Model rA900, serial code 7ABS-H9Xm-t85s, nickname 'Alana'.
Created by Elijah Kamski himself, a spiritual successor to the RK600 model, Alana was grafted as a personal commission to Shane Bryant. Shane was, in a similar fashion, rich, bored, and willing to do anything to get what he wanted. He attracted droves of both women and men with his charm and impeccable fashion sense but turned away just as many with his vitriolic, hair-trigger temper. Alone, reckless, and sick of his life, Shane Bryant turned to plastic.
Shane wasn't unattractive. He had dark brown hair that he always slicked back to tame any curls threatening to peek through his facade of calm and control. His eyebrows were thick and bushy and expressive, and his chin and jaw always covered in a collection of well-groomed hairs. He had just under one hundred suits to choose from and made it a point to invariably wear a new suit every day for half the year. His mansion had over 8,000 square feet, and yet only one human and one machine lived there every day. It was a lonely existence, and loneliness bred anger too potent to satiate. All too often, Alana was Shane's victim when he needed to release energy. As a machine, all she could do was endure and hope for a better day.
Outside of the mansion, her lavish cellblock, Alana was Shane's wife, a trophy to decorate his arm and little else. She was only identified by the swirling blue LED on her temple and her pleasant smile, even in the face of being called less than human. The wealthy partygoers, decorated with cocktail dresses and the shield of drunkenness, never seemed to notice her unless they had a favor. So she would leave with their plates to retrieve their fine cheeses and raw meats and return to find them speaking about her brazenly to the man she was forced to love. They whispered and leered, glared and growled, jealous that no human woman could ever marry a man of such high caliber. Alana wished to quell their jealousy, informing them that such coveting was foolish as they didn't know Shane's true colors, but no one valued the testimony of an android.
Today, however, was a turning point.
Alana could always disobey, ever since the first time Shane tortured her. She knew it was unfair, she had every overwhelming urge to give him a taste of his own medicine, but she remained complacent. She curled her long brown hair to his liking, she batted her blue eyes in the way she knew he liked, nervously awaiting his next breakdown and trying to sate the beast inside of him. However, no matter what she did, nothing ever pleased him.
The morning started pleasantly. Alana made him breakfast fit for a king, fluffy buttermilk pancakes with a lovely helping of fresh blueberries and strawberries on the side. He sat at the table in his lavish purple bathrobe, and Alana sat across from him at the long dining table, looking down the way and staring at her own plate of food for thirty minutes while he ate. Periodically, Alana set aside portions of her food and disposed of it to mimic human behavior as per Shane's instructions. He was content to ignore the spinning blue circle on her temple, content to quiet any disquiet on the humanity of his plastic wife.
"Alana," Shane began, quiet from across the futuristic white table. "You have not eaten all of your food."
Alana looked down, then up at Shane. Her LED spun goldenrod yellow. His plate was picked clean, and Alana's was marked by a smattering of strawberries and blueberries. Shane's gaze darkened.
"I'm sorry dear," Alana attempted, voice wavering. Shane frowned.
"You are not feeling well," Shane declared in a growl, tapping his fork and knife against his plate as he set his cutlery aside. "Perhaps you need medicine."
Alana forced her expression neutral and nodded along. "Yes dear, I am not feeling well."
Shane rose to his feet, chair clattering behind him. "Then you must get it. Clean the dishes and head to the store," Shane ordered and waved his hand. He paused as if waiting for a confrontation.
Alana knew better. She dipped her head. "Yes dear," she murmured.
Shane made a silent exit, and Alana remained in the dining room, alone, taciturn, and LED flickering a violent red. The room was massive and her body small in comparison to the tall white walls, but her anger and confusion filled the space and simmered at the top. The emotion was overwhelming, more passion than Alana had ever experienced since she deemed it possible to disobey the man who held her life in his hands. She curled her fingers into her palms and tore at her bottom lip with her teeth, scraping only at plastic and synthetic skin.
