My name is Momochi Zabuza, and I can honestly say that I don't like Robots.
In the past, robots were only things of fiction. They were only things we could see in movies and dream about and say, "That could happen one day". Artificial intelligence mankind could command was definitely a farfetched thought, even in the most technological times in the past.
Of coarse, that was the past. From the viewpoint of someone who never even toyed with the thought of owning a robot, I can't give you an in depth history on their creation. To me, it was like they sprung up overnight and slowly began dominating the world market. Soon, everyone had a robot. Schools, large companies, factories- they even began to appear in homes. It became the new thing to have, sort of like how I imagine when cell phones became pocket sized and everyone had to have one.
Their creation was met with protest, is the only thing I honestly remember. Everyone favored the storybook version of how machines would eventually rise up and kill us all more than what the companies who started the trend: Hyuuga enterprises and Uchiha corp. They assured everyone that no such thing could truly happen outside Hollywood film.
To me, the protests seemed to dissipate faster than I would have wanted, and now-a-days, it seems I'm out there alone, the only person on this god forsaken planet who hasn't bought into the new age of artificial intelligence. I honestly never trusted robots, not like they've done anything to lose my trust- besides the total overnight destruction of the number one leading robotics company that even now won't be explained. I just don't like the thought of putting my trust in something that can put the most intelligent of our species to shame. One can only assume they'll soon obtain the knowledge to figure out they could easily wipe all of us out.
So I always felt I was doing the world a favor by keeping one more of them packed away in a factory rather than walking among us. That is, until that snowy day when I broke my one rule.
After having been locked out of my own apartment by my angry roommate, Kuro, who was bent on me actually going to school on a regular basis, I still had no motivation to go to any of my classes. Being thrown out of your home and into the biter cold of winter can do that to a person. So I decided to take the time I had been given that could have been spent in a warm lecture hall walking down the cold streets of the city instead. I had nothing to do at the time, nothing to think about, and nothing to even go and look at. Which is probably why I mindlessly wandered into the worst parts of town, which, ironically enough, is located closest to the Hyuuga robotics factory.
I finally actually became aware of my surroundings when I heard a scream. It wasn't a normal scream, but one that sounded like it was enveloped in static, which is why I had to stop and figure out where it had come from. The screaming ended up leading me a ways away from the main street- where any sane person my age would stay close to like their life depended on it- and down several crowded alleyways, ground choked with garbage and the view of the sky blocked almost completely by criss-crossing wire.
My curiosity was quenched after a final zigzag turn into another dark and crowded alleyway, where I came face to face with what I thought was an older, drunk guy beating on a younger girl. It didn't take long, though, to see she was missing an arm, and that wire was the only thing that spilled out of her exposed insides.
He was beating up a robot. And why did I even care? I shouldn't have, and I honestly did go over my "one less robot in the world" outlook, but instead, I played the selfless hero and charged forward. It honestly could have ended worse, but it seemed someone was looking out for me that day in some twisted way, seeing as the guy was so drunk off his ass I managed to push him out of the way, grab the robot he was assaulting by the shirt and ran off without even worrying about the guy.
Of course, I ran like a pussy when it was all said and done, even after I reached the main road (I'll be the first to admit, I'm much more of a big talker than an actual fighter). And I only stopped after the robot I totally had forgotten I was dragging behind me tripped me and sent me flying onto the icy ground on my ass. I only checked to see if whatever I saved was okay after I finally caught my breath enough to talk and made sure I hadn't sprained anything from eating it onto the ice. Wheezing like an overweight jogger, I looked up from where I was sprawled out to see the robot leaning down, studying me carefully with wide, brown eyes. Robot eyes are pretty creepy when you look at them up close. You can see the machinery working behind the glossy lens and fake iris.
"Whoa!" Was the first word I ever directed at it. In surprise, the robot jumped, standing back up straight and went about futzing around with the stray wires hanging down from it's stump of an arm.
"Are you okay?" I asked, but only got silence in return, along with this odd, nervous side-glance, like it was trying to pretend I wasn't there. It was a stupid thing to ask anyway, robots can be programmed to act human-like but honestly can't feel pain. That and the robot was missing an arm, in any case- human or robot- that would mean you weren't okay.
