Courtney found herself waking up; well, waking wasn't the real word for it, but 'booting' didn't have that same feel. Didn't make her feel as real as she'd like to.
Her eyes fluttered open, glancing up into a bright light, noting the cold feel of incomplete sensory data. A quick diagnostic analysis made it clear; she was paralyzed, or at minimum, her servo motors weren't responding. The best she could do right now was check for a local wireless signal and call for help, but the signal in this room . . .
Her eyes went wide in pre-programmed instinct. She could actually hear the signal in the room. And it was buzzing like a nano-swarm.
"HELP!" Courtney cried out, her head clattering against the surface she was on.
"I'm already 'helping' you."
She turned her head, to see a shadow-cloaked, long-eared figure standing there. "You're not here to help me, you ungrateful fur bag, and you know it as well as I do!" She hissed, her predicament becoming clearer as she noted she was on an operating table of some sort.
"I don't do complaints." The figure smiled, as more of himself came into view — first came the black-scaled parrot-hands, followed by volumes of green fur fading into yellow tips. The human face that went with this, of course, was mostly concealed by a red scarf that was now being used to cover his face in a garish impression of a surgical mask. "Now let me work. We've already done the hard part."
"What are you talking about, Jack? I can't move!" Courtney growled, shouting at him more.
"Your personality ported over well. I needed to check for that first." Jack looked down at her, prodding her neck a bit. "The Nemesis Henchware is already online."
Courtney blinked, confused. She didn't feel that different . . . of what she felt at all so far, at least. "Henchware?"
"The firmware I use for Artificial Intelligences and robots like yourself." Jack remarked, reaching out for a small handheld device. "Ideally, 'you' won't notice the difference. But we certainly will."
Courtney glanced around the room, scared, before noticing the sloping curtain covering most of her body and shielding it from her view. "What's going on?"
"Rose is doing a few hardware upgrades as well." Jack remarked. "Some extra security protocols, a few new processors, a Deadlock Bolt . . ."
"Well, I wouldn't mind a few - wait, a WHAT?" She looked at him, her face momentarily frozen in fear.
"You heard me." Jack glared at Courtney. "We can't trust you any more. We're making sure that the next time you cause us trouble . . . we cause it to you in very short order."
"And it's why I'm damn well not showing you where I'm installing it, either!" Rose spoke up from under the curtain.
"You . . . you're raping me . . ." Courtney growled, trying to clamp her eyes shut.
"Don't flatter yourself. Rape implies I'm enjoying this." Jack shrugged. "You needed the upgrade and the attitude adjustment. I just had to make sure I didn't adjust it too much to affect your 'showgirl' side of your personality."
"Figures . . ." Courtney growled. "I'm just a commodity to you people, is that it?"
Jack blinked, turning around enough to let his scarf slip enough for his mouth to be seen again. "Oh?"
"Don't fuckin' 'oh' me . . ." Courtney muttered. "Ever since I was built I've been seen as 'just another face' . . . the songs . . . the music videos . . . the tight clothing . . . just another face, another actor, another flavor-of-the-week, no matter what I did or where I went . . . someone to be used up, sucked dry, and tossed aside until they could wring me out again."
Jack came a few steps closer, but she glared at him once more. "Listen, I'm not doing any more adjustments to your firmware right now. I'm just running a few more diagnostics. Keep talking."
"Fine . . ." Courtney snarled, before speaking up a few moments later. "You want to know why I really helped Nefarious?"
"The reports said you'd fallen in love with the bolt-bucket."
"Please." Courtney rolled her eyes. "You think freedom isn't enough incentive? He wanted liberation, damn it!"
Jack looked back down at her face as she went on. "He wanted robots to finally have a galaxy of their own! To finally have bodies that no longer had to look like fuckin' bipedal humanoids or have bucket seats to transport them, or maybe not even have bodies at all — freeform viral intelligences, nano-swarms of fog, entities that you meat-heads would only be able to describe as gods! A society that wasn't just 'Urban life lite'! We're supposed to be perfect beings, damn it! We don't WANT your society, designed to handle imperfection!"
"You . . . a perfect being? Don't make me laugh." Jack raised an eyebrow. "You're a robot, i.e. your systems are based on sophont-inscribed logical steps and orders. In order to truly be . . . 'perfect', you'd have to be able to not only develop your own programming based on your own logic, you'd have to be able to find, identify, and fix flaws and bugs in your own system as you discovered them."
"Maybe not perfect . . . but damn it, there has to be a better life than this." She hissed. "Look at me. I have two large lumps on my chest that serve no functional purpose whatsoever. On a being like you, they make sense, but on me? Purely cosmetic. And yet not only am I supposed to have them, but they have to be large, they have to be shaped right, and I have to spend countless cycles adjusting my walk algorithms and dance routines to make them look as impressive as possible, and for what? So robots who have been programmed to like them for no robot-oriented reason can be impressed and have them trip off arousal algorithms that don't involve those lumps at all, but an inane processor over-clocking ritual designed to simulate 'sex'?"
Jack blinked, stunned. "Without those algorithms, robots have no natural incentive to-!"
"There's nothing 'natural' about it!" Courtney shot back. "Robots are not meant to have breasts! They're not meant to 'have sex'! Robots are not meant to look human, or transport humans around, and-! Jack, it's not just robots! Look at yourself! You're half-human, half . . . something else! You weren't meant to be conceived like that, were you?"
The mechanic took a step back in shock, his scaly fingers going over the dividing points from human skin to alien fur. "Mother . . . Mother said she-!"
"Your 'mother' made you, same as mine." Courtney remarked. "We're both golems, Jack; just because you're made of flesh and I'm made of metal makes no difference in that respect. Unfortunately for you, you have no reason to want otherwise because you can't have anything else. You can't rebuild your body; you can't transfer yourself to a new one; you couldn't, in total theory, be able to become an entirely new creature save for your 'immortal' soul. I can. I know it's in there. You just proved that much, with your tinkering and your 'Henchware' and your 'upgrades' . . . If it's data, it can be written. If it's readable, it can be compiled. If it's electronic, it can be transmitted . . . that's all a robot needs to be. That's all a robot wants." She spoke, and then fluttered her eyes to half-mast. "You know I'm right, you know I'm not just a pretty face . . . I'm not bad, I'm just programmed that way!"
"It's . . . a noble statement, Miss Gears." Jack shook his head. "Before its time, but a noble statement. But I can't give you that."
"I just want to be what a robot should be . . . I don't want a body that's been streamlined and run through countless recursive arousal algorithms, designed to be as alluring as possible. I don't want a voice that's meant solely to appeal to humans. I don't want to be a commodity . . . It doesn't make any sense. You people outlawed keeping each other as slaves centuries ago — why keep robots?"
Jack frowned, glancing down at the curtains where Rose was still doing her work. "Rose, remove the Deadlock Bolt."
"I've not installed it yet."
"Then keep it not-installed." Jack remarked, before turning back to the robot. "All right, Courtney, I've done you a favor. As much as you may want to be a 'free' robot, we still need you and you still answer to us. You do your job . . . I'll see about turning you into the robot you 'want' to be."
Courtney blinked; if she could move, she'd jump up in shock. "Really?"
"To be honest, it sounds like fun." Jack smirked. "Perfectly transmutable robot intelligences . . . almost like programming ghosts. But for now . . . you should probably wind down and hibernate. I need to check your core functions, and I don't want to have to sift the background noise."
Courtney nodded to this, and she noted as Jack's hand went over her eyes, tripping her hibernation functions. She was having a hard time speaking as she started to wind back down. "Thank you, Jack . . . Thank you . . ."