A/N; I promised myself I wasn't working on anything new until I finish Flicker...but then I finally watched Elysium and there are just so many things to be explored here and I couldn't help myself :3 You know how it goes.
This will be significantly shorter than most multichapter fics, and carries on through the events of the movie and beyond. There are no canon characters included (sorry!), so if you're here in hopes of a specific character, I'm sorry to disappoint you. Hopefully it's interesting anyway.
Reviews are love. Enjoy.
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Even as a child, Theresa is hungry.
Not that she ever knows real hunger, not like the millions of children she looks down on every day from her home in their sky. It's knowledge that she craves, her brain demanding more and more of it every day, like her lungs demand oxygen, or her stomach demands food. While the other children can sit still and watch movies, or immerse themselves in game after stupid game, she's always thinking, always moving, investigating this or that, asking endless questions about the way the world works.
Though it's an unusual trait for a child of Elysium, where there is enough to keep someone entertained for several lifetimes, her parents don't have much trouble dealing with it. For the most part, they direct her to the droids for her answers – eventually, they purchase a general purpose droid specifically to follow her around and answer her questions, so that she won't bother them anymore and they can live at least some of their inconsequential lives in peace. In fact, the next time they really take any notice of her is when her father finds out that she named the droid – Chia, from a book it showed her one time.
"You shouldn't do that," he scolds her. "What happens if we give droids individuality?"
"They rewrite their protocol," she murmurs, kicking at the carpet. She doesn't tell him that she thinks it's silly, that old rule. That it's never actually been proven, except in works of fiction. It was just a common paranoia, the idea that AI programmed to learn with her would one day surpass everything it was ever made for and take over the world (a scary concept, true – but something that had yet to happen to any droid she'd heard of).
"Sorry, Pa," she tacks onto the end, and he waves her away. He's got a faceful of frown lines to get rid of before their dinner guests arrive.
The droid keeps its name, though only when they're alone. Theresa's smart enough to watch what she says to it in the company of others, and takes a secret vindictive joy in the fact that it never turns against her.