"Hey." I began again, and waited until the robot actually turned to me. "My friend…she can fix that." I said, pointing to its arm. The robot followed the direction of my point to its' injury, then back to me, like I had asked the most complicated of questions. To the extent of my knowledge, robots were supposed to be pretty intelligent, so why was this one acting like a lost, mentally handicapped child? I tried making the same sentence as simple as I could, making large hand gestures like I was playing charades with it, but I still got the same blank stare as an answer. We both probably looked ridiculous: a spacey and ill-kept robot wearing nothing but an extra large T-shirt with one arm and a guy sitting on his ass speaking like a really loud caveman.
"Oh, common," I finally groaned in defeat, staggering to my feet and grabbing the robot by the one other hand it had left. "I'll just take you there." Despite the fact it looked at me probably with the same amount of fear he did the angry drunk guy back in the alleyway, the robot willingly followed behind, making sure to let go and not bother to help whenever I slipped and fell on ice hidden beneath the snow covered sidewalk.
Eventually we got back to my apartment, where it got to witness me pounding on and yelling through the door at my roommate, Kuro, who's only response was "go to school", not letting me get in a word edgewise about my new, broken robot friend. In the end it wasn't Kuro who let us in at all, but her robot, Mayu.
Mayu is a living example of what happens when you serve two masters (I myself didn't want to be considered such- she gave me the title against my telling her over and over again I didn't want to be) and usually displays some sort of robot anxiety over the fact she can never please both me and Kuro. Besides being a personal housekeeper, Mayu is, in so little words, just Kuro's very expensive guinea pig. She built Mayu herself, mostly from parts she had pilfered from the company that practically owns her soul, Hyuuga enterprises. She was built primarily to help Kuro with computer work, although she'd somehow gotten into her artificial head that she's now our maid.
Kuro, on the other hand is Mayu's opposite. She's sloppy and messy and hardly cares to help out with anything that doesn't pertain to her office space filled to the brim with computers (said office space was supposed to be a living room at one point in time, just to give you a picture on how much room her work takes up). But despite the fact she's not exactly the roommate of the century, she's apparently a genius, which got her one of the head programming spots in her line of work. She's also the only one of us who pays rent, so I can't really ever complain.
"Mayu!" Kuro scolded, standing up from her seat to look over one of her many glowing monitors, "What did I just tell you!?"
"But master Zabuza said he wanted in." Mayu feebly argued back. Any further argument that could have been shared between them was abruptly put to an end as I coaxed the robot I had found inside the house.
"What did you do!" Kuro exclaimed, Mayu mimicking the almost frightened surprise as she took a step backward. I groaned, though I wasn't surprised Kuro's first thought was that I was the one who ripped off the robot's arm.
"I didn't do a thing," I told her, taking the robot by the hand and bringing it over to where Kuro could get a better look at it. "I rescued it from getting destroyed by a drunk in the slums." She looked at me like she didn't believe me at first, but quickly turned her attention to the robot, who was staring in silent admiration of the many computers Kuro had in her possession. "I just figured you could fix it."
"…" Kuro studied the robot carefully, scanning every inch of its body with her eyes. "Interesting, I can't tell what sort of model it is." She said, mostly to herself. "What is your name?" The robot answered her with a stupid tilt of its head, it's mouth open slightly.
"It can't speak." I added.
"Nonsense, even when they suffer the most violent beating, robots still can maintain most of their basic functions, especially speech." She muttered, closely examining the robot, who in tern copied her actions and leaned in to carefully analyze Kuro.
Sighing, Kuro took a step back. "I guess I can look into it later, first let's at least get you a new arm." Without warning she grabbed the robot by the wrist, who, like when I had pulled it to the apartment, took a bit of coaxing before it finally willingly followed behind her.
Kuro's room was just as cluttered with her work as her office space was. Screens of data lined the walls, immersing the entire room in a dim blue glow. She also had a fairly large collection of robot parts, mostly from her early days of creating and programming Mayu.
I stood outside while She did her work, most of the time being pestered by Mayu, who insisted on asking me if I needed anything exactly every five minutes. Mayu is eccentric about doing her job, a little too well, might I add.
"Alright, your robot friend isn't armless anymore." Kuro informed me, stepping out of her room followed closely by the robot, who seemed overjoyed by it's newly placed limb, twisting and moving it about like it were trying to dance. "And I also have a bit of news about it as well." She added, sitting at her office chair and beckoning the robot over. "It's a male model." Before I opened my mouth she knew exactly what I was going to say. "It happens a lot. Most of the time it's a factory error when male models end up looking like women." As if to help prove Kuro's point, the robot grabbed the hem of it's shirt and exposed itself happily to us- or rather himself. Mayu gasped and quickly turned the other way.
