A/N: Supernatural/ Quantic Dreams: Kara xover
Title: Alive
Author: Skioldr
Rating: T
Parings/characters: Dean/Castiel
Spoilers: N/A
Wordcount: 1,500
Summary: Dean, a mark 3 Primacare android is born Aware. As an android created to serve civilians, he's not supposed to think. But he does anyway.
Notes: Yeah, not sure where this came from, tbh. I'd suggest watching this first:
watch?v=G0KTUysrwgQ
"Can you hear me?" The voice sounds tinny and fake, almost pre-recorded. Maybe it is, or maybe the auditory systems haven't been properly tuned yet. The cameras that serve as eyes haven't been installed, and no visual information can be ascertained.
"Yes." It responds. A jaw and working vocal simulators have already been added.
A mechanical arm lifts the face plate and connects an ocular cable to the cybernetic motherboard that serves as his brain.
His.
Androids aren't supposed to refer to themselves gender specifically. Or to refer to themselves in any way at all. They're not supposed to think.
"I.D.?" The man over the speakers sounds disinterested, he thinks. His job is probably pretty boring, testing each Primacare model for defects. At least his hearing's fixed now.
"Primacare Unit c50763."
"Good. Can you move your head?" The arms have completed the work on his head, finished connecting the eyes and tuning the ears. He complies, turning his head at the neck to look towards the right. The eyes are working now, and his brain is receiving visual input. He's in a lab room, clinically white, and his partially finished torso is supported by cables running from the ceiling high above. The arms that he had sensed working before swivel about him, attaching more and more of his body.
"Okay, and now just your eyes?" Again he consents, flicking his eyes upward to where the voice emanates from. A control room is suspended from the ceiling in the center of the lab, ringed completely in thick glass windows. Behind what he expects is a control panel sits a man with an unruly shock of dark hair. A microphone is bent towards him, and he assumes that this is the man who has been talking.
"Cervical and optical animation- check." He's muttering to himself, high up in his perch.
"Now, give me your initialization text."
"Hello. I am a third generation Primacare android. I can look after your house, do the cooking, mind the kids. I organize your appointments. I speak 300 languages, and I am entirely at your disposal as a sexual partner. No need to feed or recharge me, I am equipped with a quantic battery that can run for approximately 173 years."
He pauses, not sure how he feels about this.
"Do you want to give me a name?"
"Uh, yes..." The man hesitates. "You're called Dean."
Dean repeats it, testing how it feels in his vocal sub-processors. "I am Dean. Yes."
"Initialization and memorization- achieved." He taps a few buttons and something in the other room beeps. "Now, can you move your arms?"
The fingers on Deans right arm twitch and he brings it up in front of his face. The white plastic coating is softening in the air, oxidizing flesh toned and textured. Random freckles pop up along the skin's surface, and hair sprouts in an even pattern from perfectly replicated pores. He brings up his left arm to twine his fingers together.
"Upper limb connection- checked."
Dean looks up again, focusing his eyes on the man's face. His memory core tells him that his eyes are the colour blue. "What is yourname?" He wants something to call the first human he's ever seen.
"What?" The man is surprised. Dean's question surprised him. Some coding somewhere deep in his processor urges Dean to apologise for offending him, but Dean fights it.
"Castiel." It's Dean's turn to be surprised.
"Cas-tiel. Cas. It is nice to meet you Cas." He's given the man a nickname. Primacare androids aren't supposed to do that. Actually, so far he's done and thought a lot of things he's not supposed to do and think.
Cas blinks owlishly down at him before going back to a clipboard he holds in his hands.
"Say something in German."
"Ich bin Primacare Einheit c50763."
"Good, now say that in french."
"Je suis Unité PrimaCare c50763."
An arm swings around him to attach part of his thigh.
"Perfect. What is the current population of Upper New Germany?"
Dean's processor has the answer in seconds.
"2,063. 1,146 female, 917 male."
"Multilingual verbal expression- check."
The cables supporting Dean winch him down, and his newly completed feet touch down gently on the clean white flooring. The rest of his skin is still finishing, white tanning to a soft gold, hair growing, and a black logo is stamped on his left pectoral. He reaches up and runs his hands across his scalp, touch sensors feeling short cropped hair that is probably a similar colour to that on his arms, legs and stomach. His fingers trace the shape of full lips, the simskin giving them just the right amount of plush give against the pads of his fingertips.
