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“And this is the bathroom, complete with a bathtub, as promised.”
Simon knows every inch of the New Jericho Care Centre inside and out (although the apartments being identical probably helps with that), but it’s not very often he has to show someone around. He has an office on the ground floor where he spends his working days, making sure that everybody gets the help they need, but occasionally Connor will come to him directly with a special request. An android that’s barely managed to avoid criminal charges due to software damage, one that Connor doesn’t trust with anyone else.
Bless Lucy for transferring endless data packets about mental health support, back when they were the heads of Jericho, needing to take care of everyone themselves. They come in handy often on this side of the building, and Simon expects he’ll be tapping into that data today as well.
Today he’s with a WR600 named Ralph. Multiple counts of murder and aggression around humans. That’s more than enough reason for a stay in the Care Centre, but Connor didn’t mention that Ralph would be needing the technician care as well as the mental health support. He doesn’t want to think about how a gardening model ended up with such extensive damage to his face plating, but he suspects it’s connected to the crimes. That’s a conversation for another day though, when Ralph is settled in and beginning to heal.
The repair work is for another day too, since Ralph says it doesn’t hurt, but it’s always disconcerting to see fake muscles and wires on display. The rest of the ‘damage’, though, is just the skin generators being blocked by dirt, which is what led Simon to suggest Ralph has a bath. Clean clothes would probably be welcome as well. It’s amazing how much a person can change when they feel comfortable.
The apartments at the Care Centre are simply furnished, with a sofa bed, television and plenty of storage, but Simon splurged on the bathrooms. Each one has a sink, of course, and a bathtub with a showerhead over it, and the toilets have been swapped for washer-dryers. Josh thought he was mad when he suggested having so much plumbing in each apartment, and sure, sometimes the building’s water bill is a little high, but having to work weekends in a grocery store to cover the extra cost is worth it. He’s never met a single android that dislikes baths.
Ralph, it seems, is no exception. He runs his hands over the porcelain and fiddles with the taps excitedly. “There’s nobody in your bath!” Ralph exclaims, which… well, it’s not the strangest thing anyone’s said to him, but is the strangest thing anyone’s said to him about bathtubs. “There was a very, very bad man in Ralph’s bath, very scary. Laughed at Ralph, said mean things…”
“Well, there’s no bad men here, I promise. No humans at all, actually.” Simon leans over so that he can put the plug in the bathtub and let it actually fill, but he can still see Ralph in his peripheral vision, looking curiously around the room.
“No humans?”
“No humans,” Simon confirms, smiling at Ralph as he stands back up. “The tub will be full soon. Why don’t we start washing your clothes while you wait?”
Ralph looks over at the washing machine for a moment, eyes flicking between the different buttons and dials. “Simon will show Ralph how it works?” he asks hesitantly, as if he’s expecting Simon to say no, but the PL600 just smiles rather than questioning it. It’s not an unusual response, unfortunately. Humans have a habit of thinking androids can do anything - even he was bad at asking for help when he first deviated.
“I can’t leave the room, but I’ll give you as much privacy as possible while you’re undressed.” Simon turns around to face the washer-dryer, the best he can do with the rules that the police department have given him, but luckily Ralph appears to have no qualms about undressing in front of someone else. He even helpfully puts his clothes down near Simon.
Ralph still has the standard WR600 jumpsuit, and it’s in relatively good condition too. Simon will take a sewing kit to it in the next few days, but it’s definitely salvageable. The cape, on the other hand, appears to be made of some kind of tarpaulin, and he has no idea how it will hold up in the washing machine. But he also can’t just take it outside and hose it down... well, he’ll get the water as close to rain as he can manage and hope for the best. “Okay, the settings are a little complicated, but there’s a booklet underneath the sink that explains them. Today we’ll use this one, which is the lowest temperature wash, and we won’t try to dry them.” He turns one of the dials 180 degrees then hits start, and the machine rumbles to life, quickly filling with water.
“Easy! Ralph will read the book tomorrow!” Ralph exclaims from behind Simon. He jumps slightly, not realising the other android was so close, but Ralph doesn’t appear to notice, already turning back to the bathtub. “Is the bath ready?”
Simon kneels up so that he can see into the bath, and grimaces when he realises it’s hitting the overflow drain. Josh is going to have his head over the bills this month, after the incident with the common room air conditioning as well… “Yes, you can turn the taps off now, and the green bottle is some bubble bath you can use.”
“Alright!” Ralph does as Simon said, pouring a healthy dose of bubble bath into the water. He laughs to himself as he swirls the water around and then climbs into the tub, settling at the end opposite the taps.
Simon turns back around then, knowing everything is okay. He shuffles over to the cupboard under the sink where he thought to leave some towels and spare clothes. There’s more clothes in the dresser, back in the other room, but standard procedure is that he can’t leave Ralph alone until he and Connor are certain the WR600 won’t hurt anyone.
He thinks that’ll happen soon, though. Ralph has been calm since he arrived at New Jericho - Connor’s theory was that being around humans was the issue, and Simon is inclined to agree. Hopefully New Jericho will be good for him. That’s all Simon aimed for when he opened the Care Centre: for it to be somewhere safe for androids to heal. Not every android has problems with humans, of course, but enough do that it necessitates having a space of their own, rather than using the same resources as humans do.
“Simon?” Ralph asks after a few minutes. Simon turns to look at the other android, who is still happily sat in the bathtub. “Ralph cannot see his face to clean it… can you help?”
