Written for the Tumblr challenge: Extreme AU. I'm undecided on whether or not this will be a multi-chapter story but I won't rule out the possibility.

I don't own anything except for the alternate universe and the idea of this particular type of artificial intelligence.


She was here again. The ocean blue walls decorated with seascapes, seahorses, seashells, and everything water related except seamen were supposed to be calming. Obviously people needed to be calm and relaxed if they were being forced to visit Dr. Rachel Cranston's office. Dr. Serenity would have been an appropriate nickname if it weren't total bullshit. It's hard to be peaceful and serene when you're attending a mandatory counseling session. She's had to attend way too many.

Her watch vibrated, alerting her of a new message: "Meeting in one hour, GenMark Biomedical Research. NJ."

"Kensi Blye?" The receptionist, a petite Asian girl with an eyebrow piercing, was always so fucking bubbly when she called patient's names. Must be part of the serenity package. "Dr. Cranston will see you now."

Kensi stood from the overstuffed couch in the waiting room and nodded a thank you to the receptionist before walking into Dr. Cranston's office and plopping down on yet another overstuffed couch. Blue. Shocking.

The doctor smiled warmly and removed her glasses, moving to a wooden chair closer to the couch. "How are you doing today, Kensi?"

"I'm fine." It was her go-to response.

"Of course you are." Dr. Cranston returned her rimless glasses to her face and searched the tablet in her hands, flipping through Kensi's file with her middle finger until she got to the most recent entry. "Dominic," she read aloud. "You were partners for a year. I'm sorry for your loss."

The doc was always sorry for every loss, whether they were partners for two years or two weeks. The sad part was that Kensi had been to see her for both. As a special agent for the United States Navy, death was just part of the job. Kensi had heard stories of the way law enforcement used to work. Agents wore suits if they were in a main office or dressed like the public if they were specialists. They didn't draw attention to themselves. The job consisted of criminal investigations, undercover operations, and just keeping the country safe. She thought she would have liked being an agent even more back then.

"Kensi?"

"Yes," she responded, blinking her eyes. "One year. Dom...was a good kid. Too good for this job I think. He had compassion, and a pure heart."

"You don't think you have compassion or a pure heart?"

Kensi shook her head. Maybe at one time she did. "Not anymore."

They all had nicknames for her in the Los Angeles branch of the Naval Criminal Control Service. Bad Luck Blye. Bulletproof Blye. The Widowmaker. Her close friends within the unit would never say such things about her, but nobody else held back. She had the highest turnover rate in partners in the agency. Maybe it was actually her fault. Maybe she deserved their derision.

"Do you want to talk about what happened?"

"Not today." Kensi looked at her watch, amazed by how much time could pass when she got lost in her own thoughts and refused to talk. She couldn't talk about Dom while it was still fresh in her heart. She had a reputation as a cold, uncaring bitch to maintain. "Is this the part where you recommend two weeks of leave from work?"

"It's not a recommendation," Dr. Cranston answered. Her voice was soothing, even when appearing terse. It was a shame Kensi couldn't relax enough to let the woman actually try to help her.

Kensi pushed herself out of the couch that practically swallowed her into its cushions. "Same time next week? I have another appointment today."

"I know," she said, reading from Kensi's file again. "You know where to find me if you want to talk before then."

It was a shallow offer, but Dr. Cranston always ended with that statement. The doctor was impossible to find outside of business hours, as if she disappeared off the face of the planet. Secrecy was a necessity when holding a wealth of knowledge from highly trained operatives, she supposed.

She stepped outside of the old house in the completely unsuspecting neighborhood that housed Dr. Cranston's practice. Secrecy, again. With the amount of visitors in and out, the neighbors probably assumed it was a whorehouse. At least that guaranteed that nobody came knocking on the door unless they were looking for a good time. Sadly, a good time was never had inside that house.

The ocean air was fresh on her face, the one thing that the citizens of Los Angeles couldn't destroy. A thought struck her as she pulled the hood of her jacket over her head and climbed on her motorcycle. Why did Dr. Cranston know about her next appointment when Kensi herself didn't even know what the hell it was about?


She had to practically sign her life away just to get past the security gates at the Malibu Research Park. A retinal and fingerprint scan, NCCS background check authorization, full body search, and a grumpy security guard confiscating her weapon later, Kensi rolled through the gates of the research community. She'd never been here before. Her work kept her in the heart of Los Angeles and at the ports, where criminals gathered in the highest percentages. This place, though...it was nice. All of the buildings were clean, with reflective glass and polished steel covering every visible surface.