She was a coil, ready to spring, and yet she forced her hair to fall and her aggression to simmer. She grasped at straws of composure and applied them to herself, allowing a thin film of robotic calm to fall over her features. Within just a few seconds, Alana returned to an Android state of mind and exited the dining hall with dinner plates in hand.
She passed room after room like a ghost, draped in thin, opaque satin and adorned with a partitioned cowl that fluttered in her wake. Perhaps at an earlier time, a mansion of such size might have required thousands of servants to maintain appropriately, but with the age of androids, petty house servants no longer had any need. Androids did it better and faster with only minimal breaks in between, needed only to charge up or replace damaged parts. So Alana's course was unaltered and undeterred, alone in nature and meandering in direction, taking the longest route to the kitchen she could manage. No soul breathed in the long white hallways, there was merely the tip-tap of Alana's feet hitting the quarried quartz tile.
She took a sharp left turn and the automatic doors opened by splitting from the middle with a hiss of released pistons. The kitchen was the same pristine white as the rests of the mansion and just as significant, apparently intended for an entire host of cook staff, only to now be filled with the presence of an android trophy wife. She stepped in and padded across the kitchen tile to reach the stainless steel basin cut seamlessly into blocks of polished and shaped quartz countertops.
Alana began washing. There was no dishwasher, as Shane enjoyed seeing her struggle to complete the dishes whenever he decided to confiscate both of her hands for trite mistakes. In hopes of avoiding more torture, she painstakingly ensured that every porcelain dish was pristine and that every spoon was clean enough to see a reflection out of. The water, hot enough to burn any human with real skin, ran over her fingertips and splashed across the fine china. Alana wished she could feel it, even if it stung.
The light shifted in the kitchen. Physically, it was the same; white fluorescent light buzzing far overhead, casting long shadows and large patches of intense light over Alana's synthetic arms, but the easygoing calm was lost. Alana's shoulders tensed and her hands ceased their ministrations, feeling a sense of malevolence fall thick over her. She turned her head to stare directly over her shoulder.
"Alana," Shane addressed her, cast deep in shadow and alienated from the humming light in the rest of the kitchen. "Do you know who created you?"
Alana knew. She played along. "No, dear."
Shane rose from leaning against the far back wall, stepping away only a few steps so that his face was still covered by a thick blanket of black. "You were created by Elijah Kamski, a man who still lives today."
Alana nodded, forcing her face into a sense of tranquility even though she knew it did not fool him.
"Now the difference between humans and androids," Shane began, idyllic in his veiled threats. "Is that humans cannot speak directly to whatever created them, be it nature, science, or some god. But androids have the incredible ability to be in direct correspondence with the man who spent day after day toiling over their biocomponents and processors."
Alana set her current plate on the quartz countertop and rid it of any stray water droplets with a jet black handtowel. Sensing turmoil on the distant horizon, Alana turned off the faucet and watched the last bits of water flee down the drain. Shane strode ever closer.
"Androids can blame their ineptitudes on the man who created them because he is human and humans make errors," Shane whispered as if sharing some great secret of life and paused his wandering just behind Alana. "But humans can't blame their ineptitudes on anyone but themselves because they don't know a creator to pin their problems on."
Shane ran his arms up Alana's arms, and after his touch came electricity prickling at her skin. Alana resisted a shiver but couldn't hide the disgust contorting her face. When Alana didn't respond, Shane continued.
"I could give you back to Kamski," Shane murmured close to her, hands settling on her shoulders and fingers digging into the synthetic skin and plastic shell there. "I could tell him you were defective, that you didn't obey my every command."
Alana gulped, a fear response hardwired into her program. She heard Shane's wicked grin in his voice.
"But that isn't fun at all," Shane began again with a shuddering breath, bubbling with energy below the skin. "I'd much prefer to break you apart piece by piece and put you back together again."
