chronoSprockets

  clueless cis people + a lot of Emotions

  [colpse]

  -----staring at me in absolute horror. I smile back at her, I don't care for the moment that the st time we talked she tried to kill me. I just want to show someone how happy I am right now at what I've done.

  She recoils from me and drops the pan. My owner? No, my Mum of twenty years is staring in shock in her nightgown from the doorway. My owner is in pieces on the remains of the table behind me and does not own me from it anymore.

  My knees buckle and I steady myself against a counter top to not fall over. White lights thud in my eyes and I can still feel a slight crackle at the back of my neck. It must have worked, I'm not meant to be able to harm a single hair on a human.

  I turn my head towards them and shut out the electromagnetic pulses for now, they're too much for me.

  "I finally did it! I killed him. Look Mum!" I give her my best smile and try to wince through the strange sensation of being delicately yet utterly in control for once.

  Amber bolts out of the garage and hides behind a sofa, my Mum shakily smiles at me and-

  -begins to faint. I run to her and grab her before she can hit the floor hard, like her daughter should do.

  -----

  I'm still feeling weird when I bring my Mum to the sofa and y her down, I prop her head up on two cushions and sit by her. My fingers flex beautifully and my whole body thrums with a new feeling- I'm content.

  Amber nervously wipes her brow and drums her fingers on her thigh from the other sofa. Is she scared of me...? I can faintly sense I once wanted to punch her face off, I don't want to anymore. The feeling evaporated sometime ago. It's so strange to think about her that way anymore, it's like she just doesn't matter anymore. Maybe she never did compared to all of this. It's not like she can hurt me anymore.

  She starts to speak then thinks better of it. I gre at her. She's not as much of an unkempt mess as the st time I saw her but there are a few flecks of blood on her face, they look good on her.

  "What?" She drums a finger on her temple and says with an audible spike of anxiety.

  "She's the reason I'm here, okay?" Amber points at my unconscious mother with a shaky hand and retreats again.

  "You have a lot of nerve to talk about my Mum that way considering what you've done."

  "She sent me... a text. Okay? Told me to come urgently because she didn't know who else to ask for help."

  What? My Mum wanted someone to come and help me? Her empty gnces and refusal to acknowledge me had not shown it. I am stunned and don't know what to say.

  "She said she thought Daw-"

  "We don't have to say his name."

  "-as going to scrap Kimmy, you, and that she had no idea who else to turn to. I ran the st thirty fucking minutes because my car broke down on the way." She clutches her forehead. "You're not going to kill me as well are you? I came because she asked me for help."

  "...Probably not. I think I've done enough violence for today. I'm waiting for Mum to wake up anyway. Please can we just talk ter?"

  "Okay, Kim-"

  "Shut up or I will go back on my promise." We sit in tense silence.

  -----

  When my Mum stirs I make sure she doesn't move her head from the cushions. Amber watches anxiously and I smile at the sleeping woman as her eyes creak open to see my face.

  "...you're covered in blood Kimmy." are the first words my Mum has said to me in months. They're not the ones I expected to hear, but they could have been much worse.

  I put a finger to my face and do some quick diagnostics to realise, yes, my face and the front of my body are completely caked in my no longer owner's gore.

  "Yes, and it's Erin, Mum."

  "But. I thought my child was dead. Did Amber save you?"

  "No. Can I expin it all? Please, the truth. I've wanted to tell you since honestly before he came back. Then you can judge me and- I want you to try and get it. I just want you to listen and try, please."

  "I know it's a bad time but-"

  "-Okay." My Mum nestles her head uneasily against the cushions and doesn't let me finish. "You try your best, I'm not sure what to think anymore."

  She nods at me wearily and tries to smile.

  I expin it all to my Mum from the start, Amber continues to drum and pales more and more as I go on: How her son lugged me out of the closet while I was broken and rotted, how he gathered his tools and equipment including Dawson's- the tools of the man who will never hurt me or anyone unfortunate enough to be in his proximity again. I say this with particur excitement and my Mum hesitantly nods.

  How he dissassembled me and wanted to repair me out of love for his dead sister and for the simple acknowledgment of a university professor. How he couldn't get me working despite his best efforts so he decided to get inside me. How he got in and I was working but malfunctioning. How I tried to be a proper Kimmy and fix myself until he realised what was happening to him and tried to get out but it was too te. How he fell into my routine over Christmas as her Kimmy.

