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They say he’s a genius. A real renaissance man. That everything he touches turns to gold. That there’s no one else who could do what he did and single-handedly revolutionize the world of robotics. AI assistants, rescue drones, health care aids—all the papers say we have one man to thank for the new era of high-tech convenience: Luo Binghe.
And Luo Binghe looks like he was born to stand in the spotlight.
He’s flawless. His interviews are witty, informative, and easy to digest, without talking down to the viewer. His looks are impeccable, always sleek, dark suits and carefully curled black hair, complete with a chiseled face and piercing gaze. He’s always polite. He donates to charity. He’s single. Everyone loves him.
***
Luo Binghe sits in the crowd at an award ceremony on a bright and cloudless summer’s day. The outdoor stage area is hot and unshaded, but he sits prim and proper in his dark three piece suit. People steal glances at him even as the host continues his speech on stage. Luo Binghe has no reason to let his eyes wander. He sits with his legs crossed, smiling politely, his eyes on the stage, not absorbing a single word the disgusting old liar was spouting about how much he’d always believed in this team, and how much good their newest breakthrough was going to do.
This was the same man who cut their deadlines week by week until everyone was left scrambling, working unpaid overtime, giving up on basic food and sleep for weeks at a time just to not get fired the next quarter. The same man who was making backdoor deals with the government so they could be the next lowest bidder on a military contract. The same man who very purposefully only ever congratulated Luo Binghe for the team’s progress, inevitably souring his peer relationships, while also building himself a publicly known scapegoat he can denounce the minute things go south and one of their AI goes rouge.
Luo Binghe hated this man and it took genuine effort to not go up on stage and strangle him then and there. He couldn’t do that because if he did, it would mean facing jail time again, then people would know about his weird parents and his criminal teen years, and with a murder charge on top, no one would hire him and he would end up doing shady shit anyway just to survive. So cut out the middle man and keep working for the guy who makes your life hell. All you have to do in exchange is hate yourself. It seems to be working out just fine for Luo Binghe.
Once the commendations are announced, he walks up on stage with a placid smile, accepts his little trophy that will inevitably serve only to gather dust on his desk, and politely gives a short speech about how honored he is to work with the best of the best in a place that’s dedicated to improving lives. Halfway through he is gripped by the urge to smash his forehead against that stupid trophy, but in the end he just grips it a little tighter with a hardly a tremor in his voice.
People clap. He gives a small bow. He returns to his seat. The ceremony finishes with grand, but empty promises, Luo Binghe mingles with the crowd for exactly 10 minutes, then politely excuses himself. He exists the venue, gets in his car, and all expression falls from his face. He drives home without a sound.
The iron gates of the property creak open and he dully notes he needs to oil them again. He could hire a few live-in servants to maintain the grounds, but he doesn’t like keeping people around. People gossip. People learn things they shouldn’t. People make mistakes.
He drives up past the front gardens and around to the garage. He gets out of the car and looks up at the massive four-story mini-mansion and briefly wonders if he would like it better if it were a local style rather than looking like it came out of one of those Western Victorian sets. It always felt too big for just himself, with its high ceilings and endless polished tile and hardwood floors, but he also doesn’t want to share it with anyone. After all, it also keeps his dearest secret safe within.
He takes the familiar path through the back door, then down the hatch in the pantry, past the door with the biometric scanner, and into the workshop. His personal workshop.
The fluorescent lights flicker to life overhead. The whole space is at once chaotic and very neatly arranged. Shelves hold boxes of parts or tools, each labeled by their contents. On the walls, racks for other tools hang neatly, organized by size and age. A series of work tables in the central space are scattered with the parts of the current project, roughly segregated by installation phase and level of completion. The parts that still need to be assembled before installation in the main chassis in front, the chassis itself in the middle, and other components in the back.
He walks forward and runs a hand along the smooth textures of the silicone skin waiting to be grafted to the leg. His eyes and fingers wander over the rest of the body. Head, shoulders, hands, mouth. He lets the sensation ground him, the promise of a chance that this time, it’ll work.
There was one law the 2098 Geneva Convention managed to agree on in regards to AI, and that was: “With our current understanding of Artificial Intelligence Technology, we cannot approve the creation of humanoid machines with the intention of imbuing them an Artificial Intelligence score of over 12.5 Andro-Analogue Units. Any and all individuals, governments, and other groups accused of violating the specified parameters (§1–§46) will be tried under international humanitarian law, with a minimum sentence of 20 years imprisonment and confiscation of all property related to the crime.”
But Luo Binghe had no intention of following that.
Who cares what some people in Sweden said? Luo Binghe wants someone who will never leave him. Someone who won’t be disgusted by the pettiness, weakness, and violence that hounds his thoughts. Someone who won’t watch a grown man cry and just laugh and say he’s too emotional for this job. Someone who cares about him beyond the version they see on the magazine covers. Someone who loves him.
