Title: A.I. Robot.
(A.I as in 'artificial intelligence, and AI as in love)
Pairing: Naru/Sasu
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: "Naruto", yeah I don't own it; not mine. I just borrow Masashi's characters and replace them in naughty positions, and I mean really naughty positions.
Summary: The year is 2259, Kohonagakure Japan. Naruto Uzumaki's life has never had it easy- school, work, friends (or the lack of) are already dragging him down but to fall in love with a robot... fate must hate him.
A/N: Sorry for the wait guys.
Chapter Three: What the Hell are You?
Un-beta'd
It was purely by happenstance when Naruto woke up in the middle of the night and glanced over to where Sasuke was powering up. The robot's eyes were closed but a faint purple light was running over his skin. It was different from the silvery shimmer Naruto had seen before and the Uzumaki was starting to realize that this robot was… fucking creepy.
His vocabulary was stunted but his reflexes were smooth and lightning quick. Then was his athletic ability. The machine could jump three stories in the blink of an eye and run miles like it was a walk in the goddamn park. Sasuke's eyes had been red when he first came to life, then his eyes faded to black, which Naruto had hoped was his 'natural' eye color. And then, goddamnit it, his eyes had gone purple.
What the fuck was happening now?
Too tired to contemplate, Naruto went back to sleep. He needed his rest to deal with Sasuke's crazy in the morning.
Morning came with the increasing beeps of his five-thirty alarm clock going off through the apartment. Sitting up, Naruto turned bleary eyes toward where Sasuke had been powering up and felt alarm race through him when he saw that the spot was empty. His bolted out of his seats and rushed to the bathroom to find it empty.
"What the fuck am I doing lookin' for a robot in a bathroom," Naruto cursed and rushed out to drag on a pair of pants over his boxers. "Unless he grew a fuckin' bladder somewhere during the night."
He grabbed a sweatshirt and left the room, his mood getting fouler with every step. Where was this damn robot? He swore if Sasuke and his goddamn superhuman strength had broken something he couldn't replace, he was going to dismantle the thing himself. Macabre visions of Sasuke's pretty face in the middle of a scrap heap danced before his eyes.
He entered the hallway and just as he was about to rush to the stairs, he backtracked to the balcony and there he nearly had a heart-attack, Sasuke was standing on the railing with his hands stuck in his pockets while the wind buffeted his bangs.
The expression on Sasuke's usually emotionless face was…. haunting. Somehow, his blank face looked lost and tired. If emotionless machines had well, emotions. His eyes fluttered close and then his back curved backwards. With one push, Sasuke back flipped and landed on foot away from Naruto with a gentle touch of his foot.
The landing was surreal, like in slow-motion, and to Naruto's entranced mind, it was elegant. Sasuke's pointed foot was the first to meet the ground and his body followed with his hair fluttering up in the wind…
'…Fuck, he's pretty,'
"What were you doing up there?" Naruto asked.
"Hn," the robot snorted and turned away,
Without thinking, Naruto's are shot out and he grabbed the robot by his arm. In the next microsecond, Naruto yanked his arm away and his back met the farthest wall. His chest was heaving like he had run a five-mile marathon in five second and his hand was clenching at his side.
What the fuck had he just felt?
No, it couldn't be, that was fucking impossible. How was it that he had just felt human skin? Warm, malleable human skin? Reaching out, Naruto's hand met… a cold metal body? What the hell then? Had he just gone crazy for a moment?
He knew he had felt skin. Shaking his head like a dog just splashed with water, he asked. "A while ago, your hand felt... like it was real skin, what the hell had happened?"
Sasuke silently reached forward and closed his left hand around Naruto's then he offered his right arm to him. mystified, Naruto reached out and wrapped his hand around a cold arm and then Sasuke's eyes closed. The same purple light from before ran over his skin and suddenly Sasuke's cold metal skin got warm and soft. Naruto made to yank his hand away but Sasuke's eyes opened and pinned him where he stood with a dark glare.