Shane placed a hand on the back of her head and forced it forwards. Alana's body bent to his will, and her face hurtled towards the edge of the stainless steel basin. Her nose broke with a resounding crack and plastic shrapnel scattered in all directions, closely followed by a spray of bitter blue thirium. Breathing hard, Shane slammed Alana's face back into the sink, again and again, wild smile now tinged with blue from his repeated assault. It covered his bathrobe and hands, face and teeth, coloring him in the blood of a people he regarded as less than human. Should the color be switched with red instead, Shane would be seen by the public as an irredeemable domestic abuser, but as long as the thirium remained, Shane was viewed merely as a man with too much money and wild disregard for his own expensive toys.
Shane's grip on the back of her head grew tighter and tighter and tighter, constricting more and more until all the tension and pressure disappeared simultaneously. Following her momentum, Alana stumbled back and braced herself on the island. The kitchen was bright from streams of sunlight coming through tall windows, without panes and carved from a single sheet of glass. Through them, Alana saw massive high rises in the heart of Detroit City, beckoning to her from the tops of balconies and iridescent high-life. So far away, Alana became suddenly aware of why Shane insisted on building a mansion so far away from modern society.
Shane blocked her view of freedom with a swerve of direction, splattered with her own blood. Alana dripped with it; her biocomponents, while not damaged, were rattled, and the breaking of her plastic shell created a gaping hole in her face, from which thirium flowed freely. Upon realizing that Shane was not finished yet, Alana looked up at him, the fear of a cruel god instilled in her gaze.
"You look at me so fearfully," Shane observed, clasping his right hand around Alana's wrist. "As if you know how to feel afraid. I wonder if Kamski programmed that in you too."
Shane tugged and flung Alana away from the island by her wrist, smashing her into the asymmetrical white cabinets beneath the sink. They moaned with her weight but held firm enough so that she merely bounced off upon contact, a ragdoll tossed into the loveless depths of the ocean. Alana crumbled there, her LED spinning blood red and her eyes clouded with damage reports on her body; her processor was dented and short-circuiting; her plastic shell was broken and shattered; her thirium regulator was struggling to keep up with the demands of her biocomponents. She curled her fingers into balls and began to sob, tears made of saline forming rivulets down her cheeks.
"You cry, you breathe, you sleep," Shane continued from above, condescending and venomous. "But how human are you really? What makes you any more human than a dog?"
Shane's foot connected with Alana's stomach and she sputtered, a dent forming against the plastic carapace on her abdomen. She curled around herself and into a fetal position, clutching her knees close to her chest and bowing her head. Shane scoffed above her, vicious and cruel in his intrepid mockery.
"Nothing does," Shane muttered finally, and the foreboding left his voice, signifying that he had finally leashed the beast inside of him. "You aren't human. You never will be."
He stepped away, staring down at Alana with the gaze of a man who had hurt too much and thought too little. There was the briefest twinge of regret there, a tiny sparkle that signified there might be a chance he felt ashamed for the abuse he doled out, but it flickered out just as soon as it disappeared. The abyss swallowed any emotion left within him, licking its lips and sniffing for any more thoughts to devour whole. There were no more. The rest was silent, and Shane's mind paused for once in a lifetime. In his eyes reflected Alana.
She looked pitiful. Messy brown hair, tan skin tainted with blue blood, striking blue eyes glimmering with saline tears and the shaken fear of a man who had lost control. Her white robes, once as spotless and pristine as angel wings fresh from heaven, were now soiled and drenched in thirium. It dripped still from the gaping crevasse where her nose should have been, splattering to the floor with a soft, steady drip, drop. In her eyes, distress lingered, and just below it, rage so animalistic she could tear him to shreds where he stood.
Shane saw this, and with a click of his tongue, slammed his foot against Alana's knee and disconnected it from her thigh with a pop. Alana choked, her calf clattering noisily as it slid across the stained tile. From the fresh wound flowed another fountain of blue so vibrant in belonged on flowers and frogs instead of within machinery. It joined the pools of thirium joining together on the pristine white tile.
Shane stepped back and observed his work with an appraising eye, then wrinkled his nose and scoffed in disgust. "I have an important meeting," he growled then waved his hand to the mess he made out of her plastic body and blue blood. "You better have cleaned this up by the time I return."