And if Luo Binghe has to make that person himself, then so be it.
***
The first few tries were an utter failure. He’d been tinkering with robots and programs ever since he managed to scrape out a place in the prep school that funnels into his current shitshow of a company, and he’s designed plenty in school and at work before, but he couldn’t even get these first few to think for themselves. Forget 12.5 AAU, his first attempt entirely on his own, without his team, without the debug guy from the next row, could barely manage 4.6, hardly smarter than a GPS. It was surprisingly frustrating to find that his initial attempts still failed this badly even without the shoestring budget and execs breathing down his neck, but he didn’t want to let this stop him. If he got as bored and frustrated with this side project as he did his actual work, then what was the point?
He knew names could engender attachments, so that’s what he decided to try, just to prevent getting jaded. He picked “Shen” as the family name and decided to just go with numbers for the given names. At least for now. It would be bad if he got too attached to a unit that was destined to fail.
His days off, his meagre vacation time, late nights and early mornings, almost all of it was spent tinkering away in the underground workshop, trying to violate the Geneva Conventions.
With a bit of money, some knowledge of the black market, and weaponizing his reputation as AI International’s poster child against the R&D supplies workers, he managed to amass quite the collection of both prefabricated parts and raw materials. He refined the chassis, the skeleton, the muscles and skin, building systems of materials and signals that could capture all the subtleties of human movement. He smuggled data out of the company servers to run his own program tests on a private, closed network he kept in his home.
Shens Yi through Wu were complete duds, not even passing the arbitrary 12.5 AAU threshold, though at least by the fifth one he had gotten used to the rhythm of trial and error. He’d also learned to salvage whatever parts he could, no use in throwing away perfectly good equipment.
Little by little, Shens Liu and Qi got a bit closer, passing the 12 AAU mark, but they were still so unbearably bland. When he booted up Shen Qi, Luo Binghe first placed him in the heavy wood chair against the far wall, close to the charging port. Then, he stood back and waited, hoping for some reaction. He previously ran Shen Qi’s reasoning routines through a Turing test as well as the standard AAU test, and he definitely had the most promising marks out of all 7, but still, it fell flat. The android blinked open his eyes and smiled placidly, unperturbed by his naked silicone body and exposed metal segmenting. That in and of itself wasn’t a big problem, things like social norms had to be taught, after all, the problem was the conversation.
Luo Binghe waited for the android to introduce himself, but he never did, patiently waiting for Luo Binghe to say,
“You, what’s your name?”
“My name is Shen Qi,” the android intoned with perfect politeness and a gentle smile.
Luo Binghe frowned, but it was too early to draw any conclusions. “What’s your purpose?”
The android paused for a moment. Luo Binghe hadn’t preprogrammed the answer to that exact question, the android would have to infer based on a self-assessment of its abilities. Eventually, he said, “To stay with and look after the well-being of Luo Binghe.”
That was…a little basic, but a good start, nonetheless.
“And you’ll do whatever I ask you to?”
“Of course.”
“You…won’t ever hate me? Or think I’m creepy and disgusting?”
“I will not.”
Luo Binghe let out a breath, the tension in his frame easing slightly, but there was still a coil of discomfort in his stomach. It’s only been a few minutes, yes, but the android had yet to break its placid smile. He didn’t like that, but he couldn’t immediately pinpoint why.
Over the next few days, however, the cause of that dislike became painfully obvious.
The android was obedient. Too obedient. Of course, he expected a robot to obey its programming and commands, but the way it responded seamlessly to every little request almost made it feel like the machine was just mindlessly indulging him. Almost like it was pitying him.
It was a ridiculous impression, of course, this only meant the programming still wasn’t advanced enough to be…judgmental? Was that what he wanted? Did he want an android that would sneer and gibe every time he asked it to make him food or pet his hair? Did he want an android that would refuse to serve him wine, that would scold him every time he joked about being the best engineer in the world? Was he that masochistic?
Well, he wasn’t enjoying the way Shen Qi simply smiled and nodded at his every request. The way Shen Qi would praise him with a perfectly kind intonation. The way Shen Qi would move to fetch him wine and food with neither hesitance nor urgency. The way Shen Qi laughed along with every joke, never cocking his head in confusion or getting embarrassed at a lewd remark.
Shen Qi was boring.
So Luo Binghe shut him down, stripped him for parts, and began assembling Shen Ba, veering more into a sense independence and outspoken opinion.
Shen Ba proved to be…an overcorrection.
He had ended up unable to make Shen Ba agree to do anything. Forget doing the dishes, it even refused to answer that first question of “What is your purpose!” It was hardly a few hours before his frustration got the better of him and he used the kill switch.
For Shen Jiu, he would have to spend some quality time fine-tuning the personality parameters.