"Okay, I ain't moving."
The Uzumaki had no idea what was going on until Sasuke released his arm and Naruto dropped his. Sasuke shoved his arm forward and Naruto touched it.
"Christing fuck," Naruto marveled at the soft warm skin he now felt, "what the hell are you?"
Sasuke's hand dropped and Naruto stared, looking intently to see if Sasuke's pale skin shifted to the soft metal sheen. After five minutes-yes, he counted in his head- there was no change. Sasuke had grown skin, like a goddamn human being.
"…You're not like the rest of our normal PCC's, are you."
His question was basically rhetorical as the evidence that Sasuke was different was in plain sight and moreover, Sasuke probably wouldn't answer him.
"No," Sasuke said.
Dark brown eyebrows darted up- did Naruto dare think he had heard…a hint of remorse in that voice? How was that even possible? From what he knew, robots did not have an emotional component. If they did, it would have made the very notion of being a robot- an emotionless but intelligent machine- redundant.
Though Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" had been used for fiction, the rules had been incorporated into the manufacturing of the machine since 2019. They read- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law and lastly, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Had someone gone and made an emotion variant for this robot? Who had done such a thing?
"Anyway," Naruto sighed, "It's Saturday an' I got some errands to run. You are comin' cause I cannot let you be here by yourself, got it?"
Sasuke nodded and with relief, Naruto backtracked to apartment and to take a three-minute shower, get dressed, in a dull orange hoodie and raggedy jeans. He hiked his bike up and gestured for Sasuke to follow him. of course, he expected the robot to just jump off the balcony like last time but this time it didn't. Sasuke followed his down the stairs like a normal person or rather robot.
On the ground he got on his bike but before he pushed off, he said, "I'm going be Chiyo-san's handyman for the day, then I'm going to swing by Teuchi to get my pay.
Sasuke cocked his head the side clearly asking, "What?
Naruto grunted, "She's this sweet old lady the owns and few acres of garden and runs a flower shop, you know, for married couples and all kind of shit. Apparently, people do buy stuff like that."
Hopping on the bike Naruto rode off with Sasuke easily jogging beside him. not needing to be gawked at by the whole town, Naruto took the backroads, down some rugged road tracks until he got to the end of the city and then over a few farmlands.
He'd been riding for over thirty minutes but Sasuke did not look bothered in the slightest. Guess that was what someone got for having an ion-cell battery and an engine instead of blood and lungs. He spotted Chiyo's quaint farmhouse in the distance and sped up. Sasuke, naturally sped up too.
They arrived at the front porch where quaint windchime and a rocking chair were on the front porch. Naruto got off the bike and leaned it on the porch's steps. Looking over his shoulder he envied how Sasuke looked as calm and docile as ever while he had probably sweat enough to lubricated a rusty tractor.
Fucking robot.
Climbing the stairs, Naruto knocked on the wood paneled door and shifted on his feet for a while. He heard soft shuffled under the other side of the door and stepped back. Chiyo's purple-tinted grey head and warm black eyes.
"Naruto-kun," she smiled, "You're right on time."
She then peaked behind him, "And you brought a friend, wonderful."
"Um," Naruto scratched the back of his head, "Sasuke is… a robot, Chiyo-san."
Her almost non-existent eyebrows rose and the she nodded, "Well then, the more the merrier, come in."
"Um, if you don't mind," Naruto said, "can I just begin already, I have a few things to get done today."
"Sure," she replied, "you know where the shed it, and all the tools are there. I need the full gardenias and roses to be cut, five trays each. I'll be out in an hour or so with some lemonade and sandwiches."
"Thank you," Naruto said, aborting his usual 'you don't' need to do that' as he was actually hungry.
Hopping off the steps, Naruto hurried to the back of the house where the shed was and stepped inside. He knew that Sasuke was right behind him and not feeling any shame he stripped down to his boxers. Grabbing the grey overalls, he slipped his legs inside but before dragging up he ran a hand over his stomach where his tribal tattoo rested.