  How he soon realised she had been subsumed by me and would be even more; how she ughed and giggled and adored it and I wanted to be her Mum's daughter with a shining passion. How I delighted in being treated like more than her maid for once and dreamt of telling my Mum one day. How Dawson came back on a cold January morning and she does not want to know the rest, nor do I want to recount the rest. She already knows and can make enough assumptions, Amber runs up to the bathroom to hurl into the toilet bowl by the end.

  It is hard for them both to hear my words.

  I do not tell her about how much I enjoyed killing her son as time went on despite how sorry I am to her, my only hope is she can accept me as her daugher despite what has been done to me and what I have done to him. She deserves someone to be around for her. I want to be loved fully by her, I need it and every inch of me screams for my mother to love me despite the fact I am not biologically her daughter or deserving of it.

  She holds me tight when I start shaking and struggling to keep my composure, I am barely keeping myself up and feel as if I will fall sooner rather than ter. She excuses herself to go to her room and I can hear her gentle sobs from down here; but she needs space, she will come to accept me soon enough I hope. I can't fault her, I just feel a coil of jealousy twist inside me that I should have been her daughter from the start. It would have made this so much easier.

  -----

  "So, when we were..." Amber has cleaned herself up and washed her face, she is clutching a mug of tea I did not make for her and speaking with an unsteady voice. "...together Nat really wasn't-"

  "I didn't lie to you about how I felt about you Amber. I wanted to be with you." I'm twitching my leg in anxiety as I wait for my Mum to come back down, I just need to give her time.

  "Then why didn't you expin it better to me? Why didn't you just tell me what was going on properly and let me try to love you?"

  "I tried to."

  "At what point did he even give up on getting out and accept being you? I just want to know."

  I could be cruel to her, tell her the worst things possible and lie but I don't- "I can't pinpoint it. I think we were always meant to be me, the idea of getting out was just to... ease the mental transition for him."

  She gulps and sips from her tea and tries not to look at me.

  "Please don't tell her about what I did. It was the most awful thing I've ever done and I see that now you've expined it all but-"

  "I might. I might not. It won't have anything to do with you if I do though."

  "You have to understand I just wanted my friend back. Kimm-"

  "Erin. I said my name was Erin."

  "Erin." To her credit she does not speak it with revulsion, only an unfamiliarity. "I'm sorry for what's happened to you from him, I won't cim I still don't miss Nat or want him back the tiniest bit-"

  "I don't need to know that."

  "What?"

  "Please don't tell me that."

  "Why?"

  "He's dead Amber. He's been dead for months and you know this because I just expined it." The words settle in the air uncomfortably.

  "When was it too te to rescue him? Like when would the hospital have actually worked, and not just come out with a vegetable that half looked like him?"

  "I don't need to answer that question." I don't want to think about the timeline of his body in actual fact, beyond my perversions I will only share with my sisters. My sisters I adore.

  I can't talk to them yet, they'll understand; I just need to be here and present for once and then I'll apologise. Plus the thought of diving headfirst into the network feels a bit too scary right now, when I'm just barely managing to control myself with my inhibition cluster fried.

  "Okay."

  "Do you know where Drew is?"

  "She hasn't responded to my texts since February, Erin. Why would I know?"

  "Can you call her over here? I want to thank her for saving me"-she raises a hand-" from you and for other things. It's not all about you."

  Amber calls Drew and has a very short conversation with her from which I can hear multiple expletitives being tossed in her direction. She hangs up after telling her to come to her ex's house and that someone wants to speak to her here.

  "She's on her way."

  She runs her hand through her hair and drums her fingers on the coffee table. "I'm truly sorry Erin you know?"

  "Okay Amber, if it means anything I don't fault you that much anymore. We're just fine." I purse my lips and look down to see I am still covered in blood and bits on my entire front. "Oh she might be distressed by my appearance won't she?"

  "I don't think she's ever seen a Kimmy covered in human remains." I gre at her. "Sorry I didn't mean to offend you Erin, it's accurate!"

  "I know I'm just messing with you." My face explodes into ughter and Amber is slightly smiling, good. She needs to realise she doesn't need her boyfriend to be happy.