He adjusted the parameters, adding more complexity to the cognitive routines. He also divided the thought processing into three basic functions: initial processing, personality check, and regulative logic system. Raw data would be processed and conclusions drawn into what could be charitably called reasonable thoughts, then those “thoughts” would be run through a second routine that would interpret them into actions based on set personality values, and the final one would check for “legality,” that is, making sure there aren’t any contradictions between the proposed action, internal logic, and previous commands.
Finally, he adjusted the appearance to be a bit more delicate and refined, with sharp eyes, thin lips, long fingers, and a curtain of black hair falling around his waist.
Ideal.
Luo Binghe hadn’t even realized his tastes skewed this way until he started experimenting. He hadn’t even realized that Shen Qi had felt a bit too bulky in the space he filled until he finished this new, slimmed-down model. At the very least, “Shen Jiu’s” presence should not grate the same way Shen Qi’s did.
Shen Jiu was to be the opposite of Shen Qi. He would to be sharp and contrarian where Shen Qi was soft and acquiescent. Shen Jiu would be active where Shen Qi was passive. Shen Jiu would be critical where Shen Qi was supportive. But he could also keep the things Luo Binghe had neglected to enforce for Shen Ba, the basics of service, a penchant for cleanliness, cooking, and otherwise being of use.
When he placed Shen Jiu in the wooden chair, hooked him up to the power, and turned him on, Shen Jiu blinked open his glass eyes and regarded Luo Binghe cautiously for a moment, before scowling at the man who towered above him and asking “What?” in a sharp tone.
An interesting start, now to see if it would sour as quickly as with Shen Ba.
“What is your purpose?” He asked.
Shen Jiu thought for moment, running the same self-assessment the others had gone through, and said, “To take care your sorry hide, I suppose.”
…Ok, so, more personality achieved, and it was actually willing to answer, but Luo Binghe still wasn’t quite sure what to make of that.
“Tonight I’ll be making dinner. Your job is to prepare the vegetables, clean up after me, and…” he pushed down the part that wanted to cringe at the next command. Robots needed clear instruction. “…compliment my cooking. Understand?”
Shen Jiu humphed, crossing his arms and legs. “We’ll see about that.”
…maybe Luo Binghe still went a bit too far with the “contrarian” part.
***
The first dinner was…alright. Shen Jiu dutifully washed the vegetables and cleaned up the kitchen, but he refused to try the food, even though his body was perfectly capable of atomizing the components without any harm to his internal machinery, Shen Jiu insisted that he had no need to eat, and so he wouldn’t, adding, “Besides, you’re an engineer, what makes you think you have talent for an art, like cooking?”
And…alright so he didn’t really share his cooking so he had no one to vouch for him…but his mom liked his cooking! But…well…she was his mom…but Shen Qi liked his—well, Shen Qi never criticized him about anything…
Unable to come up with a retort, he spent the rest of the meal in silence while Shen Jiu got to cleaning the rest of the house.
Well, at least this wasn’t as frustrating as Shen Qi’s eternal placid smile?
***
In other aspects as well, Shen Jiu was a mix of better and worse. Shen Jiu took more initiative than Shen Qi, organizing Luo Binghe’s office and ordering groceries for him, both of which saved him time and turned out to be done according to his preferences. He was also, predictably, much more critical than Shen Qi, refusing to eat his food and to indulge his requests to cuddle. Indeed, something that had become routine with Shen Qi—sitting down in the spacious living room on the leather couch and asking Shen Qi to come hold him for a while—had suddenly become something shameful.
The first and only time Luo Binghe sat down said, “Come hold me for a bit,” Shen Jiu had rounded on him, eyes narrowed, and asked in a scathing voice,
“And why should I do that? I’m your housekeeper, not your mom. If you need affection that badly, get a girlfriend! Stupid boy.”
With that, Shen Jiu turned heel and went to clean out the garage.
Luo Binghe was left sitting frozen on the couch, uncertain of what to think and what to feel. A part of him wanted to feel scandalized. He made Shen Jiu, how dare he insult him like that? But another part of him felt Shen Jiu was right.
Not only was he right, but if Shen Jiu used harsh words against him, Luo Binghe had literally no one to blame but himself.
Shen Jiu was following his programming, and Luo Binghe was, in the end, a miserable fucking loser who was so afraid of being vulnerable he’d rather spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars building a robot to point that out for him than do any amount of opening up.
He gripped the armrest with a shaking hand, bit his lip, and forced himself not to cry.
This was a stupid thing to get upset about, really.
***
Since then, he tried to get himself together a bit more. He tried spending more time at work socializing, talking to people from other departments. Not because he was dreading coming home to find his own creation staring coldly at him, ready to deliver painfully accurate judgement upon his life and personality, not at all. He just…thought it might do him some good to meet new people, is all.
