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Robots did not have skin in the way that it was skin.
It was not usually skin that could protect them from the world. To regulate their body temperature, to blend into their faces. To melt into gums, to coalesce into bone, which ran parallel to blood.
To be brushed against, with the exclusive purpose of touch.
With the thought of being touched.
.....
It was not skin.
But it was all his, and his alone, wasn't it?
Sure, some smart enough person or machine could come along and tear it off of him if they were so inclined, but such a delicate operation, would likely not be worth the effort. For some one else? Maybe. Maybe a high-class android like Top Man. Or a valuable criminal like Proto Man. Or a stuffy syndicate android like Elec Man.
Their skin would hold some value, if only a little, once it was torn away from their bodies.
Crystal Man was fine with not having "skin" like them. He did not seek out touch. Did not care for the sensation of another-with blood or otherwise-against him. His own "skin" sensors were not made with the purpose of "high-fives" or "hand-shakes."
He always registered that sort of thing as some kind physical attack, anyway.
He stood in a dim hallway by himself.
There were no other robots around, save for the one that was presumably asleep on the other side of this door. Hopefully. Crystal Man gently placed a hand on the handle of the door. He signalled one of Bounder units near the light switch at the end of the hall. The hallway was dark, save for the minimal light reflected off the soft edges of his armor. The door slid open, noiseless, he was trying not to wake Top Man, after all. The room was dark. There was little to no noise from the tiny vent above.
......
Top man wasn't there. The mattress, blanket, and somewhat tidy pillow were all in place, exactly where they should be. Even in minimal light, however he could tell that there was nobody in the bed. Or the room. He reached an arm out of the door, and signalled the Bounder to turn the hallway lights back on again. He also flashed it a signal that it was no longer needed. No need for a silent entrance now.
He stood next to the mattress, back leaned against the wall of the room, front facing the door. His only company was the soft-looking blanket on the mattress, grazing the ground. Ever so slightly. Crystal Man tried not to think about the amount of dust on the floor.
He cringed.
The door opened, a familiar frame filled the passageway. Top Man yawned, before setting eyes on Crystal Man, his eyes opened almost comically. He looked like a spooked cat.
Crystal Man had never seen a cat in person, before.
"What are you doing here?!?!"
Crystal Man just stared back,
"I came to ask a question."
Top Man looked aghast, "By breaking into my room?!?!" Crystal Man raised an eyebrow, as well as he could, "Didn't have to. Your door was unlocked."
"But?!?! Still?!?!? You couldn't have asked this anywhere else?!"
Not really, there was only so much you could leave a robot master to do before they started getting bored. Gossip was one of the ways they passed the time. Lots of time.
"How nosy do you think they would get about me talking to you all of the sudden with no explanation?" Top man opened his mouth, promptly closing it. They both knew things would get weird if they just started acting like long-term friends, particularly in front of Ring Man or Magnet Man. That was one rumor mill he wasn't sure either of them could shut down in time.
"I have a list of questions. You may want to sit down."
Top Man just sighed. He de-armored, sitting down on his bed. "Bed" being a rather generous term here. It was just a mattress, blankets, and the only pillow you could probably find in Skull Fortress. That probably made it the most valuable thing out here for several miles....
"Alright, hit me."
Crystal Man idly entertained the thought of whacking him in the face.
It would be funny.
But he was here for a reason.
.....
A hour and a half later, Top Man was laying face up in his bed, eyes half closed, staring up the ceiling. He was clearly not listening to a thing Crystal Man was saying. He wouldn't be getting anymore answers out of him. Not tonight. "Aren't you supposed to get under the sheets first?" Top Man gave a silly, stupid, weak whine. He grabbed one edge of the blanket, and slowly started to pull it over himself. It was like watching a snail trying to meet another.
Top Man pulled the pillow under his head, shuffling his legs around to un-knot them from the blanket. He threw half of it over himself. His feet remained exposed.
