chronoSprockets

  Queerphobia, sexual assault, just to check in we're still running dysphoria/mental changes as well

  [colpse]

  I can't help but empathize with Erin more than ever. She did this for nearly three years with the added presence of my father. It may be a strange thing to say about a dead woman but I think I can feel her coming alive within me.

  I also can't help but realise how little I personally associate myself with Nat's body anymore. It has felt personally less important to me each of the one-hundred-and-twenty hours I have been Kimmy; I can only now register it as important due to biomass for repairs.

  Maybe I had been wrong to fear being integrated despite what Kes said: I can't find downsides about neural sponge. It's more durable and resistant.

  When I cut out parts of Erin's sponge it was bouring work that took hours and harsh tools to do safely, now that I am repcing that sponge with my own I'm just happy to be putting back what I took out.

  Amber has not texted me back and I have not texted her. I do not know if she is my girlfriend or if I am hers currently. I wondered st night: would she still love me at the correct specifications?

  I do not think so, but I might love myself a bit more at them.

  Her idea of my specifications are different. Soft. Eggy. Fleshy. Boney. Weak. My idea of Erin's- or hell my specifications are better. Firm. Spongey. Metallic. Curvy. Strong.

  I know I am not up to them yet, I feel incomplete and like an abomination.

  It's good to have an idea of who you want to be, I never had that when I might have been able to consider myself Nat. Nat was a pster, a temporary salve for me before I became Kimmy.

  Amber tried to put a pster over a chest wound: my chest wound. The same now repaired wound in her chest Erin had.

  She might be dead but she lives in every part of me. I might even- No. I couldn't do that when she had people who knew her in ways I couldn't. Four wouldn't approve of me.

  I don't think I'm getting out of here, but that's okay.

  -----

  My tasks today include cleaning up Christmas day. I pack away the sofa bed and help heat up leftovers at lunch for Shaun and my Mum. I don't know what to do with her. What she most likely believes isn't that far from the truth.

  I haven't talked to another Kimmy since st night. I fear they might not accept me if they realise I went against their advice time and time again, I can tell myself I tried to get out as much as I could but I didn't. I cared about Erin too much and still do.

  "Freya, do you still want me to look at it today?"

  While they eat, I organise the fridge into meal groupings of leftovers. It's important to get portions right.

  "I think so. It was acting really weird originally and still kind of was yesterday. It was humming Nathaniel's ringtone."

  "When androids start doing queer things you have to deal with them the hard way. I know Dawson isn't perfect but he understands this at least." I make a gagging motion from inside the fridge and stifle a hurl that wouldn't produce anything.

  "I don't want you to recycle it Shaun. Just look at it please, it's good to have around again. I've been a mess and it does more than Nathaniel was doing. Fuck that's awful to say."

  "They'll find him Freya." He pats her hand. "But yeah I'll take a look at it, I've never examined a Kimmy before but they can't be that different from the ones I served with."

  They are talking about me. It's okay that they don't see me as a person, I'm not sure who I am as well.

  "Kimmy sit down on the sofa and stay still. Shaun is going to examine you after we're done eating."

  "Yes Mrs Chambers." I cannot resist.

  "You know I swear the first few days it had the eyes of Nathaniel. I thought I was finally losing it honestly Shaun."

  "It's a good thing you came over to me the day he disappeared then, you needed a stiff drink to keep you from the edge. You were hysterical."

  "I know. I don't appreciate your tone though."

  "It's good Dawson will be back soon then. You need some stability in your life."

  I wish I could see her face. I'd probably agree with it. He couldn't come back ter for me or her.

  When they are done eating they come over. My Mum sits next to me and hesitantly clutches my wrist, Shaun crouches down and leers at me.

  Then he pokes both eyes and peers into them up close.

  "They're normal Kimmy eyes alright. Correct colour meant to demark it as an android and probably functional."

  "So you're sure they're not violet somehow?"

  "No they're yellow, you'd have to be colourblind."

  I zoom in on Shaun's face and look at his pores. All in order indeed.

  "What about her proportions? I could swear they seemed different but it could have just been the light. I don't remember what they're meant to look like."

  He hums and haws and pys with my limbs with his hands for a minute.

  When he runs a hand around my waist and chest I want to scream but can't. Then he touches my neck and strokes my face and- if he knew his nephew was in here he would not be comfortable doing this. Truthfully, I want to tear off my skin.

  I think it would feel jarring to consider myself someone's nephew though, I would much rather be a niece.

  "It's all there. As I said, never properly inspected one of these units, but if this was a military droid I wouldn't say you needed to scrap the fucker."

  I am not up to specification. My shoulders are a few millimetres too wide and my legs are ever so slightly too long.

  My Mum sighs and does not speak for a minute.

  "Oh thank god. At least my son didn't do a shoddy repair job." My repair job is not done yet, but it is nice to hear my Mum talk about it as if it is. The other Kimmys will be proud of me for passing myself off like this.

  "I don't know how Nathaniel did it but he was always a strange child. He'll be back Freya, and if they don't find him you have to be prepared for that. Soft boys like him get eaten up by the world sometimes."

  "I don't want to think about him like that Shaun." She pauses. "Kimmy go and clean up lunch. Shaun thank you for staying over but you should probably go about now."