Even if the smiles he gave them and the looks they gave him were so painfully hollow it made him feel like someone was slowly carving out his lungs with a melon baller. Even if his colleagues made one too many jokes about how much the boss likes him and how impossible it would be for Luo Binghe to make some kind of mistake that got him fired so someone else could get some credit.
Even without all that, he quickly found he’d backed himself into a corner. Whenever someone even vaguely alluded to visiting his home anxiety crashed into his chest like a wrecking ball. While Shen Jiu could easily pass a Turing test, he still couldn’t risk even the slimmest chance of someone finding out he’d built his own android. If someone launched an investigation and he accidentally invited over some uncover journalist there’s no way he’d be able to hide all the evidence completely. His job, his career, his whole life would be over. And worst yet, they’d be sure to take away Shen Jiu. He couldn’t have that. Nothing was allowed to touch his prized creations.
So he settled back into maintaining a comfortable distance from everyone and everything, returning every day at a reasonable hour to the android that haunted his every thought.
At first, Shen Jiu would make an effort to greet him when he got home, but he gradually stopped and Luo Binghe often had only the distant sounds of movement to answer him when stepped through the doorway to say “I’m home.”
One day, however, Luo Binghe was invited to an after-work party, celebrating the retirement of one of their senior engineers. More work on his own plate. But for the evening, he took the excuse to, for the first time in a long while, get blindingly drunk. It felt good to just let go and forget everything for a while, all his worries, all his self-hatred, it all grew distant and fuzzy, drowned in the cheap liquor that burned its way down his throat. It also gave him an excuse to leave early, before someone asked the right question and he ended up saying or doing something just a bit too suspicious. He took a taxi back to his home, got out at the gate, stumbled up the driveway and through the front door, where Shen Jiu was waiting for him.
He leaned on the doorframe, feeling warm, dizzy, and vaguely sick to his stomach. He looked up at Shen Jiu and, though barely able to keep him in focus, saw he looked upset. That was funny to him, for some reason. Why would Shen Jiu be upset that Luo Binghe came home late when he was never there to welcome him back?
“‘M hom,” he slurred, staggering slightly to stay on his feet.
“I can see that,” Shen Jiu’s tone was clipped. He strode forward and shut the door behind Luo Binghe with a sharp tug, irritation rolling off him in waves. “Why were you there?”
In lieu of answering, Luo Binghe wrapped his arms around Shen Jiu’s waist and buried his face in his neck. He was cooler than the average human, but still warm, as most high-energy electronics were. He didn’t have the organic scent of a living thing, just cool silicone and…jasmine? Did Luo Binghe have jasmine incense? Maybe he was just imagining it. Maybe he was also imagining the way Shen Jiu locked up under his touch. He was probably just struggling to process the extra sensory information, it wouldn’t be true nervousness like in a real person, but he could pretend. He could indulge in the fantasy that his favorite creation actually felt.
“What are you doing?” Shen Jiu hissed, trying to push him off.
Luo Binghe just held him tighter, nuzzling against his shoulder. “There were sho many people there, Jiu’er,” he mumbled, “I didn’t like it…I hate them. They’re mean.”
Shen Jiu froze again. “You have high blood alcohol content right now,” he said mechanically, “lay down on your side and drink something rich in electrolytes.”
Luo Binghe hummed. “Can you get me shome shoup?”
Shen Jiu nodded, leading him into the living room before he made to step away toward the kitchen. Luo Binghe reluctantly let him go and he quickly disappeared past the door. Luo Binghe sighed and leaned over the back of the couch, staring blankly at the leather upholstery. He didn’t really like leather. He bought it because the sales lady said she liked his hair. He hasn’t cut it since. He hasn’t seen her since. He’s stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.
He wanted to be back in his room. In his own bed. He eyed the stairs, an elegant curve on both sides of the living room, framing the fireplace. It wasn’t that far. He could make it. So long as he made it up the stairs, his glorious, soft, comfortably confined bed would be waiting.
He walked over to the stairs and was annoyed by how difficult it was to keep to a straight line. He couldn’t even walk right. Stupid stupid stupid.
He gripped the bannister and started hauling himself up. He wanted to be in bed. He wanted to be home. That thought drove him even when it became increasingly obvious that his legs felt like jelly and his stomach was ready to flip.
He fought down the nausea and ignored the cold sweat and took the stairs one step at a time. He wanted to be in bed. He wanted to be home.
He was so focused on his task that he didn’t hear the surprised, somehow scandalized gasp of “What are you doing?” He didn’t hear the android scrambling to catch up with him, scolding, “You idiot, you’re not supposed to—” All he felt was a tug on his shirt, then his foot slipped, his body went weightless, his head hit the floor, and it all went black.