....They were also modeled like human feet, Crystal Man noticed. Perhaps even right down to the skeleton. Crystal Man almost wanted to ask the other if he could remove his skin temporarily sometime to see what the "muscles" underneath looked like. But he wasn't certain if he could put Top Man back together properly. He would never try to pull the other bot apart without a valid reason, either way.
Top Man didn't deserve that, annoying though he could sometimes be.
Besides, there were other robots that could likely satisfy his own curiosity. Mega Man and Roll were just as human in appearance as Top Man, perhaps even more so. There was also Magic Man, who, while not as human in appearance as the other afforementioned examples, Crystal Man thought he would enjoy taking him apart to see how he worked.
Top Man's eyes were almost completely closed. His face was shadowed, half-stuffed in a flattened pillow. The movement of his breathing was substantially slower.
It would be creepy for Crystal Man to watch Top Man sleep. Or at least, humans thought it was rude to stare at someone when they were sleeping.
Crystal Man wasn't human. He didn't care.
But it seemed that Top Man did. He would not fall asleep, defenseless, in front of Crystal Man, no matter how tired he looked. Smartest thing he had ever seen Top Man do.
Crystal Man squatted down close to the ground. Top Man tried to open his eyes a little wider. Crystal Man lightly tugged the blanket up a little further up his chest, nudging the other's arm under the blanket, while Top Man got comfortable. He looked much cozier now.
He stood back up, and walked towards the door. He did not bother to tell the other robot good night. He turned off the lights as he left the room. He would ask his questions tomorrow, and would ask Top Man if he wanted a bed frame made.
He walked back to the little repair closet. Nice, quiet and dark.
There was Search Snake in a small terrarium, running on energy conservation mode. Crystal Man unlatched the tank, and scooped up the Search Snake. The little thing wriggled in his grasp, tail coiling and uncoiling from his fingers desperately. It didn't have a reason to worry though, Crystal Man would never drop it on purpose. Unless it bit him. But even then, that was a generous unless.
He set it down on the desk, fingers still around its neck, wrestling out from a cardboard box, a ramshackle battery and charger setup, the proper voltage to "feed" the Search Snake. It wasn't real feeding of course. The Search Snake had nothing resembling the actual digestive system. What it did have in place of that was a tubular system of transmitters and memory storage, a surprising amount of them in fact, especially for a drone of its size. He wrestled the Search Snake to attach the three wires, it went limp in the recharging process. He did not pet it's back.
He stared down at it. It was a small robot, unusually stylized, sitting on his desk, currently vacuuming up energy at an almost ludicrous rate. "Quick-Recharge System" was certainly correct. This thing didn't even use a proper battery module. He idly wondered asking the Doctor why, but the Doctor was a busy man, trying to take over the world, Crystal Man's questions were not nearly as important. There was no back to the spinning stool he was on. He leaned back all the same.
Top Man's answers half an hour ago only led him to more questions. The Search Snake was done charging. It laid limp in the wires. Crystal Man grabbed it by the neck, it beeped and wiggled, trying to free itself. If it was organic, his hold on it could have hurt it, or even killed it. But it wasn't organic, and neither was he. He detached the wires from its body, it's struggle increased tenfold. He dropped it back in the tank. It stopped fussing after that. He shut the lid tight so that no air or dust could escape. He logged into the H/S system, and called a Mousubeil to his location. A few minutes later, one Mousubeil with angry eyes zipped into the room, squeaking hurriedly, vacuuming up the dust released by the tank when he opened it. It bumped into his feet, synthetic complaints growing in his ears. He lifted his feet onto the stool, wrapping his arms around his calves as best as he could. The Mousubeil pipped back twice, and zipped around the stool and desk to clean it up. It left the room soon after, but he stayed sitting on the stool like that, arms grasping his legs.
The Search Snake circled in it's tank. He didn't know what to with that information.