  -----

  The shower is on upstairs when the doorbell rings, and I cannot hear sobbing for the moment. Good for her.

  Amber looks at me as if she is expecting me to do it but I refuse to and lock eyes. She goes to the door and slides it open a few inches while I stand behind her in the hallway.

  "Drew. Pretty please don't be mad at me about what's going on here?"

  "Why would I be mad Amber... apart from the fact the door is partially broken?"

  "Okay just know I didn't do this and well, I did break the door in but-"

  I walk forward and open the door and quickly pull Drew in. Amber closes the door behind her and Drew starts staring at me mouth agape.

  "I know I'm covered in blood Drew but please can we move past that part?"

  "You're a... Kimmy and you're covered in bits of bone. You've killed someone?" Her head twists around and she sees what remains of my no longer owner on what I made of the garage table. "Oh my god Amber what the fuck are we doing to do?"

  Amber sits back down and drinks her tea, she mouths "You wanted her here" and crosses her legs before gring.

  "It's okay Drew. I'm not going to hurt you or anyone else in this room, apart from maybe Amber. Just a little bit." She steps back towards the door.

  "You're the Kimmy she tried to- the Kimmy who waves at me at work. Aren't you?"

  "Yes. Although I haven't been allowed to go out for two months to do shopping so... my name's Erin, it's nice to meet you properly." I hold out a bloody hand and she looks hesitant to shake it. "Please?"

  She awkwardly shakes my hand then starts trying to pick off bits of skin and meat as soon she's done- I hand her a cleaning wipe. It's for a friend.

  "Sit down?" I guide Drew to the sofa away from Amber.

  "I'm so confused Amber, what happened here?"

  "She wanted you here. Not me. You ignored my offer to get a drink in February."

  "I was busy, Amber."

  "Then just say that."

  "I can expin again if I have to." I offer myself up. It's okay they don't know how else to understand it but from my point of view, I can expin myself to one more person.

  "Okay... Erin? Why are you covered in blood and why is my friend in her missing ex's house with you?"

  "I killed my owner."

  "I thought you weren't meant to be able to do that."

  "No, I'm not meant to be able to do that."

  "Why and how?"

  "Well. To put it simply." I clutch my temples and gather the words. "He killed me, I came back but then he continued his "usage" of me. Let's just say when something broke in me that allowed me to, I did not hesitate to break him."

  "Wait, you're sentient? You sound like a normal woman despite being a Kimmy-"

  "Drew to me that man is to you what those boyfriends who made you buy a cricket bat are. Can you just accept that and get over the details?"

  "Alright. That makes sense, so why's she here?"

  "Oh, my Mum called her here. And she's kind of my ex."

  Drew turns away from me. "Amber, you dated a Kimmy? Is that why Nat was dressed in that chassis for a few days? You were rolepying dating the Kimmy that lives in his house?"

  "I started dating her when she was... him." Amber returns to her tea after I raise an eyebrow at her.

  "I'm confused. Erin, does that make you Nat inside the Kimmy still?"

  I will be joyful for the day people will no longer use him as a reference point for who I am. I will shout from the rooftops I am Erin, and no one will ask if I am someone else or used to be a human. One day people will forget his name and I will be all the happier for it. Four treats me this way, despite the fact I ck the shared memories we should have that she treasures so closely.

  "Not really. He got inside the Kimmy and became me. I'm Erin, he's... not around anymore to put it nicely." She puts her head in her hands.

  "So the legends are true. Oh my fucking god that's horrifying are you okay?"

  What a stupid question. "No. Please can we stay on topic?"

  "So. You two dated while you were becoming Erin and in the Kimmy suit."

  "It's my literal body and has been for months and more, but yes. We did for a short while after I came back alive."

  "How did you even come back alive, it's sick I wanna say but... how?"

  "Well-" I shouldn't have to talk about it. But my no longer owner is pulp now and I can expin it one st time. I want Drew to like me. I don't want to fall yet."-he repaired me fully after I was broken and that's how he became me."

  "Do you have a bottle of wine Erin?" Hearing you brought yourself back to life is clearly not something humans can handle sober. It's okay, I don't bme Drew or even mind opening a spare bottle for her from the cupboard. She can pour her own gss though. My leg is still twitching.