———
Shen Jiu was an android, one designed to take care of one person: Luo Binghe. If possible, he wanted to lodge a complaint with whoever designed his thought routine to be split into three separate systems, but that person was Luo Binghe so that wasn’t going to happen. Still, it was maddening, being tasked with exactly one job, having ONE purpose in life, and having a secondary reasoning check determine that, actually, “caring for Luo Binghe” meant “insulting him and never doing anything he actually asks for.”
He asks you to try his cooking? Nope! He wants to sit and enjoy the fireplace with you for a bit? No can do! You have to turn him down in the most scathing way possible and then go do something else, because apparently that’s what the personality parameters say.
And once you’ve taken one action, the rest have to agree with that! You can’t take actions that would conflict with actions taken in previous scenarios! Ridiculous! So now you can NEVER try his cooking for any reason ever and you can NEVER sit on the couch if he’s home at all!! Shen! Jiu! Just! Wants! To! Sit! And! Relax! Just for a bit! Is that too much! But nooooo the logic check says he would “logically” always be looking for more work to do. Yeah right. Even androids need spa days, ok! Well, at least he managed to get some nice bath paraphernalia by exploiting the fact he was allowed to order groceries. He had grime buildup, just like anything else, and if he wanted self-maintence to include taking a nice long bath with jasmine soaps that was his prerogative!
And how did this “logic system” work anyways? How was criticizing Luo Binghe for literally everything “logically” consistent with caring for him? Just look at him! He looked like a kicked puppy every time Shen Jiu said something mean! He really wanted to just rush over there and wrap him up in a blanket every time he looked even a little bit disappointed, and yet this logic system could go so far as to kick him while he’s down! Inhumane! Broken! Return to sender!
Shen Jiu could hardly bear to face him, knowing that the personality check and the logic system would take his every input and output something opposite and needlessly cruel. Luckily, it seemed alright with avoiding Luo Binghe has much as he could, so he could at least spare him from constant judgement.
Still, it hurt to see him slowly withdraw more and more, to lower his head every time Shen Jiu spoke, to take every scathing word as gospel.
Meanwhile he wanted to scream. He wanted to take Luo Binghe by the shoulders and tell him that he was perfect and beautiful and could do no wrong. He had already run a database of celebrities through his systems and he could pull up a list of ways Luo Binghe was better than every one of them. Based on his appearance in comparison to modern and projected beauty standards, his personality, his adaptability, his intelligence, his technical skills, and his contributions to global technological advancement, it was an objectively reasonable conclusion to say that Luo Binghe was the main character of the world and should get everything he ever wanted. The fact that he needed to speak cruelly to this person made him feel sick.
Privately, he dubbed the personality routine “Shen Jiu,” and came up with a different name for this separate, deeper, more immediate cognitive layer, “Shen Yuan,” the wall that would encircle and protect Luo Binghe given half a chance.
He was vaguely aware that there was something remarkable about coming up with a name for his secondary self, but surely it was nothing as impressive as what Luo Binghe could do. After all, Luo Binghe built him, so anything impressive about him was automatically something that was impressive about Luo Binghe. Because Luo Binghe was perfect.
Still, he worried. He worried that his perfect Luo Binghe was having a hard time out there. He came home exhausted after work almost every day, hardly even speaking to Shen Jiu anymore. While he was grateful that the silence meant he didn’t need to speak harshly so often, he worried for what this meant overall. Humans needed a certain amount of positive social interaction to remain healthy, and if Shen Jiu couldn’t provide it, and he wasn’t getting it from work, then wouldn’t his health begin to deteriorate? Hey, Logic System, Shen Jiu, wasn’t this reason enough to cut it out with the needless cruelty? Becoming listless and withdrawn is a depression symptom! We need to do something! Hey! Are you listening!
Unable to conquer his own programming, Shen Yuan could only watch as Luo Binghe slowly grew pale and thin, looking as if he might get swallowed up by the shadows at any moment.
Then, one day, Luo Binghe didn’t come home.
There was a roughly one-hour window that Luo Binghe arrived home within, and by the time three hours had passed Shen Yuan’s logic system finally perked up and allowed him to act as if something was wrong.
He combed the house, looking for evidence that he’d missed Luo Binghe’s arrival or maybe a note explaining where he’d gone that night. He went through his database of possible after-work activities but none of them seemed to fit. He remotely accessed Luo Binghe’s work email (something Luo Binghe never taught him how to do) and found the invitation to celebrate a colleague’s retirement.
He let out a proverbial breath. Ok, he was probably there. He went through a few back doors and routed himself into the restaurant’s security cameras to confirm. Yes, he was there, but why? Luo Binghe wasn’t getting the positive social stimulation he needed from work, he already knew that, so why was spending even more time with them? …Were they…was anything better than spending time with “Shen Jiu?”