Science and research were the cream of the crop in LA. After the United States pulled funding for foreign aid and shut down the borders, all of that money was allocated into resources to make the US a completely self-sufficient entity. Oil, technology, medicine, and agriculture all thrived. Unfortunately, no one else did. Kensi was too young to remember when everything started falling apart, when people started caring for no one but themselves and started fighting the government with the "us or them" mentality. She chose them, mostly because if she was going to be forced to kill somebody she would want it to be justified or sanctioned.

GenMark Biomedical wasn't the biggest of the buildings, but it was by far the prettiest. Greenery and flowers surrounded the perimeter. It has been ages since she'd seen flowers in such abundance. LA was mostly concrete and sand and she didn't realize how much she hated it until that very moment. She parked her bike, strapped her helmet to the handles, and entered her password to lock the wheels before strolling through the unlocked front doors. In her black jeans and hoodie, she stuck out like a sore thumb, but oh well. The inside lobby was just as swanky as the outside, and completely empty.

Kensi checked her watch again, and yes, she was on time. "Hello?" She called out.

The sea of glass parted like the Red Sea and a tall, bald man with a grumpy face and perfectly pressed suit entered the foyer. He didn't look like a scientist, or not what she pictured a scientist would look like anyway. The closer he got, the grumpier he looked. The smile on his face looked so forced that she thought it was causing him physical pain. When he spoke, his gruff voice matched the hard face. "Special Agent Blye?"

"Yes, uh, hi. Hello." Kensi unclenched her first from her hoodie pocket and extended it to shake his hand.

The man glanced at her hand for a moment before clasping it with a firm grip. "Granger. Owen Granger. We've been expecting you. Come with me please." With that he turned and returned to the disappearing door with Kensi following closely on his heels.

"I kind of feel like everybody has been expecting me here today and honestly, I have no idea why," she bristled, keeping pace with Granger as they walked down a dark, curved hallway. "Anytime you want to catch me up would be great."

"You've been volunteered to be part of a trial run by NCCS. Have you ever heard of the Targaryen Project?" Granger asked.

Kensi scrunched her nose. "Sounds fake, but okay. No, I haven't."

"The name came from a fictional family in a series of novels," he explained. "They interbred, marrying brothers and sisters to each other to keep their blood lines pure and strong. The blood of the dragon, they were said to have. They could control fire, ride dragons, and be kings. Targaryens were extremely powerful, but not without their flaws. They were human, after all."

Kensi stopped dead in her tracks to look at a display of flowers on an empty receptionist desk. Orchids. She had always wanted orchids. Granger wasn't one to stop and smell the flowers, so Kensi sniffed them quickly and hurried to catch back up. "Like I said. Sounds fake."

"The idea was to create a human that could do things no one else could do. Resist fire. Fly. Possess an eidetic memory. Be bulletproof."

Bulletproof Blye. "Are you saying I'm a superior human?"

"Don't flatter yourself, Ms. Blye." Granger gave her a bemused look. "You're lucky, not infallible."

"Who are you again?" Kensi was already starting to dislike this guy, and becoming more wary of her position in this building every second. "Why am I here today? And where the hell are all the people that supposedly work here?"

"People here actually work for a living, not sit around like they're part of the decor," he answered sourly. "And I'm currently the COO of this company, recruited years ago from NCIS to assist with this project."

NCIS. Investigative service, back before it was tasked with criminal control. This man was like her maybe, or what she could have been. Granger stopped at a door where he entered a code, scanned his hand, and then used an actual key into the door. "So yeah," Kensi said, staring down yet another hallway as he opened the door. "You skipped a question."

Closing the door behind them, he gave her another painful smile. "You're here to meet your new partner."

"You're joking," she replied dully. The hall they were walking down now had a better view, at least. Walls of glass lined each side and she could see into the rooms. Or more accurately, the laboratories with wall to wall bench tops and machines as big as her apartment. "Is my new partner C3PO? And besides, I'm on mandatory sick leave. Why today?"

"DKS-35, actually."

"You're serious. My new partner is a robot."

"No, Ms. Blye." He shoved his hands in his suit pocket. "Back before the Rebellion even began, a grant proposal was submitted to the Department of Defense. The idea was create an artificial intelligence being that could be used in place of humans. Military, police, firefighters. To create another race, if you will, but one that would be able to withstand more damage than any human ever could."

Kensi shrugged to play it off, but this was really starting to freak her out. "I'm still hearing robot."

Granger rolled his eyes. "You encounter one on a daily basis and have been none the wiser about it. They're not robots. You might even say they're almost human."

Who the hell did she know that could be one of these...things? There was one person who definitely fit the bill. "Hetty?!"

He laughed, and that looked even more unnatural than his smile. "Henrietta Lange may be a little less than human but she is certainly not bulletproof. You're close, though."