He reached a hand out to turn the stool around to face the desk, the tools in perfect location. A range of two to three centimeters away from each other, with a slight allowance of a few millimeters in between each. He took off his helmet, and pulled out the mini-mirror attached to the desk. He took of his mask, and started looking at his jaw underneath. It was both minimalist and messy. Synthetic hydraulic muscle kept his lower jaw attached to his upper, but there wasn't really much to look at, unless you counted a very simple-classic-refueling intake. There was a little upper muscle threading over the top part to meet the roof of his "mouth," but it wasn't very strong, and under sufficient force, could easily break. The front of his jaw had some rudimentary protrusions, but the edges were rough and undefined, no fillets to keep him from cutting any of the false muscle on the sides of his mouth. But there wasn't really enough muscle in his mouth that that would ever become a real problem. The most skin he had was over that eyes, forehead, and the top part of his nose. It ended past there. His exposed jaw and the frame of his rudimentary nose were just cold titanium. He had no proper teeth, tongue, nor did he have lips, or a chin guard. Instead of traditional muscle underneath his jaw, there was the silicon of his neck that blended smoothly into an aluminum plate that was welded to his jaw.
Remove the plate, move aside the fuel and electricity lines, stick your hand in under his jaw, and you could just reach into his "throat."
The thought of someone being able to do that only bothered him at his most weak.
It had started as a genuine security concern, what was he to do if someone found him without a mask in a fight? But his curiosity had quickly taken hold, and what would you know? Curiosity certainly killed the cat all right.
But satisfaction would be more than enough to bring him back.
To some degree, not having a human face was a great advantage, he wasn't any bit insecure about his looks, despite the fact that he would need an android face plate to disguise himself without a mask or face guard. His vocal centers were mostly located in his chest and not his throat, keeping them safer from damage than other robot masters, but as a result, his voice was soft, often going unheard amongst the louder machines. Having his face half covered meant that other people could not as easily read his expressions, making him a rather formidable poker opponent. Nobody except the Doctor had seen what he looked like under his mask. The Search Snake in the tank never saw him turn around when his mask was off.
But to some degree, it was a disadvantage. It was easy to get his face dirty, and far more difficult to keep it clean. Routine maintenance was required, and quite often, too. He had no teeth to bite with, nor did he even have the ability to make much of a face under his mask whenever Ring Man said something stupid... He had no tongue to stick out at Top Man whenever the man made a jab at him, and if he rubbed the side of his hand against his face, it scuffed the sides.
He got tired of doing maintenance all the time.
He pulled out a small pair of industrial trimmers, and turned down his tactile sensory network.
He pried his jaw open as far as it could go. There was a twinge, somewhere. He started snipping at the sharp pieces of metal near the sides, careful not to cut too far. Once he deemed the cutaways... sufficient, he set down the trimmers and pulled out the dremel, and a small handheld vacuum meant for shavings. He started running down the sharp pieces, wary of letting the shaving go back into his mouth where he couldn't reach. He would often turn the dremel off to clean out the shavings that got it. If he hadn't turned down his sensory network, he would likely be in excruciating pain right now. It still hurt, though. He cleaned the area up, before setting his tools down to pull out a specially made, sharp tendril made of more than three hundred, thin plates of air titanium. A rather literal silver tongue, capable of leaving cuts on steel.
It would be the most difficult part of the modifications.
There was a whole sensory network to setup after this was done. If it didn't work properly though, he could always come back to it later.
He took out a small, thin rod, and slid it into the back of his mouth, jabbing the upper reset of his vocal structure as little as he could. It hurt, badly, even with his dampened feeling of it. He picked up the small piece of slippery titanium, and slid it in as far back as he could reach with his hand. He pulled out a screwdriver and shoved what he couldn't reach into a small slot at the back of his throat. In fit in mostly well, save the part he had to wedge in by force. He pulled aside the sensitive synthetic muscle beside it. He picked up a small soldering iron and set to work fixing the metal parts to the surrounding metal. It burned. He waited a minute or two to let the joints cool down, before releasing the somewhat over stressed muscles.