“Yeah, of course I can,” Simon says. It makes sense that Ralph would want help - androids are theoretically waterproof, but getting water into open wounds can be problematic. Still, though, Simon feels pleased that the other would let him close like that. He understands why some people don’t trust easily - hell, he’s best friends with North now, but he certainly wasn’t at first - but it makes him happy when the androids he looks after do trust him.
The smallest towel can double as a washcloth, so he takes that and dips it into the water. Ralph closes his eyes as Simon wipes away the dirt on the uninjured side of Ralph’s face. “Was your bath alright?” he asks quietly as he rubs at a particularly stubborn spot near Ralph’s hairline.
“It was very nice,” Ralph reassures him, still swirling the water and bubbles around. “Ralph has a question, though.”
“Ask away.” He rinses the cloth off in the water and wrings some of the excess water out before working his way along Ralph’s jaw. He avoids the section that’s caved in for now, but there’s some dried thirium running down his neck, invisible to the eye but not to the touch.
Ralph tilts his head up, allowing Simon easier access to the dirty patches. “Why are you helping Ralph like this? Ralph has seen androids like you before, always looking after someone… but you’re free, yes?”
Simon pauses, pulling his hand away for a moment. Nobody’s asked him this question quite so bluntly before. When he volunteered to run the Care Centre, none of his friends questioned it. In fact, he’s pretty sure they expected it. It’s the job he’s always had, after all. But, as Ralph so quickly pointed out, it’s the job he’s always had. He looks after androids now instead of children, but he’s still a caretaker.
He likes it though, he always has done, and he’s pretty sure that’s him rather than his programming. He can’t picture Markus doing this job anymore, that’s for sure. It feels nice to take care of someone, to know that he’s made their life just a little better by doing simple things like washing their face or cutting their hair. “I’m doing it because I want to,” he answers eventually, then returns his focus to the delicate patch of caved-in jawbone. “Did you like gardening?”
“Yes, Ralph liked it a lot. But he can’t go to the parks and look after flowers anymore,” he replies, looking down at the water again. Simon has to pull his hand away, and instead cleans the area of bare skin on Ralph’s temple. “It makes Ralph sad, to be away from his park so long.”
Suddenly Simon remembers a conversation he had with one of his coworkers a few weeks ago, a request from some of the YK500s. There’s a few children in this building, just because it’s the safest place for them to live, but there isn’t much for them to do, and this idea might be good for some of the adults as well. “You know, we’ve been thinking about setting up a community garden outside. Maybe you could help with that?”
Ralph perks up again, accidentally splashing some water over the side of the tub, but Simon can’t find it in him to be mad about damp trousers. “Really? Ralph would like that a lot!”
“Then I’ll forward the idea onto Josh, see if we have the money for it,” Simon says with a smile. If Josh doesn’t agree then he’ll pick up some overtime and fund it himself, of course, but it’d be nice to have some free time occasionally.
Ralph squirms slightly, and Simon realises he’s been going over the same patch of bare chassis for a minute. That can’t be comfortable, and he smiles in apology as he pulls his hand away. “I’m going to try cleaning these cuts now, so you have to hold still, alright?”
Once Ralph nods, he wrings as much water out of the washcloth as possible, before gently wiping over the scarring on the other’s face. The scarring over Ralph’s cheek is too wide to be cleaned properly, so he just goes around the edge and then up into the corner of his eye, where some thirium still leaks out from the blue sclera. “Can you see out of this eye?”
“No,” Ralph answers, with a minute shake of his head that’s quickly caught and stopped. “No, but Ralph learnt to use the other one.”
“Would you like it repaired? I think you’re compatible with most optical biocomponents, and if we don’t have the right face plates then we can at least try to close some of the cracks.” WR600 models are old and parts are rare these days, and it’s always a gamble what parts are available in the medical ward. Cyberlife doesn’t often cooperate with their requests for free replacements. He’s seen the technicians here do miracles with much less, though, so there’s hope for Ralph yet.
“Yes, Ralph wants repairs… he doesn’t want to scare people anymore. Ralph wants a family.”
“A family? That sounds nice.” It’s a pretty big wish, and not one that fits what he knows about Ralph so far, but he’s not one to judge.
“Ralph almost had one once… Kara and her little girl, Alice,” Ralph says quietly, leaning his head slightly towards Simon’s hand. “And he thought Kara wanted it too, because she treated Alice like a human girl. But Connor chased them away…”
Connor knew Ralph during the revolution? Well, that certainly explains how the WR600 ended up on the police’s radar. “If you ask Connor, I’m sure he’ll try to find them.”
“Yes… Ralph might do that. He’d like to be their friend again.”
He’d planned to offer to wash Ralph’s hair, but the android seems to be tiring out, both emotionally and physically. Another day, then. “Tomorrow, though. I think it’s probably time for you to go into stasis now, huh?”
“Yes, you’re right. Thank you, Simon,” Ralph says, making eye contact for the first time this evening. “Nobody has done this for Ralph before.”
“You’re welcome, Ralph” he replies with a smile. “I’ll turn around again as you dry off and get dressed.”
It’s not long before Ralph is climbing into his new bed, and Simon sets up the temporary camp bed that he stashed away in the closet. He places it as far away from Ralph as he can manage in the small space, because he knows it can’t be comfortable to be watched all the time like this, but the law’s the law. And he can’t go into stasis yet either, because he needs to check up with the other employees, plus he should probably call Connor, and the washing machine isn’t finished yet…
It’s been a good day, though. Smiles and ‘thank you’s are enough even on the worst days, but this one feels better than usual, although he can’t quite put his finger on why. He has a feeling he’ll be checking on Ralph often, even once he’s free to spend time alone again. They have a garden to plan out, after all.