She was actually considered somewhat funny looking, intensified by the live snakes in her hair and the discolored skin around her eyes, stopping across the bridge of her nose like a mask. 

To the Nanobot, however, she was everything.  He was to be her trainer, Mechanoid father, E-C-12 his assistant, her Mechanoid brother.  She would no doubt be a hard one to tame, so spoke the flames in her eyes, but it would be worth it.  She would not die within six months of service, that was sure.  This she-creature was too proud for that.

Yes, N-H-777 had chosen well and the Council would not punish him for this one.  In fact, they might even Upgrade him again when she came online. 

The Nanobot could see it now: this fiery lady-bot riding in a parade, a war hero that H-N-777 had crafted.  She would be loved and praised by all Mechanoid kind, and he would reap the benefits of being her tutor. 

That was Mechanoid existence.  Love, kindness, it all existed for some ulterior motive.  He had to love her, and lover her he would, because it benefited him two ways.  The first way was obvious, all her successes would be his successes.  The second was that Mechanoids had found that if Organics were treated with Organic emotions at first, they responded better to Mechanoid ways.

That was why Organics were slowly Upgraded and not completely usurped at once.  The reason Upgrading was used instead of Building was more complex, known only to the First.  Perhaps it got lonely, since it was rumored to have been programmed with Organic emotions.  Perhaps Organics merely amused it.

Whatever the case, the First dictated that Organics be used in the furthering of the Collection.  Therefore the older Mechanoids were selected to be in a “mentoring” program, searching out young organics of any race suited for the purpose, choosing their Upgrades, and essentially raising them for their station thereafter.

As far as the Mentors went, H-N-777 was very young, his only two students being E-C-12 and D-C-13, one of which had been a failure and the other still rebellious. 

Ke sera sera, as the human saying went.  E-C-12 was improving, and the replacement looked promising. 

A slight growl emanated from the Nanobot to the Cyborg.  The young one had been captivated by the image as well.  Perhaps it was his herbivorous Organic nature bleeding through his Cyborg prosthetics, but the image creeped him out.  He had been liberated from a world plagued by giant reptiles that fed on E-C-12’s former race and where it rained nitric acid on a weekly basis, forcing most of the local flora and fauna that could not develop immunities toward the acid underground.  That was a double-strike, as far as E-C-12 was concerned. 

But he had a duty to his mentor to obey orders.  His mentor wanted the she-demon, the she-demon he would have.  At least until E-C-12 had been Upgraded several more times and became a Mentor himself and free of H-N-777’s constraints. 

E-C-12’s still barely-functioning organic hearts gave individual leaps of Organic pleasure.  He couldn’t wait.  But he suppressed that visually, as he had been trained to do. 

By the morning, things would be so different for the she-creature.  Already H-N-777 was choosing Upgrades for her, running them through his many tiny little minds.  Her mortal body was good, that gave him a headstart, but there was always room for self-improvement.