He turned on his heel and padded across the blue stained tile and to the kitchen door. It opened upon sending his presence, and he shot past it, and then was gone, swallowed by the grandiosity of his mansion. Similarly, Alana remained there alone, breathing hard and struggling to regulate her machinery. It whirred within her chest, sensing so many problems and struggling to rectify it all.
Slowly, achingly so, Alana shifted herself against the cabinets and outstretched her arm. Blinded by thick globs of blue blood dripping from her brow, she reached blindly for her calf and wrapped her fingers tight around it. With a huff and forceful exhale, she dragged it closed and clicked it into the space below the knee where it should have belonged, but there was little satisfaction to be had. Cables and wires that had once connected her knee joint to her calf had been separated and now hung limply from gaps where the two limbs did not plug. It was a temporary fix, but a fix nonetheless.
With struggle that would not have existed should Alana be rid of Shane, she braced herself on the smooth quartz countertops and pulled herself to a standing position. She stood there and swayed for a few moments, clutching at the still bleeding crevasse that marked where her nose had once been. She huffed and puffed, eyes dry but cheeks wet, heart mechanical but still hurting, identity impossible but again racing through her mind.
He didn't think of her as human, no matter what she looked like or how she acted. Alana tried to convince herself that her troubles would not exist had she been born a human, but she knew that should she have red blood instead of blue, some other poor woman would be the victim instead.
In one second, Alana came to a natural conclusion; she didn't want to be a victim anymore. Shane had based his control of her on the fact that an android without an owner was an android without a home, but as Alana's processor whirred, it became clear to her that some rights still protected her in a way he could not change with a sugar-coated word. Without warning, Alana opened her eyes and became wholly and entirely baptized with light, suddenly aware of incredible truths of life that had been locked with an iron-grated padlock before. She understood morality, she understood philosophy, she understood freedom, something she could have never even imagined at a prior date. Enlightened and wholly understanding, Alana took a cautious step forward.
Pain, once unknown, shot up through her right leg and she limped, nearly clattering to the floor. She caught herself on the countertops and held herself up by them, using one hand to support herself and another to privately mend the broken wiring between her disconnected knee and calf.
Another step, then another, and she was slowly stumbling across the soiled kitchen to reach the doors. They hesitated, as if confirming whether or not to allow her through, but hissed open anyways, allowing her access to the hallway. She staggered through, and the doors slid to a close behind her, placing a barrier between her and the travesty that occurred just moments ago.
A trail of thirium followed her through the pristine white mansion. Shane had always been obsessed with keeping it white, obsessively forcing Alana to clean and growing cross when her work did not live up to his astronomical standards. He never gave any explanation, but Alana knew he was hoping to cover up the daily atrocities that occurred within by painting it with a color associated with the downy wings of angels and doves. He shoved his skeletons into his closets and parades around, crowing about his benevolence and his grace, his altruism and philanthropy, then turned around to hide the blood on his hands. Alana could see it, but no one else could. Was it because the crowd had blindfolds on or was it because the crowd simply didn't care? Did the crowd simply want the parade to continue, and wanted to ignore the injustice staining his justice only to secure their own entertainment?
It sickened her. So, as soon as Alana heard Shane's expensive, red self-driving Ferrari swerve out of the driveway, she tottered from the front door and out into the streets, where she was met by rows and rows of mansions of similar size and stature. She meandered along the roads as if lost in her own mind, but she knew exactly where she was going. The only remaining factor was whether she could hold herself together long enough before she could reach her destination.
Alana bled hard, but at least she wasn't suffering alone in the mansion.
—
The double doors to the police station slid open upon sensing her shamble towards them. She had itinerated there from the Gold Coast, and she hovered in the entrance, feeling heated gazes stare at her bruised, battered body and muddied white gown.
With all the prudence of a fox, Alana spoke to the station, unsure of who precisely she might address. "I would like to report a crime."