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Scott is heavily aware of the dangers in the job he was programmed to do; many times over he had been informed a past version of himself had died to the guests he was meant to teach how to “survive”.
It was a cruel world; as the Watcher Facility was always.
The one thing he hadn’t expected was how his eyes would be affected by charcoal.
-
Scott sat on his perch in front of his station as a group of rowdy kids came into the building, followed by two human adults. He squinted and zoomed in on the two adults, one of them was a woman with blond hair and blue eyes, and another was a male with brown hair and blue eyes.
The other SU400, Jimmy, looked at him wearily, sending a quiet message over their comms, Kids again. You think it’ll go better this time?
Scott responded back to him, I’d like to hope. But kids never go well.
Jimmy didn’t respond, head turning back to his proper place and standing almost motionless. From his spot, Scott could see Cleo- their security bot talking to the adults and pointing over to him and Jimmy, then to the other androids, sitting quietly at their stations, all except for the only FE500, Joel- he must’ve been burned again by the last group.
Cleo sat up from her wooden seat and started walking over to the androids, leading the group walking behind her. As she entered the rooms, a few kids attempted to touch a few of the androids, another one even hitting Etho, an SH800 in the stomach. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Etho’s LED flash a violent red, before it wavering back to it’s previous sky blue status.
When the kid attempted to hit Etho again, Cleo’s hand shot out to catch it and her LED flashed a violent red like Etho’s. He heard her say, “Try that again, kid, and you’ll see what the last life facility is truly like.”
She releases the kid's wrist, and turns to start addressing the group, “Listen up! All of these androids here are state of the art, you can’t go around destroying them, alright? And if I hear anything or see anything get destroyed, you all are not allowed back here again? Alright?”
Internally, Scott was thankful Cleo was their security person, rather than a human one who would let them malfunction and deactivate then step in when something serious happened.
He was less glad when Cleo said, “Your teachers want your main survival skills tested first, so our SU400’s will be leading this course, and after that you all are free to go wherever you want until “lunchtime”.”
Jimmy asks him over their comms internally, “Ready?”
“No.”
The two of them stand up in unison, walking over to the group, who looks at them with either utter delight or utter horror. He sees the kid in the middle of the group, who had punched Etho, a kid who gave off the impression he felt like he was better than everyone else and had an air of arrogance around him.
Jimmy smiled, lips curling into a wide grin, “Welcome everybody! I’m Jimmy, and the other android here is Scott! We’ll be teaching you guys some general survival tactics! Follow us!”
Scott smiled as Jimmy did and gestured for the kids and the two adults- teachers to follow them. They soon arrived at the station, and the two androids stood on either side of the entrance, letting the kids into the station and then the adults.
One of the adults, the male who’s tag read CHARLES SMITH , looked Scott up and down and punched him, square in his metal spine. When Scott flinched and almost doubled over, god FUCK that hurt, the man merely snorted, “I thought these were “state of the art” androids, not dollar store ones”, mocking Cleo’s previous words.
Scott only smiled back at the man, staring at him with unblinking eyes.
The man smugly went into the station, and Jimmy tied the ropes on the entrance back together, looking over his shoulder and sending a message over to Scott via their comms again, “Alright there, Scott?”
“Yea, I’m alright. Don’t lose thirium over me.”
The two of them turned and gestured for the kids to sit down. Jimmy walked away for a tiny bit, “to grab fire starting materials”, as he had said for their demonstration.
And he was left entertaining the kids with wondrous facts for a tiny bit, though Scott supposed it was payback for the last time he had done the same thing to Jimmy.
Thankfully, before he could open his mouth to say something, (or unthankfully ), the kid who had punched Etho in the stomach, shot his hand up in the air and Scott said, “What’s your question, kid?”
The kid said, “Why am I not allowed to hit you guys or damage you guys in any way?”
Scott responds back, “Well, because we’re made of metal and steel, It would cost a lot of money to repair our bodies as we’re not advanced enough to have self-healing systems quite yet.” Internally, his body whirred with life, as he said those words, hiding the fact yes, he did have self healing systems and everyone else did, but it was always a pain to have to reboot any time someone tried to damage an android.
The kid snarked back, “I thought you guys were state of the art? Why do you need repairs?”
And why do you need a fucking mouth, Scott thought to himself.
Before he could reply, Jimmy returned carrying one large box of charcoal and another of wood. He sat them down, creating a small barrier in between the two of them, and the tour group, “Alright!” Jimmy asked, “Which one of you know how to start a fire?”
A few of the kids raised their hands, the kid who’d snarked at Scott was not among them. Jimmy looked around and said, “Well for the rest of you! Today’s your lucky day! We’re going to be learning how to start fires!”
Scott wishes he could have Jimmy’s enthusiasm, but the glowing yellow light on the side of Jimmy’s head makes him step back from that thought.
Jimmy held out two pieces of wood in his hands and started methodically rubbing them together, seemingly on autopilot. The children watched in awe as little sparks began to dance in the wood, and soon a small plume of smoke arose from the wood. Jimmy stopped the movement and showed the smoking pieces of wood to the kids, who looked on in shock.