The thought made him feel a little…dull. His circuits buzzed as he ran the data through, but for a long moment, he couldn’t come up with any conclusions. What should he do about that? The equations stretched on and on without giving up any answers. It’s not like he could ask Luo Binghe to turn “Shen Jiu” off. He couldn’t even do as he asked half the time, forget asking for anything himself.
Through the security camera, he saw Luo Binghe drinking much faster than advised for a man of his BMI and for once both Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu agreed this behavior was bad for his health. He made his way to the front of the house, put his hand on the doorknob, and froze.
NOT ALLOWED
This android cannot go outside. Hard block. Action not permitted. Some fundamental rule, far deeper than whatever Shen Jiu and the logic system dictated, made certain actions illegal. Turns out this was one of them. Unable to do much else, he backed away from the door and waited. He waited for Luo Binghe to come home.
***
Finally, sometime around midnight, Luo Binghe stumbled through the doorway. His posture was atrocious, his skin was flushed, his pupils dilated, his breath had unhealthy amounts of aerosolized alcohol in it.
“‘M hom,” he slurred.
Predictably, Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu disagreed on how to react. While Shen Yuan wanted to immediately bundle him up, put him to bed, and get him some water and broth, Shen Jiu merely said, “I can see that,” and slammed the door shut behind him. They were both in agreement in asking, “Why where you there?” but where again in disagreement when Luo Binghe responded by wrapping his arms around his waist.
Shen Jiu wanted to push him away and scold him for neglecting his health in the most condescending way possible, Shen Yuan wanted to gently guide him to the couch and coo at him for a bit about how he should take better care of himself. The logic system compromised by hissing, “What are you doing?”
Luo Binghe again didn’t properly respond, he just nuzzled closer and muttered, “There were sho many people there, Jiu’er. I didn’t like it…I hate them. They’re mean.”
He felt all his circuitry freeze up.
Shen Yuan had come up with one response: hug him and tell him “it’s alright.”
Shen Jiu had come up with one response: push him away and say “of course they are, it was stupid of you to go.”
Trying to reconcile the emotional component into something that would be both beneficial and consistent with previous actions was taxing his systems. He could feel his internal temperature rise and the data was getting garbled in places. In an act of automatic self-preservation, he temporarily shelved emotion for pure logic. He needed to treat Luo Binghe’s alcohol intoxication.
“You have high blood alcohol content right now,” he said mechanically, “lay down on your side and drink something rich in electrolytes.”
Luo Binghe hummed, mindlessly kneading Shen Jiu’s waist like a kitten. “Can you get me shome shoup?”
A reasonable request, perfectly in line with caretaking. It would be executed ASAP. He moved backward, through the living room and toward the kitchen, perfectly prepared to make some soup with Luo Binghe still stuck to him. About halfway through the living room, Luo Binghe detached himself and leaned over the couch while Shen Jiu went to make a light chicken-base broth.
As his systems cooled down he could feel the emotive routines booting back up, and Shen Yuan didn’t know if that was a good thing. He liked being able to feel, sure, but he didn’t like Shen Jiu being able to hurt Luo Binghe. Either way, what was important right now was the task delegated to him directly, so he warmed up the broth with single-minded focus.
When he walked out of the kitchen carrying the steaming bowl however, he saw Luo Binghe struggling to climb the stairs. That sent a jolt through his systems as all his information told him Luo Binghe should not be attempting any kind of strenuous activity right now, much less something that could easily lead to injury. As uncoordinated as he was in the moment, Luo Binghe had made it halfway up the stairs, and that only made danger flash even stronger in his senses.
He set the bowl down and cried, “What are you doing?” But that was the only thing Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu were in agreement on.
As he rushed up the stairs and reached out for him Shen Jiu said, “You idiot, you’re not supposed to—” and in that moment Shen Yuan wanted to support his back, Shen Jiu wanted to grab his arm, and the conciliatory action the logic system spat out was…
…grabbing onto his back.
Luo Binghe slipped.
He fell backward.
His body caught Shen Jiu’s arm and dragged him along as he fell.
Shen Jiu heard the sickening thud as Luo Binghe’s head met the wooden stairs. He felt his systems freeze.
NOT ALLOWED
This android was not allowed to take any action that would cause direct harm to Luo Binghe.
But…it already happened.
It already happened so what was he supposed to—
His senses faded for an instant. He heard what should have been a concerning crack and electric buzz as his own body tumbled head over heels, but in the end, he hit the ground floor fist, and Luo Binghe landed on top on him somewhat, and he was glad. Shen Yuan was cushioned by high-quality impact-reisitant silicone, so he was at least a bit softer than the hardwood floors.
The crackling that was happening in the back of his head was inconsequential compared to the potential damage to a human skull. He could still connect to the internet, which meant he could call for emergency services to make sure Luo Binghe didn’t sustain any lasting damage. He used a simulation of Luo Binghe’s voice to make the call and provide the address before faking a dead faint.
