The first thing that hits me upon opening the closet is the smell. A menagerie of rotting flesh and blooms of mold, the destitute Kimmy is a sight to pity. The chest of it's chassis-

  "it's"? I had never been sure how to refer to the android during the time the Kimmy had been serving my family. My father had strictly disced me from seeing it as anything more than a tool of venieo aid the household. He referred to the Kimmy as an "it" and I never went against that in front of him, it feels cruel to call a now crumpled heap of neural sponge aal an "it" though. In her dead dusty eyes she almost looks... human.

  Maybe they was more appropriate, they were an android after all. They may look like a woman and in numerous is be one, but they were still a genderless hunk of now scrap metal. A few of my cssmates in sedary had joked that I was fug them on the regur after I had told them my family had got one.

  It makes my skin crawl and all sensibilities I have squirm, thinking about that now. I truly couldn't think of a more unfortable sario. If I were a lesser man, sure I might have sidered it more but; I have always sidered myself quite sensible and well raised.

  I hadn't talked to any of those friends in years now that I think about it. It robably for the best, they had probably all burned out or ended up at Tesco by now. I, oher hand, am midway through my sed year in a six year Advanced Meical Robotics course. It has been going swimmingly. I have just e home for the holidays over the winter break.

  The Kimmy has been tinuing to stare at me with dead eyes as they are lying there; I make out the overturned charging stand by them on the floor, and a discarded bck bag that probably tains the tablet used to operate and trol their systems. I would all.

  My Mum is sitting on the sofa as I carry the bck bag dowairs from the upstairs closet, watg Homes Uhe Hammer or Noughties Antiques. One of those daytime TV shows people in their fifties with nothing to do wat the waiting room for the hospital. My eyes sweep across to the derelict kit where the Kimmy used to make us dinner every night for nearly three years.

  In their absend my father's quickly apparent distance from Mum, it has bee a tip full of unwashed dishes and stains of meals long gone. She hasn't been doing well since I left for uy, it art of my decision to e back here for the holidays instead of staying in my aodation. My father has apparently been out on a month-long "spiritual retreat" sihe start of the month. I don't want to know what it entails, and hopefully I would be ba aodation by the time he got back.

  She hasn't seemed to have noticed what I'm doi, I pass into the garage and the overbearing chill of an uninsuted garage in early December hits me. My meagre toolbox, reinforced by my father's tools, sits on a ter. Apparently he used them at least once because they bear a few signs of wear, they were a ed gift from my uncle Shaun maybe a decade ago.

  My tools are the kind of equipment you should have as an amateur tei doing a degree about how robots of various kinds work, but are not heavy duty enough on their own for the task I have ahead of me. I pce the bck bag on the ter o them and head back upstairs to extricate the charging stand from the Kimmy.

  It takes five minutes of shifting them around it but I mao untahe lead from the clutter of the closet. The stand isn't easy to carry nor is it in peak dition but with a bit of love it should be back to new. It ends up on the floor in front of the tools, I don't plug the stand in just yet; that would be very presumptious of my progress so far.

  As I am heading back up the stairs to do the most physically taxing part of my job, Mum shouts up at me. I briefly flinch.

  "Nathaniel?"

  "Yeah Mum?" I pause oairs and e my neck down the bannister.

  "e down, I've got something I fot to tell you." I shrug, I'm not looking forward to carrying a person sized pieetal dowairs. It wait.

  I sit on the arm of the other sofa in the lounge, and watch her as she pulls out a note from the cluttered coffee table in front of her. She looks gaunt, her hair is scraggly and thick bags weigh her once youthful eyes. I don't want to think about it but she partially reminds me of the Kimmy.

  "A nice girl phohe house the other day before you got here, said her name was Anna or something? She wondered if you were at home anytime soon." I nod awkwardly, I've never known an Anna well enough for her to have my parent's ndline, but I suspect I know her actual name.

  "What did you tell her Mum?"