Scott smiled and said, “It’s very easy! Now every student will get a piece of wood and later on we’ll try with charcoal!”
Jimmy opened up the box of wood, and started handing them out to kids towards the back of the group, while Scott started handing it out to the kids in the front.
It was routine; nothing out of the ordinary. Until he heard the footsteps of a kid get up and walk past him, wedging open the closed charcoal box. He turned around, handing off two pieces of wood to a kid with glasses, and walked over to the kid. Jimmy looked up from his spot giving a different kid wood and saw the kid as well, telling Scott over the comms, “Don’t endanger yourself. You’ve already had two biocomponents damaged today alone.”
“I know what I’m doing Jimmy.”
He quickly strided over to the boy, who turned out to be the same one who had snarked at him and the same one who had punched Etho, grabbing a chunk of charcoal and crushing it in his hands.
Scott lowered his voice level down as he approached the kid, “Please don’t play with that, it’s highly dangerous and not a substance you should be just fooling around with.”
The kid laughed and said, “Watch me!”, as he slammed the powder in his hands into Scott’s eyes, forcing him backwards a tiny bit.
Scott’s vision turned black and he became disorientated, his eye components beginning to malfunction and falter out, red warnings lit across his screen, warnings of
[ WARNING ! : BIO COMPONENT #BBC2C2 DAMAGED ] , being the only color he saw.
-
Jimmy ran towards the other android, ignoring the teacher’s cries as he caught the other android, whose hands were at his eyes, attempting to claw away the charcoal which was staining them. Scott’s LED flashes from it’s previous soft yellow light to deep red that looked like human blood from the color.
He looked around wildly, LED spinning in a flashing display of yellow to red. Cleo came running in, and ducked into the station, looking upon the scene of Scott laying in Jimmy’s arms, clawing at his eyes.
The kid who had done the act saw the vicious look on Cleo’s face, and cowered, “I just wanted to prov-”
Cleo full on growled, “You proved your point. Everyone here drop your wood now, and leave this building before you find out what a bullet from a SH800 feels like.”
One of the teachers, Charles Smith, looked angry and guilty at the same time, began leading the kids out of the building, who were being stared at with cold eyes by the other androids. The other teacher grabbed the kid who had thrown charcoal into Scott’s eyes by the wrist, angrily whispering at him, and the kid didn’t look guilty now, only slightly smug about the whole scenario.
Jimmy on the other hand, was directly focusing on Scott, taking him in his arms and carrying him over to the resting room for the androids. There he found the FE500 android resting, but Joel quickly sat up at the sudden appearance of Jimmy carrying Scott.
Jimmy said, “Charcoal in the eyes. Repair kit?”
Joel handed the kit over to Jimmy, who took it with one finger and gently rested Scott in his resting stage. Scott was still trying to get the charcoal out of his eyes, and Jimmy grabbed at his arms, sending a soft message over their comms, “It’s alright. We have extra eye parts compatible with the SU400’s, we can fix it.”
“You mean you can fix it”, Scott replied with a static voice.
Jimmy didn’t respond to it, only smiling and grabbing the eyes out of the kit, and a few mismatched tools.
He carefully pried Scott’s hands from his eyes again, and opened them up, the image of blue eyes completely covered with black dust imprinted in his vision.
Jimmy replaced the eyes carefully, making sure to clean the wires and bolts in Scott’s eye sockets before he did so.
He placed the new eyes back into their sockets, letting them connect and snap into place, as Scott blinked vigorously, trying to adjust back to the amount of colors in his vision again.
“Back with me here, Major?”
“Back in the land of the facility I suppose.”
Cleo came into the room, LED whirring a soft yellow, “Teachers picked up a fuss when I kicked them out of the facility, said it was unfair and I said tell that to the kid who ruined it for everyone.” Joel laughed a tiny bit from his resting spot.
Scott asked, “How’s Etho?”
Cleo replied, “Doing good, guy barely switched LED colors with a dent in his stomach.”
Jimmy laughed softly, and Scott felt his pump skip a slight beat; though that may be it trying to fix itself from the charcoal.
Cleo looked at Scott with a raised eyebrow, “Didn’t realize we still carried extra eyes.”
“ ‘s a new thing,” Jimmy assured, “Found them in a back closet and thought they’d be useful.”
Cleo smiled, a rare thing for the security android, “Came in use today Timmy, good job.”
With that, Cleo left the room, and walked out into the foyer, leaving the two SU400’s and the FE500 sitting in the room together.
Scott leaned a little onto Jimmy’s shoulder, Think my thirium storage is low now. Battery’s weirdly low too.
Go into resting mode for a bit, I think Cleo’s got our station closed down for now.
Scott’s LED went from a bright flashing yellow, to a softer yellow, flickering to blue on occasion. Jimmy sat there, Scott’s head on his shoulder and went into rest mode for a little bit as well.
It felt weirdly calm, sitting side by side with the other SU400 android, neither of them could explain why.