He was about to drag them up when Sasuke materialized out of nowhere and rested his hand on his stomach, Naruto froze. What the fuck was going on here? He stood still as Sasuke rested his flat palm on his washboard abs. the look in his dark eyes was strange, it was like he was being studied. Soon enough, Sasuke he pulled away.
What. The. Fuck. Was. That?
The robot stepped away and went to the corner to look over the tools like nothing had just happened. Grabbing the rest of the coverall he shrugged his arms into the hole and zipped up the front. Grabbing his box of tools and a large flat tray he left the shed and walked to the first plot of land where the gardenias were.
Spotting the fullest flowers, he knelt near the bushed and started working. Snipping the full flowers, he worked methodologically and laid the flowers in the tray delicately. He worked with the sun beating down on the back of his neck, he filled the first tray and went for the second.
As time ticked away, he made five trips with the gardenias and then went for the roses but he did not see Sasuke. Fright cramped his stomach and he rushed out to see, Sasuke in the middle of the rose bushes, snipping away. Three trays were on the ground filled with roses and Sasuke's face was as staid as usual.
His eyes had to be tricking him.
Walking over he spotted Sasuke working away and held in a snort, "If I knew you were ready to be outsourced, I'd have conscripted you hours ago."
Grabbing the last tray, Naruto began working, and soon enough all five trays were filled. He lifted his tray while Sasuke somehow managed to balance all four trays in both hands without the top tray pressing on the bottom. Looking closely, Naruto realized that Sasuke had put tiny pebbles in each corner of the trays to lift them.
"Damn…you are smart," Naruto groused, "And I wish I had thought of that."
With all the flowers cut and on the long metal table in the shed, Naruto was about to tug off his overalls where Chiyo came in with a tray of lemonade and a tray of sandwiches. Her eyebrows danced up, "You're done already?"
"Yeah," Naruto said, "Um, Sasuke helped."
"Well, that's good," she said while handing the tray over, "And your pay is there too."
"Thanks," Naruto said.
Chiyo smiled, "You know when I first saw him, I thought he was your boyfriend. He is pretty handsome isn't he?"
"Yeah," Naruto replied glumly that Sasuke was indeed a robot.
"How are you on that front though," Chiyo asked. "Any new guy or girl in your life?"
"Um, no," Naruto said while red tinged his cheeks. "But thanks for askin'."
"You'll fall in love someday," Chiyo said, "I know that, you're such a good boy, you deserve love."
Naruto smiled fondly at her. Though Japan had progressed in many ways, there were still diehard people who hated him for his sexual preference, but Chiyo, though old, didn't have a judgmental bone in her body. She left and stopping to chomp down on the ham and cheese sandwiches, he ate half if the six, wrapped up the rest and washed it down with the old fashioned lemonade.
He stood up and stretched, "Sasuke, we're done here…thanks for your help."
Pocketing his money, which was about fifteen thousand yen, enough to keep food in his cupboard for a while and be added to the other money he was going to get to pay his rent, he grabbed his bike and hopped on. Another half hour ride to the city, he went to the ramen shop and greeted Ayame.
"Hi Naru- whoa, who's that?"
Naruto rolled his eyes, what was it with females and Sasuke?
"He's my robot, Sasuke," Naruto said, "Where Teuchi?"
"Oh, he's out at the spice farm," Ayame's voice was dejected, "Um, I have your payment."
She handed over an envelope where Naruto know another ten grand rested. With this money and Chiyo's he could rest easy for a while.
"Hi Sasuke!" Ayame said brightly but when she got no answer turned to Naruto and asked, "Um, Naruto, is something wrong with him?"
"Um yeah, I found him in the trash and he can barely talk so I think it a software issue," Naruto replied while pocketing his money.
"I know a guy who can check him out," Ayame said, "His name is Nara Shikamaru, do you know him?"