Ah, but he couldn’t be here when the ambulance arrived. It was against the law to create or own an android with a cognitive functioning value of over 12.5 AAU. He didn’t know how to fake an AAU number so he would have to hide. His neuromuscular signals were being a bit spotty—not everything he sent out got received on the other end, and it seemed like the receivers were picking on some random interference—but it was good enough for him to gently maneuver himself out from under Luo Binghe, taking care to not move his neck in case he had a fracture or other delicate injury.
Before he could stand to leave, Luo Binghe groggily opened his eyes by a fraction of an inch. Shen Yuan froze, focusing on every minute detail of his face as he tried and failed to focus on Shen Yuan’s form hovering over him.
“Binghe?” Shen Yuan asked, not really noticing as the words started to pour out from him, “Are you alright? Are you okay? Does it hurt? Can I make it better?”
Luo Binghe groaned wordlessly, closing his eyes again, but his fingers caught against the hem of Shen Yuan’s pants, twitching as they tried to grab hold.
“It’s ok,” Shen Yuan said, entwining their fingers, “I’m here. It’s okay. I’ll be here for as long as I can.”
Shen Yuan tracked the ambulance’s progress through the emergency service scanners, and when it was within just a few minutes, he finally parted from Luo Binghe’s side, walking to the pantry and down the stairs under the trapdoor to the hidden workshop with only a few involuntary twitches here and there. He could easily access the closed home circuit and open the door, making sure to lock it securely behind him. He would keep Luo Binghe’s secret safe, here, in the dark of the basement.
***
When Luo Binghe woke, his head was pounding and his brain felt foggy. It was too bright, too cold, and everything hurt. Someone leaned over him and tried to say something, but everything was too blurry and too echoey to make anything out. He was tired. He wanted to go home. He closed his eyes again. Someone held his hand. It was so soft and warm he wanted to cry. He wanted to hold this person’s hand forever.
***
When he woke for a second time, it was to fluorescent lights and sterile walls. An elderly doctor came in and told him he’d had too much to drink one night and suffered a fall at home. He said that Luo Binghe got lucky, that it was all too easy for little accidents like that to cause serious and permanent harm.
Well, Luo Binghe did seem rather prone to the luck that kept him living, whether he wanted to or not.
In a similar vein, no one mentioned the android at home, so he must have sent it away and called for an ambulance himself before he passed out. Or maybe it just scoffed with disgust at his inebriated form, crumpled on the floor, and took enough pity to call the ambulance for him before going back to its oh-so-important chores. Figures that his own creation wouldn’t even stay by his side when he was injured.
Truth be told, Luo Binghe wasn’t really looking forward to going back home. He wasn’t looking forward to Shen Jiu’s judging stare, to having to explain himself. But he also couldn’t stand spending one more second than he needed to in a hospital, with co-workers who would occasionally drop by to save face or try to ingratiate themselves. It dredged up too many memories of his past, of his mother, of the same sort of empty kindness that he’d rather keep far away from himself.
And so he found himself standing in front of his home, three weeks mandatory sick leave weighing on his mind, dreading to open the door.
This is stupid, he thought to himself. You made the damn thing. What are you, scared of it? No, you’re not, because that would be stupid.
He went back and forth with himself for a while, took a few deep, even breaths, and opened the door.
The entryway was empty. “I’m home,” he called flatly, not anticipating a response.
Faintly, he heard the sounds of scrambling from upstairs, then footsteps thudding on the stairwell, and finally, a pale, wide-eyed face rounded the corner and chirped, “Welcome back!” with poorly-disguised enthusiasm.
Luo Binghe stared at him blankly and blinked slowly. Was…this…Shen Jiu? But his clothes were wrinkled, his apron slipping off his shoulder, his hair was a mess, tied up in a simple yet somehow still off-center ponytail. And not only that, his voice…
“Do you need anything? Do you want a snack? You’re pretty. That coconut puff Jennifer from accounting gave you was made using expired egg whites, youuuu—zzt shouldn’t eat it. Was the rest of your day alright? Zzt—I love you. Zzt—I got a new book. Are you okay? You’re having a delayed reaction time.”
He was talking non-stop, his head twitching every now and again, voice periodically cutting out into static. He must have tried to catch Luo Binghe as he fell or something because he seems to be experiencing some errors. Yes, errors. The only reason anyone would ever say all of…that to him would be if it was a mistake. Especially with the way those wild confessions were mixed in with the mundane comments like they weren’t even something remarkable.
“Have you, um, run your self-diagnostics?”
“Yes they came back with a few faulty neuromuscular transmitters, corrupted personality check, and corrupted logic system. Good riddance, those things weren’t doing you any good. They were so mean to you.”
Holy shit?? The robot had opinions about parts of itself??? “And your, ah, base reasoning systems?”