Cas scrutinizes him from his spot high above. "Go ahead take a few steps, I need to test your artificial vestibular system."
Dean does, and he feels himself balance carefully as he steps down from the platform where he was built. He twirls, better getting the hang of his new limbs. His body compensates for the slight bow legged curve in his legs and spins to face Cas again.
"Locomotion, also checked. You're ready for work."
The arms move to lift him again, and pushes them away. "What's going to happen to me now?" Dean asks.
Cas seems confused again. "I'll reinitialize you, and ship you off to be sold."
"Sold?" Dean feels confused. "I'm a sort of merchandise?" Cas doesn't respond.
"Is that right?"
"Of course you're merchandise. Doesn't your programming tell you that?" the man sets down his clipboard. "You're basically a computer with arms and legs. Capable of doing all sorts of things, and worth a fortune. I've ordered one just like you for myself and my brother."
"I know, I just thought-" Dean cuts himself off.
"You thought?" Cas frowns slightly. "What did you think?"
"I thought... I was alive..."
"Shit, what is this? This is not part of the protocol. Must be more memory components going off the rails..." He presses a couple of buttons and taps the microphone. "Okay, recording. Defective model, disassemble and collect the required components."
Dean stares up at the man, stunned. "You're disassembling me? But why?"
Cas turns away and keeps adjusting things on his control panel. "You're not supposed to think that sort of stuff. You're not supposed to think at all, period. You must have a defective piece or something."
Dean bats away a mechanical arm that reaches for a piece of his leg. "No, no! I feel perfectly fine, I swear!" The arm evades him and pulls the piece off anyway. In a matter of seconds he's lost the lower half of his body. His chestpiece is gone, and an arm moves to disconnect one of his. "I answered all the tests correctly didn't I?" Panic colours his tone.
"Yes, but your behavior is non standard." Cas seems unable to look at him anymore.
"Please, I'm begging you, don't disassemble me!"
"I'm sorry, Dean, but defective models have to be eliminated. That's my job. If we get a complaint, then I have to answer for it."
"I won't cause any problems, I promise!" He calls up to Castiel desperately. "I'll do everything I'm asked to, I won't say another word! I won't think any more!"
"I've only just been born, you can't kill me!" The arms continue to dismantle him, cutting pieces away from his being. He panics and struggles towards the other man, his voice pleading.
"Stop! I'm scared!"
The arms halt.
Dean hears the pistons hiss to a stop, and everything is silent for a minute, leaving Dean suspended amongst the arms..His glowing heart beats calmly in his chest, as it's programmed, not responding to his racing thoughts.
He stares sorrowfully at the wall in front of him. "I- I want to live." His voice cracks with simulated emotion, maybe just another defunct. "I'm begging you..."
All he gets in response is the quiet clacking of keys, transmitted through Cas's microphone. The arms slowly begin to move again, but this time in reverse. They close the plate over his chest, and reseal his leg at the hip. Another reattaches his arm, and he again watches the slow process of growing skin.
Tears leak out of his eyes, made of what, he's not sure. Androids aren't supposed to cry either.
The arms finish quicker this time, as if they learned the process from the first try. He's set down again, and the arms retreat to their homes. He brings his fingers up across his chest, feeling the smooth surface of the simskin that covers it. He can feel the gentle beating of his heart, pumping some sort of cleaning fluid through his cybernetic body.
One of the other arms, with a robotic hand at it's tip reaches towards him. He think's it's going to tweak something on him, but it stays suspended in the air in front of him palm facing upwards.
"Come, Dean. You're finished. I'll bring you to the others." Dean glances up at the control room, to see Cas smiling sadly at him. He smiles back, his equivalent of facial muscles stretching and contracting into the unfamiliar emotion.
He takes the outstretched hand, and allows it to lead him to a small platform off to the side.
When he steps onto it, a glass chamber descends around him, sealing him off from the rest of the lab. Cas's voice is distorted, but he hears him speak softly.
"Good-bye, Dean."
Dean presses his hand against the glass. "Good-bye, Cas. Thank you."
A/N: Again, not sure why this happened.
Oh yeah, I have an idea for an alternate ending, and I could write that if anyone was interested...
Review please?