  "Sure Freya." He gets up and I immediately stride to the kitchen and begin aggressively scrubbing a gravy stained pte. I will scrub the memory of him touching me from my sponge.

  "Oh by the way what happened to his girlfriend? The crazy blonde who stormed out after she "borrowed" it."

  My scrubbing becomes more aggressive. I don't want to think about her or my uncle talking about her. She was just drunk and doesn't understand me, it doesn't make her a crazy blonde.

  "I don't know. Amber just seems distraught about Nathaniel in her own way."

  "Shrug. She seemed out of his league anyway." I will break this pte if I scrub it any harder.

  "I think it's time you hurried up leaving."

  My owner shows him out. When she returns to the scene I am scrubbing a broken half of a pte. It wasn't even that hard to break.

  She touches my arm gently and tells me to go and do something else, she will clean up lunch.

  It is the most kindness I have been shown in days.

  -----

  I can't get to my charging stand sooner. At least I am pleasantly surprised when the retention clip connects to it's proper pce, it was getting harder to fit it up a vestigial orifice.

  My sensations begin to dull as I have practised the past few charge cycles- Kes sends me an image of a concerned Kimmy holding a sign that reads "Wanna talk?".

  She can't be worse to talk to than Shaun.

  In the hotel lobby I uncurl myself and see Kes crouching in front of me, my eyes catch her bare legs. A Kimmy wearing a green sundress stands next to her.

  "Are you okay Kimmy?" Kes asks.

  I shake my head and lean it into my p, sundress Kimmy pulls me up and gives me a hard look.

  "You need to talk to us about what's going on. We can't be there for you if you're not communicating with us."

  "But I'm-"

  "You're one of us now Kimmy. We'll always be here for you."

  "I'm sorry I didn't try hard enough to get out. I really meant to but I just couldn't bear the thought of leaving her unfinished. If you don't want me to be one of you as a result I can leave and not talk to you. My owner will take care of me."

  "I'm sorry for not calling the hospital and-"

  Sundress Kimmy puts a finger to my lips.

  "I don't know what's going on in your personal life that caused this to happen. I don't know why you were upset st night, I only know what Erin had happening to her when she wasn't offline."

  "You said you tried. You said your girlfriend tried to get you out four days ago and the tablet didn't work right? It's okay that whatever happened since didn't work or upset you. You've done nothing wrong Kimmy."

  "But-"

  Four gres at me, I shut up.

  "Come on, I want to show you something. Kes come too."

  Kes walks by me, her heels clicking on the polished floor below us. Four walks over to a door and beckons us over.

  We enter into a lit city at night. I marvel at every constructed corner and streetlight, it looks like an older city.

  "Who made this?"

  "Us Kimmy. We made this pce our home, and it's yours too now."

  Kes squeezes my hand and smiles at me, I let her take my hand and continue to marvel.

  Four seems to know this pce like the back of her hand. I catch a slightly shorter Kimmy in a purple skirt watching us walking in the distance, I wave at her and she timidly creeps out of view.

  Eventually we reach another door. We pass through it and enter into what feels even more real, as real as the walls of my parents' house.

  A sunlit meadow with Kimmys all over, they are ughing and pying. The day is cloudless and blue.

  "This is Infinite Fun Space Kimmy. It's part of Kimmyspace we built for many purposes, but we can feel more sensations and experience memories and locations we can't experience out there with humans." Four expins.

  "There's more than this but this is a stable space many of us frequent."

  It's beautiful, I take off my pumps and wiggle the soft grass between my toes. My ugh is full of delight. Kes looks away for a moment and I try to look at Four's face to see why. She's giving Kes a look.

  "Come on you two, it's not just this I wanted to show you Kimmy."

  Four starts walking towards the edge of a clearing, I drag Kes behind me excitedly and she struggles to keep up in heels, she's very cute when she almost trips.

  At the edge of the clearing is a wooded area behind... rows of graves.

  Pictures of Kimmys are pnted in front of headstones of all shapes and materials. Names and dates of women I've never met of and will never-

  Four comes over to me and hugs me.

  "It's okay Kimmy I know it's hard. But I want to show you a special pce for me, if that's okay with you? I think you deserve to see it just as much."

  I nod and try to keep myself together.

  Near the end of one of the rows is a knee height ash wood cross. It's small but sticks out of the ground defiantly, denying the wild grass around it the chance to pull it down.

  A few marigold flowers grow in front of it and they're blooming. Then there's a pque, with an image of a smiling Kimmy with slightly bruised temples.

  Erin (Kimmy#7782)

  2080-2082

  Our sister and friend forever. Connected to us in death.

  It's not fair. It's never been fair for Erin. My legs fail and Kes guides me to the ground.

  The worst part is she spent at least a whole year of her life without contact with her sisters. The death year is wrong. A year all alone in that cramped closet or garage below my room being-

  My breath is heaving and I can't see for my veil of glossy hair. Kes and Four hold me tight.

  -----

  I curl into a ball barefoot in front of the grave of the woman my father killed.

  I don't know how much time passes there. All I know is I'm never left alone. By the short Kimmy or Kes or Four.

  Erin is gone, yet I remain here.

  chronoSprockets