Hi! I bring a new series, known as Carrington Industries. It's a Human AU that I'm having a lot of fun dabbling in, though not a lot has been written for it yet. It'll be kind of a post-as-I-write-it deal, so don't expect regular updates. (Sadly.) This first one deals with how everyone meets, and will probably be relatively short-but we'll see.

First Meetings

1. Otto Jinmay

"Just a few more adjustments…" Otto murmurs to the unresponsive android on his table. "And you'll be done."

The android is a round-face cherub of a girl; with soft pink hair pulled into white-tipped pigtails and long eyelashes brushing slightly flushed cheeks. A panel is open on her sternum, and Otto is wrist deep in circuitry, making a few fine-tunings before he could, at long last, awaken the creation he spent the last year on.

He wants to talk to her.

What would she be like? He left so many gaps in her personality programming, hoping to let her grow and develop on her own. He'd had to include a few things, of course—couldn't make her a completely blank slate, after all. But it had been just simple things. The basic rules of kindness, and compassion. A desire for friendship. And curiosity. Those things together would keep her, hopefully, from going rogue—and were good starting points for her to become.

Otto hums to himself.

The android had been built using parts recovered from Carrington Industries scrap heap. (The best find had been an android they'd thrown out. Poor thing had been an experimental prototype they'd made. It hadn't been able to differentiate friend from foe, or so the box it was in had said. Otto had salvaged quite a few parts from that, though he'd left the memory chip alone.) Jinmay, he calls her. A mash-up of Jenny and May, since he couldn't decide between the two.

He makes the final adjustment and carefully seals the panel. He pushes an arm under her shoulders and hefts her up. She's light, for a machine. He opens the panel in her back. He pushes the megawatt battery he'd salvaged from the faulty android into her back, and then flicks the switch. He seals the panel again, and carefully lays her down.

It will take some time for Jinmay's processors to finish booting up—initial start-up is always one of the hardest.

Booting.

Start up program: initialized.

Code rolls across her vision.

Uploading files.

Awareness. Her thoughts begin to come in words, instead of shaped in numbers and symbols. The numbers lurk at the edge of her awareness. She can feel them; making up the innermost parts of her consciousness. Her mind extends beyond its confines. She feels her fingers. Moves them experimentally. Wiggles her toes. Scrunches her nose.

Smells assault her senses. She searches her memory drives, and finds nothing to compare them to. She opens her eyes.

For a moment, all she can see was white. Her optics—her eyes—adjust to the brightness. Things take shape. The light fixture, capped in a circular dome. The square panels of the ceiling. She pushes herself into a sitting position.

"Hello, there."

She looks toward the voice.

A male. How many years has he seen? She has no comparison.

His skin is brown. His hair darker brown, and curled. His eyes are bright, vibrant green. He smiles at her; exposing shiny teeth. "My name is Otto," he says. "And your name is Jinmay."

Jinmay. She twirls the name through her thoughts, and decides she liked it.

"I built you. You're an android. You an' me? We're gonna be friends."

Jinmay—yes, yes, that's a good name—smiles. "I think I'd like that."

That was six years ago.

As Otto had promised, the two had become very good friends. Otto had been fourteen at the time—not part of any registered engineering group. His parents had taken his creation in stride; treating Jinmay just as they would any of Otto's other, human, friends. (Despite his personable attitude, Otto had few that he was close to.) It had been awkward, at first. Jinmay was… well. A robot. In every sense of the word.

But as time passed, she began to learn.

It began with clumsy emulation. Copying Otto's mannerisms, his speech patterns. He exposed her to television. Jinmay consumed all sorts of media. Horror. Comedy. Romance. Action. Adventure. Documentaries. Kids' films. News. Cooking. She watched them all raptly; sitting cross-legged with wide eyes. She developed preferences.

His mother liked plying her with new foods. Jinmay was the only person in the house she could rely on for accurate feedback. Her husband and son just smiled and told her it was good, even if it tasted terribly. Jinmay had no such qualms.

And then Otto began to take her out in public.

That was when everything changed.

