Cohost writing prompt: @build-a-bot — Combat android who submits a request for a different chassis
K209's community rehab coordinator looks kindly over the top of her glasses, in a familiar way that means no.
"Kay," she says, "If that's what you want, I'll release a print authorisation for the parts. You might need to spend some task credits in the workshop to get everything assembled, but you're probably handy enough to pitch in, so that shouldn't cost very much. But."
"There is always a but," Kay says quietly.
"Life's like that." Caroline slides her glasses off, rubs the bridge of her nose. "You were sorted, as part of your manufacture — you know this — by body synchronisation. You sorted into the highest bracket, that's why you did the missions you did, your combat performance was consistently in top two centiles. Switching to a radically different body—"
"These are both standard pattern anthroforms. It is not radical."
"Kay."
"It is not radical," Kay says, in a muted way that would have seen her disciplined for insubordination. Muttering is a hard-won rebellion.
"You know the figures for dysphoria in high-sync K-models who change chassis as well as I do," Caroline says. "It's a body nearly half your current size, with radically different power outputs, responsivity, and range of motion."
Kay doesn't say anything.
"Can you tell me what prompted this?" Caroline says kindly, after a while.
Kay can refuse. That's allowed. Allowed doesn't mean consequence-free. "There's a watercolour painting class," Kay says reluctantly. "I would like to attend. I do not fit."
Caroline sits back in her chair, slides her glasses back on, and looks at Kay.
"I know Marion," she says gently. "She says you've been attending her painting class for three weeks. She says she enjoys having you, but you're very quiet. She never knows if you're getting anything out of it."
Sometimes you can look as if you're not refusing, if you give something. "I do not fit."
"Kay," Caroline says. "Clearly you don't mean physically, so why would a change of chassis help?"
There are many things to say to that; and also nothing. After a minute or two, Kay stands. "We have resolved this issue. Disregard the print authorisation request."
"Kay," Caroline says, and Kay decides that today is a day for it's-no-longer-termed-insubordination, and tomorrow can be a day for the punishments they pretend they don't levy because they don't call it insubordination, and turns and leaves.