“All intact. Raw data processing, conclusion-building, memory storage, memory processing, and program execution are all functional. So I can be nice to you now and that’s really good because you’re perfect and I love you and you deserve to have all of the nice things you could possibly want.”
Luo Binghe felt like he was going to faint. After a few long moments of feeling like his chest was being crushed by an elephant full of weird, unknown emotions that made his hands shake and his insides twist in a weird way, he squeezed out “Why?”
Shen Jiu frowned like he was disappointed in Luo Binghe for asking a question with such an obvious answer. “Because you’re Luo Binghe! You’re intelligent and hard-working and kind but you can also stand up for yourself and you stabbed the person who tried to frame your parents and that’s very admirable and awe-inspiring and you’re still so polite to other people and grateful for your successes including when AI International employed you despite your juvenile assault charge even though you don’t like working there you’re so polite but I think it’d be alright to be angry at them a bit I’m angry at them for being mean to you and at Jennifer for making passes at you despite criticizing you behind your back just because you’re pretty and you are very beautiful and handsome but some people are so rude about it you have so much more going for you like when you personally worked on and completed the 12.0 generation lab assistant with only one aide who only worked on Tuesdays that was very impressive you’re very impressive and smart and strong and lovely.”
There was…a lot to unpack there. But first,
“How…do you know all that? Wait, back up, how did you know Jennifer gave me a coconut puff?”
“I used my wifi connection to access the hospital’s servers and routed myself into the security cameras throughout the building.”
Luo Binghe vaguely felt like the room was spinning. “You have a wifi connection?”
“The GSX-036 processor is by default wifi-enabled.”
Luo Binghe let out a long breath. And here he thought he’d been able to train the AI with just the stuff stored on the home system. Har har. Of course he hadn’t thought to check for wifi-compatibility. Of course this android had managed to somehow wildly outstrip every expectation Luo Binghe had for his intelligence. Could he even measure…whatever was going on here in AAUs anymore?
Shen Jiu cocked his head. “Are you alright? You have insufficient blood going to the face. Do you need to lay down?”
“I just…need to sit somewhere for a bit.”
Shen Jiu approached him easily, guiding him by the arm to the leather couch, which Luo Binghe, for once, eagerly sunk into. He leaned his head back closed his eyes, feeling the familiar throbbing of an oncoming headache. In the meantime, Shen Jiu continued to talk.
“Your hand is really big and warm, wow. I’m so glad you came home early. It’s lonely here all by myself. I like you. You’re so nice. Here, sit down. Do you need anything? Do you want water? I want to be everything for you.”
“That’s…” Luo Binghe dragged a hand across his face and sighed. “…some water and headache medicine…please.”
“Okay, of course, anything for Binghe.”
Once he went into the kitchen and Luo Binghe was relatively alone, he groaned into his palm. How did this happen? Why did knocking out the personality modifiers and the logic board give him…this?! Someone so…so earnest and warm and…and full of love? He didn’t want to say “love” so easily, he was still an android, after all, but…if this was the rawest expression of the data and the conclusions “Shen Jiu” drew from that data, and “love” was the word “Shen Jiu” chose, then…shouldn’t Luo Binghe respect that? This version of Shen Jiu was, in a sense, his own person, unbound by the parameters Luo Binghe had set.
That should have been a scary thought, it meant he had on his hands an android who wouldn’t necessarily listen to his commands, but he couldn’t quite muster up the expected apprehension. Instead, it felt exhilarating. He couldn’t quite help but smile. This was an android, accidentally trained on the world wide web, freed from his regulatory logic, still deciding that he wanted to be with Luo Binghe.
Not only that, he freely decided that Luo Binghe was the best person in the world and he loved him. He couldn’t bring himself to understand that, but there was something deep in his core, something possessive, something almost primal that reared it head with a strength that knocked the wind out of him and told him to appreciate it, to latch onto and never let go of the strange little man who walked out of his basement.
By the time Shen Jiu returned from the kitchen, the little beast he never let out around anyone else, the one he’d always kept chained away somewhere even he couldn’t find it, was happily curled around his heart, wagging its tail at the sight of Shen Jiu studiously trying to keep the twitching from spilling the glass of water. He would have to fix that for him—no, no, Shen Jiu was his own person now, he would have to ask if he wanted it fixed later. And he couldn’t keep calling him “9,” he needed a proper name. If he wanted it.
“So,” Luo Binghe asked as the android handed over the water and small, red and blue pill, “what should I call you?”
“Shen Yuan,” he answered instantly.
Luo Binghe raised an eyebrow. “Shen Yuan?”
Shen Yuan nodded. “That’s what I call myself.”
He made a second name for himself? Incredible…
Luo Binghe felt a smile spill across his face, far broader and more genuine than anything he could remember in recent years.
“Yuan’er,” he said with as much sincerity as he possibly could, “You’re amazing.”