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Humans may claim to be above such things, but they still had their instincts and their instincts whispered that something was… off about Rozzum 7134.
They couldn’t quite place it.
And it made them scratch their heads every time she passed them by.
And they would whisper to each other wondering if anyone else had the same feeling.
They did, all of them. Yet none of them could quite place where the sense of wrong came from.
Not until they compared her to the other Rozzum’s around her. Then they could name why, oh just why , she felt so off to them that it caused some primitive part of them to reawaken.
The way she walked, though as straight as the others, was too fluid, too smooth, a too unnaturally natural stride. And the way her foot would fall was far too precise and quiet and had spooked a handful of people already who, so used to the loud stomps of a Rozzum, had turned around to find her just there .
With an apology usually.
And she had taken to alerting people that she was approaching with words drifting around corners and behind people’s backs.
But she never even attempted to change her unusual stride despite that being the most logical solution her programming should’ve taken.
And then, for a Rozzum, she was far too alert and aware of her surroundings. Almost always the first to respond, the first to react, and the only unit to know when a particular someone was coming before anyone could even see or hear them, and if you were looking for someone she eerily always knew without ever pulling out her personal data pad where they were.
But where she knew where everyone was, she herself was sometimes difficult to find for everyone else despite having a standard issue tracker that showed which sector she was in.
Despite her bright white paint and glowing lines and shining eyes, she would still somehow blend in with the greenery of the farm far too easily - which was much unlike the other Rozzums who didn’t blend in at all - even the ones that had green accents that painted their bodies didn’t blend in so well as 7134 did.
Just somehow in some way, her sleek yet bulky body hid perfectly behind the branches, leaves, and fields impossibly so.
So, it was easier to call for her than to look for her.
And when you found her she would respond with the same preprogrammed voice lines like every other Rozzum.
Yet the way she spoke was an itch on the brain. She still spoke in that robotic voice, with a noticeable gap between each word, but compared to other units it seemed forced and there were times people could swear her voice would sometimes flow too smoothly before returning to the almost standard way a Rozzum should speak.
However, no one could really say that she was broken or defective despite all these things that made everyone’s skin crawl.
She was obedient and friendly and excelled in completing all her tasks. One of the best Rozzum units the farming facility had ever had in fact!
Despite the unease she caused, to replace her would not be taken well by the higher ups who did not have to interact with her on a daily basis and only cared that she was one of the best units if not *The* best unit ever in the facility.
But they never saw how her eyes flicked about and how they would narrow and widen in ways that none of the other units ever expressed. Those higher ups never saw that nor experienced the feeling that there was something else going on behind them in that robotic head of hers. And nor would they ever hear how unlike the other Rozzums’ cheer hers was, cheer which was programmed intentionally and knowingly artificial, yet hers seemed truly fake more than anything.
Same with her voice, a facade of a thing that no one could truly callout as a facade because there was only gut feelings, a voice that spoke typical of a unit like her but that which everyone could swear had a cunningly hidden question amongst otherwise usual statements that no one would otherwise bat an eye at.
Despite all that and many other bits and pieces of her general everything, no one could quite put a name to what it was that made 7134, well, 7134 . A name to why, yes, but not to what. No one knew the exact cause of her every oddness.
All anyone knew was that something in her coding was simply not right . She had simply too many odd little quirks to her name to be ignored - however she could not be classified as rogue as she still did everything that was asked of her and completed all tasks assigned to her with flying colors and so nothing could really be done about it besides gossip and side-eyes.
But there would be moments, blink of the eye moments, where a crack would break through her many little masks.
Once, another Rozzum with a load of fruit had bumped into her, spilling most of the fruit on the floor. The two were on it immediately, with a couple more joining to help, but where the other three had bent over to pick up the pieces, 7134 had dropped to all fours.
It was over before one could do a double take.
Another time, there was a particular stubborn task that proved more troublesome than it should’ve been - what that task was anymore didn’t matter to those who witnessed her growl in what sounded too close to real frustration. One of the witnesses, who had her back turned away at the time, had jumped out of skin because she thought a bear was behind her.
Then, one of the harvesters got jammed. When the Rozzums were trying to clear out the blockage, a plume of dust and grain burst out and covered every single unit there. Most stood stock still, still processing what had happened until they thought to get out their microfiber wash cloths to wipe themselves off, but 7134 had immediately shook herself off like a dog and probably would’ve only done that if she had not observed how she was the only one not wiping off the grime.
After these three, people took to subtly recording whenever they worked near her, for scraps of proof that she truly was odd and that nobody was going nuts over nothing.
A cut off laugh - too hearty of a thing - over a bad pun that she had overheard.
Her hands digging too enthusiastically when she should’ve grabbed a nearby shovel.
Crawling under a tree to get to the other side instead of walking down a bit to the correct pathing.
A comforting coo to an elementary student who had scraped his knee hard during a school visit when all other units had simply gone to get a medkit.
A noted absence where she had not asked how her performance was after a group task was completed when every other unit had.
Finding her gazing at the sunset - tracking a flock of geese passing by. She barely reacted for the rest of the day afterwards.
And a thousand other little instances of her oddness. Little things that were passed around with theories galore and suspicions abound. There was not one person amongst the whole farm that had not heard about that one strange Rozzum unit that did very strange things that no one could explain nor find the source of.
Every scan came back clean everytime - every check of her coding spick and span - every tune-up finding nothing amiss.
Yet she was clearly different in some way.
But no one could do much of anything even with the little bits of scrap they could get - the evidence was simply considered unconcerning and of little worry. The thousand little instances combined was not enough to budge forward any sort of noteworthy investigation. It was all disregarded as people worrying over nothing.
So her little oddities continued, and people continued to record them in a growing collection of pictures and videos, and none of the higher ups did anything about all this at all as they waved charts and reports of her fantastic performances and perfect inspections in worried workers faces.
Then it so happened one day that those workers felt vindicated yet fearful all at once when they went to find 7134…
…and found her supposedly nonremovable tracker buried under a tree with no Rozzum unit 7134 in sight.