Crystal Man picked up a small set of tweezers, and leaned ever closer to the mirror to look a little further. It was practically half-inside his mouth at that point. Who cared? He moved the small fiber cables from the base of his tongue underneath the muscle on each side. And slid the other wires down his throat, where they were half inside his chest cavity. He leaned back, careful of moving any internal components to much. If those cables tore, he would have to replace the whole module. He unlatched the front armor on his chest, wary of every single movement. He probably should have taken it off earlier.
Oh well, notes for next time.
He took slid the tweezers inside a small hollow that went up to his throat, starting to feel around for anything loose. He found both cables, and pulled them out on each side of the chasm. They hung limp, before he pulled out a micro-fuser. (Which he had made from a few spare pieces, nowhere near professional, but it did a good enough job for himself). For the next thirty minutes, he set to wiring the extremely thin wires to the unused inputs above his lower vocal registers. Once he was done, he angled the tools out ever so gently. He took everything out of his mouth, keeping his jaw shut, before laying the side of his head on the desk and rebooting.
Thirty minutes later.
He rebooted to an extremely bright room, immediately shutting his eyes off again. He booted all his sensor networks up manually, pausing a few milliseconds before tactile and proprioceptive networks were turned back on. He had done it right, a small, new addition was alongside his internal section. He did not see himself as a proud machine. But he patted himself on the back metaphorically. He resealed everything in his front chest layer. If anybody heard him giggle to himself, like some sort of child-no they didn't. That never happened. Crystal Man sat up from the desk, and started pulling out two more simple manufactured pieces. A lower jaw piece, and an upper mouth plate. He took out the tweezers again. And started disconnecting the "muscles" connecting his lower jaw, holding it underneath to keep it in place, and to keep the sides of his throat from tearing straight off. Once it hung limply in his grasp, he detached the aluminum plate from his lower jaw, with a slow heating metal component.
The jaw piece fell off uselessly. He set it aside, and picked up the new one on the desk. It was lighter than the other one, by a function of .5 grams, and looked far more smooth in comparison to the other. It had smoothed edges near the highest point, and blended seamlessly to the joints where his muscles would be. The skin around his eyes raised in a smile. It was a better set of steel in every way, no offense to the Doctor, of course. There was an attached piece of sharp, sleek teeth on the underside, that would blend seamlessly into the aluminum, when properly welded. For now, he took the welder at set to recreating a new seam between the plate and new jaw.
It felt warm.
Once that was done, he welded the back teeth to the aluminum plate as well, much slower, in case he heated up the aluminum too much. That could cause permanent damage after all. But his hands were more steady than most humans. He smoothed the rough edges with the dremel a second time. It was far cleaner looking now. He vacuumed his lower mouth out again, still awkwardly holding his jaw together. He set to reconnecting his muscles to his lower mouth. Everything was coming together, now. He took a second to admire (and check) his handiwork in the little mirror. The Search Snake was in idle mode from the sound of it. He didn't look back at the tank. He snaked his new tongue along his two, small, fanged-like "teeth." Those two little things could tear into metal and never let go. But it wasn't done yet. He picked up the other part of the built and set to heating the ribs of it to an almost liquid temperature. He had to keep from smiling. Moving aside some rather tactile sensory tubes, he gently pushed the ribs to meet the front of his face. It fit in seamlessly, less than a millimeter away from his original upper mouth and nose. It had two of its own little sharp teeth as well. He set it in further by pulling some of his skin atop the sides, and gluing the parts near the sensitive components down proper.
Once everything was dry, he stopped holding it down, and slid his tongue out slightly to meet his teeth. It was kind of cute, and more than a little bit deadly to anybody that got too close. Razor pointed tongue met his teeth, swept alongside it, and then moved along. He smiled at himself in the mirror.
He stood up from the stool slowly. And walked over to the tank, unmasked. He crouched by it, the Search Snake was looking at him. He stared back. He grinned to the best of his ability. The "new face" didn't have a proper smile, not by any stretch. He flicked his tongue out for just a millisecond. The snake flashed a red light back.
He looked at the snake.
The snake looked back.
Indifferent as he was.