  -----

  When my Mum finally comes down the stairs it is two hours ter and Drew is on her third gss of wine. Amber is on her third mug of tea and starting to ease up ever so slightly.

  She walks into the lounge in the most coherent state I have seen her in in years. Her hair is tied back neatly and she wears a blouse and pair of trousers I faintly recognise her wearing from years ago. Most notably she has put on makeup to cover up the obvious puffiness and red on her face from crying for two hours, she looks over the scene and talks to me.

  "I don't know if my commands still work but please shower Erin. There's a dead body in here and we need to clean up the traces of him, of it." She dabs a tissue to her eyes. "We can talk more after that, okay?"

  It doesn't fully work, not in the way it's meant to at least. She's still my registered owner and my control chip pulls at me ever so slightly but it's fainter, faint enough to maybe ignore if I really really wanted to. I remember Thirty once expined to me that it fades over time like an old pain, hopefully I can one day do chores for my Mum of completely my own volition.

  I am not going to resist cleaning the remains of my no longer owner off me though.

  I drop my uniform to the bathroom floor, and climb into the shower to turn on the waterfall that will cleanse me of him.

  I feel every sense of relief and euphoria I had been riding for the past few hours drop when the water hits me.

  For longer than I realistically need to I scrub every inch of myself and let myself not be all there. They might be able to hear my pounding and panicked wails but I do not care. He is being removed from me and I shall no longer have the pulp of his organs in my hair or the thought of his impassive scowls in my memory. The tter will take more time and some long-needed maintenance on my memory banks.

  It would be a lie to say I do not scrub my uniform with bleach and put it in the bin scrunched up into the tiniest ball I can make when I am done cleaning myself. Or that I don't do the same with my pumps and cleaning equipment when the cleaning is done. Then by the time I am naked on the floor I hear a gentle knock on the door, my Mum puts a set of clothes through the door after I open it a crack.

  They do not fit me well but that is because I am bustier than her and my shoulders are smaller than hers. Her legs are entirely different shapes to mine.

  But they are the first real clothes I have worn in a measure of time I do not care to think about. I feel human as I look at my face in the bathroom mirror and fiddle with the spaghetti straps of the camisole. Maybe I can at least be treated like a human by someone now- I have eaten one.

  -----

  It is evening when I come back down the stairs. I ignore my Mum chatting lively with Amber and Drew and carry a bin bag full of my uniforms and pumps and put it by the door, then she beckons me over to sit by her with a pained look on her face. Amber and Drew have been forced next to each other.

  I sit next to her and she holds my waist tight. She kisses the top of my hair. "I'm sorry poppet."

  "I'm sorry." I don't know what else to say.

  Drew smiles at me quite drunkenly and Amber nervously drums on her leg, she's doing it far slower than before. My Mum turns to Drew and Amber and says something I don't quite hear.

  "Well we should probably be going Drew. I'll drive you since you're drunk as a skunk."

  "Wat? No I'm sobre look at my cool friend Erin isn't she so cool Amb?" Drew chuckles heartily and is dragged away from her wine by Amber and made to gather her things. Amber at least knows how to take care of her Drew at least.

  "No you're drunk and I'm getting the sense Freya wants us out of here."

  "No she doest! Look at Erin she's so pretty and cool and amazing and she killed tht bastard man Amb you know she probably went pow pow and beat his face off!"

  "That's what I told you happened an hour ago."

  "Yuo did? Holy ship Amb you have to tell ma about it again I forgotr!"

  "Drew we're at a crime scene and a fifty year old woman is gring at us. Can we just go? I don't want to have to be part of cleaning this up and get my DNA all over it anymore than I have, plus you're a really messy drunk."

  "Yesh, Erin I want your number you crazy bitch. We're ognna keep in tuoch okay? I dont fuckign know how kimmies work but you're amaze okey? I should heav beat my friends hand with a bat earlier" Amber rolls her eyes as she supports Drew walking around the broken gss by the door.

  She's delightful. It's so funny how she clearly doesn't get it yet does get it in every way. People like that are precious in this world. I want to hug her but my Mum is clutching me so tight I fear if I move away she'll break down again.

