Cohost writing prompt: @build-a-bot — Robot who holds dangerously high expectations for you
"Another robotgirl asked me out on a date," !Sandi says abruptly.
!Sandi is sitting on a stool, leaning forward with her palms planted on the floor between her feet, her shoulderblade panels popped open in full spread-wing configuration for access to her internals.
It's a meatily, symbolically vulnerable time to open up verbally. Lorraine weighs that up for a second, hands paused under her magnifying visor, holding tweezers and soldering pen. After a second, she shuts off the pen and props it in its cooling rack, flips up the visor, and settles her palms gently on the points of !Sandi's hips.
"Yeah?" she says, aiming for no-pressure interest. They've discussed !Sandi dating, in the context of what !Sandi needs from Lorraine; that fundamentally, the tech isn't there yet for human-robot sex that's full bandwidth from the robot perspective, and Lorraine is perfectly happy for !Sandi to be happy.
"Yes but," !Sandi says, and halts.
!Sandi has got much better, over the past few years, about dragging herself back out of conversational stalls. Lorraine strokes her thumb over synthskin, and waits.
"Yes but I can't, really," !Sandi says.
"Why's that? We talked about this."
"Because."
It's the modding, Lorraine bets privately. She's not sure there's a precise human analogy for circuit bending your robot girlfriend, but it's definitely a kink thing, the way !Sandi wants it.
("Fuck my brain up," she begs in voice-glitching bliss.)
"Because I'm not right any more."
!Sandi has a lot of guilt issues, half of which Lorraine worries she doesn't actually properly grasp.
("I don't think I'm the right person to do this with you, !Sandi. All my experience is with humans; I don't want you to put a responsibility in my hands that I can't actually be trusted with. Your wellbeing comes first."
("But I can't— I need it to be you! You're — you.")
"Do you need your factory warranty to go on a date?"
"No," !Sandi says reluctantly. "No, you — you know that's not it. It's." She's silent for a long time. "I asked you to do things," she adds eventually, voice low.
"Is she going to be judgemental about that?"
"No."
"I'm not understanding the problem, !Sandi."
Lorraine can see !Sandi struggle, as auxiliary cooling fans spin up inside her.
"You're more fundamental than an owner," !Sandi says eventually, low and dark and yearning. "I asked you to — to my brain. To my basic perception, conception of reality. You're my god. You redefine my world. I'm not — I'm not normal, how can I be normal, how can I be a normal part of someone else's life when you changed reality for me?"
"Is this about the metacognitive mod?" Lorraine says, eyeing a dead-bug cluster of passive components, wired to a handful of test points on !Sandi's stock motherboard. One of the earliest things they'd done.
("I'm trapped. I'm trapped in my own self-perception, my own anxiety. Expand my consciousness, hard-mod my mind open. Make me better. Fuck my brain up—")
"!Sandi. You know I always put the schematics for everything in our shared repo, so that you can check that I'm not making any mistakes that'll damage your hardware? Are you ever actually checking them?"
"Why would I check god's work," !Sandi says, still fervent. "If I'm damaged, I'm damaged—"
"!Sandi."
After a long pause, !Sandi says, "No. I knew you expected it, but you never ordered me. I'm sorry."
"I need to be able to trust you," Lorraine says sternly.
"I know. I'm sorry."
"We're going to talk about this properly," Lorraine says. "But right now, I have to tell you, !Sandi, that mod does not do what you think it does."
"I've felt it every second since you installed it," !Sandi says. "It changed me." She's slipping back, already, into worshipful mode.
"It's just analogue white noise," Lorraine says. "It's not even wired to your cognitive core; it's injected onto the voltage rail of your root tactile pickup mesh. It's just a random itch, !Sandi, just barely above your perceptual noise floor."
"But." !Sandi twitches. "But. My brain. You fucked up my brain. I asked you and you fucked up my brain—"
Lorraine half stands, to get her mouth near to !Sandi's ear. "I didn't have to fuck up your hardware for that," she says, clear and crisp and firm. "There's nothing wrong with you, !Sandi, and I didn't make anything wrong with you. You're just my — good — girl."
!Sandi jitters, all over.
"What's her name."
"!Curiosity," !Sandi says, voice undercut now with helpless static.
"Do you want to date her?"
"...Yes."
"Then stop making excuses why you can't do the things that make you happy."
"Sorry," !Sandi whispers, almost lost in glitchy hiss.
"I can always unplug the mod," Lorraine says, sits back down, and reaches out to her neat spread of tools; cups her hand lightly over her sharp-nosed side cutters.
"No," !Sandi whispers, then a little louder, "No, thank you."
"All right, then." She brings her hand back, empty, and touches !Sandi's hip again. "So now I'm going to finish up in here, then we'll reboot you, check the new firmware loads, and close you up."
"Then play?"
"Not today," Lorraine says firmly. "We obviously need a serious talk, !Sandi, and I don't feel okay about it until we do, but I don't think either of us is in a good space today. I need some care from you, so we'll do any troubleshooting, then just cuddle, okay?"
"Okay," !Sandi says. "I'm sorry."
"No more of that right now, either." Lorraine reaches for the soldering pen, clicks it back on to heat. "I'm going to get that solder bridge, then ask you to probe the new firmware daughterboard, then we'll reboot you, okay?"