Naruto's eyebrows skyrocketed, "Um, yeah, once upon a time, we were in grade school before he got bumped to high school and like two weeks later went off to university. I don't know where he is though."
Ayame giggled, "My best friend Temari is his girlfriend, I know where he lives,"
She grabbed a napkin and scribbled an address on it, "Here, try to get to him, alight, I'll even call Temari to tell him to expect you."
"Um, thanks," Naruto said, "Have a good evening, Ayame."
Back on his bike, Naruto looked over the address and noted that it was smack dab in the middle of the city, and in the highest skyrise building in the city. It was a bit daunting but what could he do if he didn't at least try.
Hopping on his bike he rode off to the middle of the city, hating that it was rush hour but though he had the sidewalk to use, the cars hardly gave him any freedom to cross the road. When he did get to the address, he parked his bike at a bike rack and swallowed his fear. Tilting his head back, he couldn't see the top of the skyscraper and yanked his head away from the glaring silver sunlight reflected off the glass.
"Sasuke, come on," Naruto sighed. "Lets get this over with."
Squaring his shoulders, Naruto walked into the lobby of the building. He whistled under his breath as the fancy carpet, gold and chrome molding and the many glass panels that reflected his image back to him. Seeing himself in 360 shards made him wonder if he had walked into a fun house instead of an apartment building.
The receptionist looked up from his work and leveled curious purple eyes at him from under bone white hair, "The service door is at the back."
Naruto bristled, what a pompous fuck. Just because he didn't wear a three-piece monkey suit and didn't flash cash didn't mean he had to be subjected to this type of discrimination. He wanted to spin on his heel and walk out but he had come for a purpose.
"I'm no delivery boy," Naruto said as calmly as possible, "I am here to see Nara Shikamaru."
The man scoffed, "And pigs will fly while the president of Japan become our janitor. You are wasting your time, Nara-san doesn't-"
His phone rang and tersely he picked it up. After a few moments his face went a shade of embarrassed red, "Understood, Nara-san," he hung up and asked, "Are you Uzumaki Naruto?"
"Yes," Naruto said.
"Nara-san, says he will see you now," the man said, "Take the elevator to the 21'st floor. That is his penthouse suite."
Smirking in his victory, Naruto gestured for Sasuke to follow him and they took the elevator up. With his eyes closed and fighting his claustrophobia, Naruto breathed in and out until they got to the 21'st floor and they stepped out. The corridor was short and they came upon door that beeped, a light flashed across his face and back again before a calm but robotic voice said, "Identification confirmed; Uzumaki Naruto, you may enter."
The door then literally dissolved in thin air and Naruto stepped in to face a world of…nothing. Aside from the white and green chrome panels, the room was as empty as outer space.
"Uzumaki Naruto," a lazy drawl broke him out of his shock.
Naruto turned to see the Nara genius, decidedly grown up from the tow-headed boy he had seen in grade school to a lanky thin dude with a spiky ponytail and a chrome earring in his left ear. the one thing that was familiar was the sleepy look on his face.
"Shikamaru," Naruto said while sticking his hand out, "how you've been man? Well, I shouldn't say that cause, damn, your all set, aint'cha?"
"You could say that," Shikamaru said while looking behind him, "Is this the robot you found in the trash?"
"Um, yeah," Naruto replied, "He can't say much, just his name and no and this weird grunt 'hn,'. I think his programming is damaged. I'm majoring in A.I and I could try to test it out but I don't have the hardware that you do."
"Hm," Shikamaru said while circling Sasuke. "I've never seen this model before."
"I know," Naruto replied, "There is no brand mark of insignia on him at all. He has some crazy skills though, Sasuke can jump off a three-story building and run for hours but not get drained."
"You don't say…" Shikamaru said, "I'll try to get to his CPU and see what's happening inside the box. Nanashi and Himoto, come."
Two leggy female robots in what looked like battlesuits came out of other room and to the thin air Shikamaru directed , "Sofa, chair and a monitor."