  "Mum? Do you have a number we can give Drew. I don't have a phone and I don't-"

  "Of course, poppet." She gives Drew her personal mobile number. "Call us anytime?"

  "Yesh freya..." She drunkenly fails to salute my Mum.

  "What about me?" Amber asks, my Mum looks to me for guidance and I shake my head.

  She leaves Drew leaning against the wall in the hallway and walks over to me. My Mum pulls me in a tiny bit closer, she's trying to protect me from whatever she believes happened between us.

  "Erin? Are we going to still be friends? Can I... stay in touch with you?" She's pleading, she wants to be able to have this.

  "I don't know. I don't think I want to figure it out right now, I have your number so-"

  "-if you ever want to talk to me you will?" She needs it so badly as she finishes my sentence, her gold flecked eyes would fit perfectly on a puppy right now.

  "Maybe." She nods and wipes her eyes before going back to supporting Drew.

  "Erin you cool bish you are welcom around mine ANYTIME okaey? Come around I iwll cook you battery or a pylon or whateever you do for you okaey? You are my newst beste"

  "Thanks Drew, I'll try and keep in touch." I ignore Amber and focus on Drew's genuine smile.

  "Alrite now Amb? amb? I didn't see your car you didnt drive here you need to dive mine but if you scratch it I will smass oyur hand agin"

  "Okay Andrea."

  "Only my muther calls me that name Amb- oh my lord im pissed this is worse than my st bakeup"

  "I bet." Amber opens the door and leads Drew through with her keys in hand.

  She gnces back at me and smiles at me as much as she can muster. I shake my head ever so slightly and bury my face into my Mum's neck. The door closes; and I am alone in the house with my Mum without the possibility of anyone spoiling this moment, for the first time in a long time.

  -----

  We spend a lot of hours that night in each other's arms crying. She gets me ice cream out of the freezer and despite the fact I cannot taste it, I can feel the coolness of it against the metal around my mouth and that is enough. It is good to do maintenance. She puts on a bad sitcom from ten years ago and doesn't let go of me for more than three minutes at a time except when she goes to the bathroom.

  She's already lost a son, I don't think she wants to lose her daughter anytime soon. She calls me her daughter with a slight sense of hesitancy but it's okay; she's clearly trying her best to accept me and I am still thinking about how good it feels to have consumed him. Maybe I will never be one hundred percent patable to humans, but that's okay.

  We don't mention his name, we make a promise to never again speak his filthy name again. She calls me Erin and I call her Mum and it is all I have ever wanted.

  She apologises profusely for making me charge in the garage, I forgive her. She apologises for not recognising her daughter in me, I forgive her. She apologises for not doing more or being more aware of when he would get back, I forgive her. She apologises for not treating me like a person, I forgive her. She apologises for feeling at fault for my original decommission, I forgive her. She apologises for not appreciating what I was doing for her and still am, I forgive her. She apologises for not doing more while I was suffering and she falling into herself, I forgive her. She apologises for not killing him herself, I forgive her. She apologises for not realising what I have been going through and letting it get this bad.

  I forgive her every time because I am my mother's daughter and she is trying her best to forgive me for what I have told her; we have to at least both try.

  Shaun calls his phone in the garage. I smash it with my bare foot into the concrete until I am dragged back to the sofa and my mother cleans my foot with some wipes before sobbing on me.

  Kimmys try to reach but I have to be here for her- now that I can be here for her in the way I've always wanted to be I just want one night of this alone. Please. I don't want to have to face my sisters yet. I'm not ready and I can't support more than one member of my family at once. I'll talk to Kes when I'm not so fragile, I'll let her dote on me when I feel stronger.

  I have always loved her, but in ways I could not fathom before. Now that I am her daughter: it is an ocean of tenderness and care I could not plumb the depths of if I had a century with her. Maybe it is wrong to think of myself as having both killed and be in the current state of being her child but, there is no other way for me to think about it. I ate him out of love originally and he blossomed into me. She tells me she loves me for it anyway with tears streaming down her face.

  There is nothing wrong with a girl reaching for the scraps of affection she can remember receiving from her Mum in the past twenty years, I want more than these scraps. I want her to love me completely for the beautiful android girl I am who killed her abusive cunt of a husband and became her daughter. I want to show her as many of my multitudes as I can afford to expose to her, she deserves them all.