Carrington Industries got word that a fifteen-year-old boy had managed to create a walking, talking android. Nothing like the droids they had built; this one had a tried and true personality. Their scientists and engineers went bonkers. They showed up at his home one afternoon with thousands of questions.

And then, they offered him a job.

They didn't ask him to recreate Jinmay. Which was good, because Otto wouldn't have done it. Jinmay was unique; one-of-a-kind.

Otto expected commissions. He got them, on occasion. But mostly? They paid him a stipend, which would contain bonuses when he brought them new inventions to sell. And Otto delivered.

Access to state of the art equipment; great minds; and almost limitless funding…

He flourished. By the age of 20, Otto was one of the richest inhabitants of Shuggazoom City…

Not that you would know that by looking at his apartment.

Jinmay cringes as she gingerly lifts a sock from the floor. "Otto."

"What?" Otto stumbles out of his room; hastily tugging a pair of pants over striped boxers.

"I told you to quit leaving your stinky socks all over the apartment!" she fumes.

"Oh, c'mon, Jin. They're not that bad," Otto says with a winning smile, taking the sock from her and lifting it to his nose. His eyes went cross-eyed. "Eugh. On second thought…"

Jinmay rolls her eyes. "At least you stopped leaving your underwear everywhere." She wrinkles her nose.

Otto laughs sheepishly, tossing the sock in the laundry room. "Heh, yeah..." He walks into the kitchen and grabs a cereal box. "Oh, hey. Somethin' I wanna talk to you about."

"What's up?" Jinmay seats herself on the counter and folds her hands primly in her lap. She watches him pour cereal in a bowl.

"You're familiar with Clayton Carrington, right?"

"Founder of Carrington Industries. One of the brightest and most brilliant men of our age. Had a silent partner no one's been able to uncover the identity of. Disappeared in mysterious circumstances, and was declared legally dead ten years ago—after he had been missing for nearly a year."

Otto sent her a smile, and retrieves the milk. He checks the expiration date, gives the milk an experimental sniff, and starts dumping it into the bowl. Jinmay makes a mental note to go grocery shopping tonight.

"Yep. In his will, though, he left the company to his nephew—Chiro Nieli. Split his fortune in half. Half went to the kid's parents—well, mother—and the other half into a trust that only Chiro can access, and even then, only once he was eighteen. The money in the trust has increments that are paid out. Enough to fund schooling at a very prestigious school."

"What's any of that got to do with anything?" Jinmay asks.

"Right. Well, Chiro's fifteen now, and the heads think it's time to start grooming him to take over the company. But, uh. The kid has pretty much lived in obscurity for most of his life, so he's unfamiliar with all of this. I volunteered to let 'im stay with us—because honestly can you imagine 'im staying with the others?" Otto scoffs. "And, uh, then the others were all like 'that's great, we were hoping you'd volunteer' and… well. See, part of the reason they hired me five years ago was because they had plans for you. Specifically… making you Chiro's super kick-butt bodyguard."

Jinmay raises her eyebrows. "That's why they insisted on all that combat training, and for you not to upgrade my appearance?"

"Yup." Otto popped the 'p'. "I told 'em I'd make sure you were cool with it before I went and did anything hasty. So, whaddya think?"

Jinmay considers. It doesn't take long. "I'm game."

Otto grins. "Thought ya would be. I gotta personal request to make though."

"Shoot."

"Sounds to me like Chiro doesn't have a lotta friends. If I recall, they said that he keeps to himself. Doesn't sound like much of a life to me. I mean, if he's naturally introverted, then whatever." Otto swipes a hand through the air. "But I wanna make sure that he's not completely lonely. So… uh, can ya…?"

Jinmay laughs. "Of course, Otto. You don't even have to ask." She smiles at him. "You an' me… we'll be the best friends he's ever had."

Otto beams.

Find me on Tumblr as ladycravenheart or livvywrites. (Or on my RP blog, arrows-foresight-twinpistols.) This fic has been crossposted to AO3, and has slightly better formatting there for the Uploading part, if you wanna check that out ;)

(Also, I'm not gonna lie, this series was written in part specifically for the bodyguard aspect for Chinmay. /shrug)