"Nell?" No way, no no no way.

"Jones was one of the first Companions released to NCCS, yes."

"What do you mean by-"

"A Companion," he interrupted her. "Is the assignment for these particular AIs. After the borders were closed, it was decided that this experiment would work better if the AIs were a normal part of society, just as you are. They would have a human assignment and live with them, work with them, clean with them, kill with them. They would learn how to be human."

"Almost human," Kensi echoed. This was all a little overwhelming.

Granger nodded. "Nell Jones is Henrietta's Companion. She was created with an inexplicably high level of intelligence, but can still kill you with the snap of her fingers if you threaten her human."

Well that explained a lot. No wonder Nell was nearly perfect. "I don't like the term companion. It implies a certain level of intimacy."

"Tell me. What is more intimate than placing your life in someone else's hands?" Granger stopped at another door, probably leading to another hall, where she would make this endless circle again and again until she starved to death. Luckily, behind door number 108 there was an office space. A few desks with actual people sitting at them lined the wall, with another door at the end with Owen Granger's name off to the side of it.

"So I'm getting another Nell? How does that work, exactly?" Kensi found herself staring at the people in the room, wondering if they were really people or if they were experiments. That was honestly a thought she never imagined would cross her mind. Maybe she was dreaming. "Do they all look the same?"

"There are similarities." Granger looked around the room and that's when she realized that she might actually be looking at Companions. "But no, you will have a male Companion."

"What? No," Kensi balked, shaking her head. "No no no no. I cannot have some strange man, who apparently isn't even actually a real person, living with me. My apartment is smaller than this entire room."

"Paperwork is already signed," Granger said. "Per the request of your Operations Manager."

Goddammit Hetty. "Do robots even sleep? I don't have to plug him in do I?"

Another voice chimed in. "They'll do whatever you want."

Kensi looked around the room to see who had spoken. A mop of blond hair spun around in a desk chair, and the face that belonged to it wore an obnoxious smirk. "It's completely programmable," he continued, standing up from his chair. She had to tilt her head back to look him in the eyes, which was rare for her since she was fairly tall herself.

"Really?" She asked, half sarcastically and half curiously.

"Oh yeah." Blondie crossed his arms over his chest. Granger sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose as he listened. "If you wanted to you could set him up in the living room like a decorative statue. If you clap once he'll do a dance for you, twice you'll get a serenade. Don't clap three times though, during the last test run that prompted an impromptu striptease. But don't worry, there's a power button too, just in case."

Well, obviously she'd offended him. The urge to counter the smartass remarks was strong but she held her tongue. "Look, I'm sorry if I offended your research or whatever it is-"

"Special Agent Kensi Blye," Granger interrupted. Wow, he did that a lot. "Meet DKS-35, your new partner."

She blinked silently. Yes, she was definitely dreaming. Or nightmaring. "I'm sorry, what?"

Granger did the fake smile again. "You'll have two weeks to get acclimated before you return to work. Get to know each other. Learn to trust him. He's already somewhat broken in, so this should be less work than for some others. I'll have my information sent to you, so any questions or problems you have, please get in touch with me."

There were a multitude of problems with this situation, and yet she knew there was nothing she could do about it. If there was one thing she was good at, it was following orders. That's why it was easy to fight for the side she did - not because she thought it was right, but because it was what she was used to. Kensi sighed. "Fine. I'll agree, but under protest."

Her new partner was studying her with his head tilted, so she did the same to him. He was lean but muscular with an interesting face and dark blue eyes. Attractive in a California sort of way. He shouldn't have problems fitting in looks wise, but his mouth might be a different story. Could he even drive? All she had was her bike and he was not going to ride behind her, almost human or not. This was all way too much for her to take in, especially right after losing Dom...

He straightened his gaze and his back. "Granger, we might have a problem."

"And what would that be?" Granger asked.

"Is it really a good idea for this arrangement to start when she's, ah, how do I put this? During her lady phase? I've heard that can be pretty traumatic just on its own."

Kensi's mouth dropped open in shock. She didn't know whether to feel violated or homicidal. How could he possibly know that? "Is he fucking serious?"

"It's fine," Granger reassured.

"This is not fine. I would say this is actually the opposite of fine," Kensi argued. "How could he know something like that? What kind of freak is he?"

"The best they have to offer." Blondie, or DKS-35, or whatever the hell his name was grinned at her. Surely he had a human name, but she was too livid to bother asking what it was.

"Who needs to learn when to shut his damn mouth," Granger growled. "This is why there is always time set aside for an adjustment period, Ms. Blye."

Always? Just how many of these Companions were out there? And why did she have to end up with this one?

She was so screwed.