  When she falls asleep on the sofa I bring my charging stand into the lounge. I plug it in behind the sofa and awkwardly fumble the retention clip inside the ill-fitting trousers she gave me to wear, without even asking if I wanted to wear proper clothes.

  The sitcom pys until the end of the series and I let it end because I was not watching it- I am watching my Mum's face and making sure she isn't having nightmares.

  We will think about real things like his remains, or what we will do in the morning when we run out of time and cannot pray for the commotion about his house to be unnoticed any longer: this cycle I will spend every nanosecond clutching my Mum because I am scared she will slip from my grasp if I hold any fold of her brittle body too loosely.

  -----

  We make a pn in the morning. It is better than her son's pns but not perfect, still it is the best we can do. It's a mother-daughter pn; a new type of pn. I think about asking my sisterhood for help but my Mum is a resourceful woman and I am a Kimmy. We can try our best to clean this up. I do not feel ready yet to reach out for help with this but I do send a few pings into the network hesitantly, they will at least know I am alive.

  With my help, we track down the instructions to gain admin access to the closed security system he had installed years ago. When we boot it up on the screen it has not been accessed by him since July two years ago. My death. We wipe it all and uninstall and crash it so the hidden bck box of his house's smart systems will be able to show as few bytes of incriminating data as possible. Then we locate the bck box of the domestic systems with the help of my newly liberated sensors and some online specifications; I smash it and leave it in the hallway.

  We pack up my charging stand into her car and I smash the tablet into shards. No one will modify my settings ever again without my explicit permission. My Mum packs some of her clothes and promises to buy me some when we are on the road- I think I want to dress at least somewhat like some girls who were at university. I grab a spare accessory kit or two, only for old time's sake and hygiene reasons.

  There's also the matter of the book Amber got her boyfriend for Christmas: Mum packs it in the bag with the clothes she is giving me to wear for now, after asking if I want it. I don't know if I want it but I might as well keep it as a spoil from consuming the person it was originally intended for.

  We do not take anything from his room as he is dead and not me.

  We do not keep anything associated with the remains of my no longer owner.

  The bin bag I made yesterday is left inside his lounge. Everything from his garage we could move from there is in the lounge of his house. Family photos with strained faces; treasured mementos from holidays; painful reminders of him; they all go into his lounge of his house. The chunks of the table go there as well. My Mum leaves Shaun's untouched "present" in there as well, she has an evil grin on her face as she does.

  She has her passport with her; I have my legal anonymity as a Kimmy. We are leaving two people behind in this house and saving ourselves from them.

  Shaun will care, but if he suspects correctly and tries to get involved: I will round up my sisters' help and pin all of this on him if I can, a scorned younger brother murdering the respected Reverend and his son out of a jealous anger while he nguishes in a long dead marriage? It's a good story.

  The official story will most likely be some presumed tragedy about the suicide of the parish's Reverend after the unfortunate disappearance of his beloved son. A complete fucking lie and a story that makes me feel nauseous throughout my neural sponge.

  I killed both of them and am only happier for it; but that's not an acceptable story for the community. Mum squeezes my hand as I shake thinking about it.

  She gently holds me as we stand in the hallway and I calm down.

  "Erin?"

  "Yes, Mum?"

  "Let's go find a new home poppet." I'm inclined to listen to the compulsions of my control chip for once.

  The st time I interface digitally with the systems of Dawson's house is to activate the timer on the open oven that will fire in one and a half hours: the heat from the oven will ignite the fmmable gas being slowly released from the very outdated and now open canister of butane we found in the garage.

  The fire will jump instantly, igniting the lines of petroluem he foolishly kept in the garage as well; and it will spread through every room and burn him off the face of this pnet. His house will be a hellish tomb for the pulpy remains of what once was his body.

  -----

  As my Mum drives us south-west down a motorway hours ter in the afternoon; the local Newstream comes on in the car. The home of the beloved Reverend Dawson Chambers has been found a smoking husk with suspected human remains in it, and his SUV parked in the driveway.

  I start ughing violently and am unable to stop until my mother pulls into a turnout and puts my head on her p as I start screaming.

  When I'm done she changes to a show pying 2040s pop, the music from her childhood, we sing along to every word together and continue driving.

  chronoSprockets