Out of the paneled walls slots slid up and a black sectional slid out near Naruto just as three chairs emerged from the floor and a monitor descended from the ceiling. Naruto gaped.
"Sasuke is it?" Shikamaru asked over his shoulder.
"Yea," Naruto replied while sitting on the comfiest sofa he had ever sat on. "But I think he only listens to me. Sasuke sit and let Shikamaru examine you."
The pale robot sat and then Shikamaru pulled a device from his pocket and flicked the screen up. the holographic scanner mapped Sasuke and as Shikamaru went around him, the blueprint of Sasuke filled out on the screen.
"Whoa," Naruto marveled, "That's kick-ass."
With his circumference of Sasuke done, Shikamaru dropped the scanner and went to the screen. There he plucked out holographic sections of Sasuke one by one and examined them by spinning them around and flipped them over.
"Hm," Shikamaru said, "seems pretty basic. Naruto, I think you found a homemade robot because the schematics of his makeup are not of any other brand and I know because I have memorized them all. But I think it's safe to do an internal probe. Nanashi and Himoto undo your system plugs and connect ports Delta and Cephalon on Sasuke."
Naruto sat forward as Shikamaru's robots attached their lines to Sasuke and he pasted his eyes on the Sasuke as Shikamaru ordered, "Initiate probe."
And that's when it all went to hell.
Shikamaru's robots started beeping furiously and in no time collapsed with the sparks of blown fuses coming from their heads. Sasuke, however was sitting in his place as stoic as ever.
"Fuck!" Naruto darted up only to see Shikamaru wave him down.
The technocrat went and disconnected Sasuke from his broken and spasming robots and bent to look Sasuke in his eyes. He the stood and crossed over to Naruto who was internally freaking out. How would he pay for Shika's robots? He had just earned some money to tide him over while Shikamaru's robots looked expensive as hell. How was he supposed to pay for that? Did Shika take payments in slivers of his soul?
"Shika, man, I am so fucking sorry-"
"Naruto," Shikamaru stopped his impending rant, "How much do know about androids?"
"They cannot exist," Naruto said routinely, "Aside from prosthetics, we have not made the framework to fully graft robotics into human consciousness, or vice-versa, the machine always tears away at the human or the human always disappears in the machine. It's text book AI, Shika, why are you asking me this?"
"Because, there's a legend-"
"Ugh," Naruto groaned, "Don't give me the legend bullshit, Shika, I don't have the mental space to process all that shit."
Shikamaru's hazel eyes narrowed lethally, "History lesson then since you can't process a goddamn legend. Fifty years ago, a man named Uchiha Madara, the leader of Sharigan Cybernoptics, created a small army of robots that exceeded everything anyone has ever did before. The man was a genius of unmatched intelligence, some even reported him as crazy. It's said that government ordered him to stop or hand over what he had created but Madara declined and moved all his creations to a secret facility. The army raided the base and managed to take a few robots before Madara pushed the self-destruct button on all his robots before taking his own life."
"Yeah, so?" Naruto shrugged, "That's doesn't solve my problem Shika."
"Because I haven't gotten to the point yet," the Nara genius huffed. "It's said that his robots had programming no one could mirror or dissect because he programmed them with a unique codex, one only he wrote and knew. Some even said he found a way to fuse humans and robots into the elusive singularity."
Shikamaru looked around at his hissing and sparking robots and sighed, "Naruto my PCC have the most expensive and elite programing in the world and for them to not crack...er, Sasuke was it...I believe you've found yourself an Uchiha."
Naruto's first reaction was to scoff and call Shikamaru crazy. What were the odds of him finding an elite fucking mythological robot in the trash? Zero. Zip. Bumpkiss. Stingy with the dinero. But then he reflected, Sasuke did do some weird shit. Squinting he went over to motionless robot and sat right before him.
Looking deeply into black eyes he asked, "Are you an Uchiha?"
The robot shook his head.
"Were you trained to kill?"
Another shake.
"Have you killed before?"
One more shake.