  "I told her you were ing home for the holidays in a few days. She seemed happy at that and told me you two were close when you were at that dump of a sedary you went to. Did you date her? You old me or your Father about a girlfriend."

  "No, she was just a close friend. A friend who was a girl." A wide grin psters itself over her face.

  "Oh I see, a friend who was a girl. Not a girlfriend."

  "We didn't date Mum, I swear."

  "Do you have a girlfriend at uy? Is that why you're being coy about this?" I wish this line of questioning would end, but I had itted to indulging her because she seemed to be enjoying questioning me about my romantic history. She needs pany.

  "Nope. I'm single."

  "Do you like boys? I won't tell your Father."

  "I'd rather we didn't talk about this anymore Mum." Awkward silence passes as I shut dowopic before I get too unfortable. "Did she give any indication of if she was going to e round or call again or...?" A mixture of excitement and embarassment creeps onto my face as I ask that, partially regretting it.

  "She said she was going to say hi, I'd love to meet her Nat." I nod again, trying not to betray any more emotion.

  "We'll see what happens Mum, I've got some work to do." I get up from the chair and head out the lounge, I've put off moving the Kimmy long enough to feel bad about not having do already.

  "Alright." She calls out to me as I head up the stairs. "Just be a bit quieter with the heavy lugging okay? I've got my show on."

  "Sorry Mum."

  I trudge up to the closet and sit in front of the Kimmy. She's ying down more than she was before now that the stand is gone from the equation. Their line is about seven years old and it shows particurly in this one.

  I always felt like I uood them more than my parents ever did when they were funal. It sounds stupid because despite some appare android weirdness my professor covered at the start of the previous term, they're not se and never have been.

  Their neural sponges are practically bck boxes to the field. I like to think I'll learn more about how androids actually work as my degree goes on. The Kimmy had always acted warmer to me than my parents. Still, maybe my father set them up to act like that.

  Maybe I had some abstraderstanding and link with them because my parents had wahem to act like a big sister to me. I had always envied my friends with siblings, maybe my parents saw that.

  An android is a poor substitute to a flesh & blood sister though, and I'm not repairing them so I fulfill some psychosexual desire to have a maid android I fud have take care of me. It's just for ara-curricur assig, and the longer I spend sitting in front of their crumpled chassis the worse I feel about the current state of their hardware.

  I grab a dirty arm and put it over my right shoulder, then I use my left arm to grab their other shoulder and barely mao hold them up. I'm not that weak, but as you would expect from something made of muscles aal and batteries they're not light. If I hadn't helped occasionally carry android models at uy for the b I would probably be finding this impossible.

  The smell and state of the Kimmy very quickly overwhelms me, but I resolve to hold them tight and walk together with them; it's like that movie with the girl ahree quirky panions from the tweh tury. We probably look even more stupid than a man covered in asbestos though.

  We have to take the stairs slowly and we're soon heading into the garage, I quickly go make sure my Mum isn't looking at what I'm doing this sed. She seems focused on her show luckily. I help the Kimmy into the garage and quickly close the door behih my free hand.

  My arms are burning and my nose is full of fumes. I make a mental o iigate the chassis for the source of said fumes if a thh ing doesn't get them all gone. I approach the rge table I'd pulled out to the middle of the garage earlier, and sprawl them out over it. I almost fall over onto them in the process. Their legs dangle off the table so I push them up onto the table with the rest of them.

  Their uniform is ragged and covered in dirt and dust so I start to unclothe them- it is only when their filthy and marked skin underh the uniform is exposed that I realise how viscerally unfortable I am.

  I don't have to do this, but I know that I've gooo far to not. My Mum would freak at the sight of the garage right now but if I ed it more she'd freak at least slightly less. I just have to finish the repair job before my father arrives bae. I'm a partially educated tei with knowledge in robotics, I have faith in my ability.

  If anyone could repair a desiccated Kimmy unit it was me.

  oSprockets