"Alright, alright, we get it." Kuro groaned, forcing the robot's shirt back over his lover half. "Now I need to check and see what's wrong with your brain." He didn't seem to comprehend what she meant, so Kuro forced him to sit in her chair and produced a USB cord before he could leap up and run away. Roughly she shoved the device into the robot's ear, who went limp, emitting a low beep as it's eyes became lifeless.
"Alright, now we can figure out everything we need to know." Kuro explained as I walked over to look over her shoulder. Her hurricane-like typing suddenly stopped, though, when she was met with an error message.
"What is that?" I finally asked after we encountered it several times.
"It doesn't make any sense," Kurro sighed, trying again and failing. "Your robot friend doesn't have any memory chip, and it's basic function modules look like they've been cooked in a microwave." My silence was my way of telling her to simplify what she said. "In other words…" She groaned, turning to me. "He shouldn't even be functioning. That and I can't even figure out who his manufacture is. Even if he was an underground model I'd be able to trace it to it's source." Pushing past me she went over to the sleeping robot, pushing back his long black hair to examine the back of his neck. "He doesn't even have a barcode… just that." She pointed to a blue snowflake tattooed to his skin.
"Congratulations, Zabuza, you've found something that's managed to stump me and my computers." She seemed like she was pissed off as she yanked the USB cord from the robot's ear. I guess it was because she couldn't figure something out for once. The robot sprang to life, quickly leaping from his chair and running to cower behind me.
"So… what do you want me to do with it?" I asked, more than happy to just take him back to where I had found him.
"You can start by giving him a bath- he's filthy."
"Wait, what?!"
"You honestly think I want to put something as interesting as him back out on the streets?" Kuro asked me with a smirk. "You managed to find a treasure among the trash and I'm not going to let you just toss it out because you're afraid of robots."
"I'm not afraid of them," I corrected, probably for the millionth time.
"Sure, sure." Kuro chuckled, sitting back down to stare at her screens. "Anyway, we're keeping it here whether you like it or not, so the least you can do is make it look like we didn't fish it out of the garbage."
"Why can't Mayu do it?"
"Mayu…" Kuro looked to Mayu, who was still blushing like mad about having seen the robot's privates. "...Mayu is shy. And I'm busy. Just do it, or I'll throw you out again." Our angry gazes met for a second, and I knew for a fact she wasn't bluffing. She was notorious for being able to lock me out for days if she kept Mayu in check.
"Fine." I grumbled, taking the robot by the hand and yanking him to the bathroom.
"There's a good boy." Kuro giggled as I left, just loud enough so I could hear. "Got him trained real well."
"Honestly." I sighed, rubbing shampoo into the now-naked robot's hair. "You can't even bathe yourself. What sort of robot can't even do anything?" I looked down to watch as he reached out, pressing his fingers against the mirror, most likely fascinated and figured there was another robot in front of him.
"That's just glass, there's nothing there." I told him, as if I expected him to understand. "Just a reflection of a stupid robot." He retracted his hand as I rinsed the lathered shampoo from his hair. From behind the wet, tangled locks of hair hanging in his face, his expression almost seemed disappointed and sad. Ignoring it, I reached over for the conditioner, only to find myself grasping at air.
"Damnit, where did Mayu hide the conditioner?" I asked myself, getting up and looking around, leaving the robot to stare sullenly at his reflection. It didn't take long to find the bottle, but by the time I turned around, the robot had stood up and was facing me.
"Hey, I'm not fini-" I began, only to have the rest of what I had to say smothered by lips. I'd never been kissed by a robot, but it was a creepy thing to experience. His lips felt real, but they were freezing cold, like frozen metal. He pressed his naked body against mine as the kiss deepened. I wanted nothing more than to push him away, but for some odd reason I couldn't bring myself to do it. All I could do was stand there stupidly until he seemed satisfied.
"What the hell!?" I shouted, wiping my lips with the back of my hand. The robot didn't seem to realize I was mad and gave me a kind smile in return. And something else.
"My name is Haku." He spoke. "What would you have me do, master?"