Naruto stood and cracked his neck. "You're wrong Shika. Sasuke ain't any of that shit. Thanks for trying though and...er, sorry about you robots."
Shikamaru waved him off, "Eh, what's three hundred million dollars of CPU firmware and week off reprogramming between friends?"
Naruto's blue eyes bugged out of his head, "Th-three hundred mill- MILLION? Fuck Shika, I'm so sorry."
The teens slim shoulder shrugged, "Like I said it's cool...but Naruto..."
"Yeah?"
Cool golden eyes were pinned on Sasuke's black ones, "Bring Sasuke back around sometime. I'd like to run some more tests on him after I put together the coding."
"Sure, no problem."
By the time he left Shikamaru it was dark and the neighborhood he was going into was not one for people to walk into unguarded. He always had a switchblade knife in his pocket was not afraid to use it, especially when three punks started following him and Sasuke from a block ago.
Shit.
With his hands on the bike, he walked faster but heard the punks' footsteps break into a run. He dropped the bike and made to run when Sasuke stopped in the middle of street. Naruto nearly had an aneurysm as he spun around. "What the fuck are you do-"
One of them then grabbed Sasuke from behind and robot still did not move. Naruto was freaking out by then. Had Sasuke's power cell run out or something.
The orange haired guy flicked out his knife, "Give us all you got or your pretty boyfriend here dies."
Naruto wondered if the guy did not feel Sasuke's cold metal skin but didn't have much time to think it over. "Alright, guys, I don't want any trouble. Look, I ain't got much of anything on me."
"You think we're stupid of something?" a blue haired guy with shark modifications on his face snarled. "We know you got paid by the old ramen guy, give it up."
Naruto swore, "I'm telling you, I ain't got nothing."
The third punk, this one with deep red hair grabbed Naruto, "Don't fucking lie to me, I'll slit your goddamn throat in a sec-"
And then it happened.
Sasuke move so fast Naruto wondered if he was dreaming. The robot grabbed the arm of the guy who was holding him and snapped his arm in two like it was a wooden pencil, he ignored the screams, and drop kicked the second one and then stomped on his leg that shattered in three pieces. Dark blood spewed up from the broken artery like a gushing river and shards of the bone were through the skin. Sasuke then grabbed Naruto's attacker, yanked him off, forced him to drop the knife and had him on the floor with both arms pinned behind him.
Naruto blinked. "Sasuke…"
The robot's hands did not loose but he looked up to Naruto, for what? Confirmation? And confirmation to do what? Kill him?
"Sasuke…" Naruto said quietly, "don't kill him… let him go."
Instantly, the robot let wanna-be robber go, but he delivered a chop to the back of his neck that sent him out cold for good measure. The robot then stuck his hands in his pockets and walked away like he had not completed total bloody carnage ten seconds ago. Naruto's jaw was on the floor as he looked at the three men who was an inch away from dying and looked up at Sasuke was still walking away.
Feeling some kind of responsibility, Naruto searched the guys pockets for a cell phone of a tablet or something and found one on the leader. He dialed the police and told them to come at the location. The officer was about to ask him something but Naruto dropped the phone and ran after Sasuke.
He had about ten fucking million questions to ask.
Getting to the apartment building he saw Sasuke leaning on the same railing he had been standing on that morning. Even with the question wreaking havoc in his chest, he opened the door and Sasuke followed.
Slamming the door shut he nearly screamed, "What the fucking hell was that?"
He got no answer.
"Sasuke… you almost killed those guys…" Naruto said frantically, "and you didn't look you had any problem in doing so."
Still no reaction.
"I'm going to ask you again," Naruto pressed so close to the robot he was staring into his dark eyes, "Are you trained to kill?"
"No,"
Naruto felt at his wits end, "Are you sure? You went fucking kamikaze on them. If you are not trained to kill what the hell are you trained to do?"
A sinister smile curved Sasuke's mouth, "Destroy."
TBC... Review Damnit!
(pretty-please)
