Even after two months, even after XJ-9 had identified everything in the entire house that couldn't be seen as a weapon…it still seemed lacking in human mentality. Its cognitive functions weren't improving, seemingly at all. There were still so many commands that weren't recognized and explaining them wasn't possible. It knew what items were but it couldn't form any sentences that weren't already programmed into it. She couldn't count the number of times she'd heard, "Command not recognized."

It was driving her to insanity. The sentence didn't even sound like a real sentence anymore, just a jumble of sounds. How could the XJ-9 unit replace Armageddroid when it still couldn't recognize anything? Had she messed up trying to make XJ-9 too human? It had been so long now that…she was considering labeling XJ-9 a failed prototype… Despite XJ-9 being such a great achievement, if it couldn't reach its full potential, it was useless. The only improvement was its memory… It could climb stairs without issue and it knew what things were—sooooo much time categorizing—but by now it should've at least been trying to copy her behavior, even if it couldn't speak properly. But…it wasn't showing any sign of that either… She had already had it run several diagnostics on itself and manually checked every chip and wire in its brain but nothing was out of the ordinary. She wasn't ready to give up on XJ-9 yet but she had to find out what was preventing it from advancing and developing. The journey to humanity was supposed to be an evolving process and right now it showed no real progress towards that goal. And that was its main goal. So…what in the world could've been stopping it…?

At best, it just watched her. Staring intensely at her seemed to be its favorite pass time. She would've called it an odd hobby if it had begun to show any sign of human behavior…but she assumed it was watching her so closely because it was programmed to observe and copy human behavior, and then mold it into a primitive personality that it would later refine through interactions with other humans, and she happened to be the only human in the house. The only human allowed to see her until…

Until today…when she was to transport the XJ-9 unit to a restricted military facility. She was only granted access because of her technological expertise. Knowledge of her latest project was reported, updates were sent regularly…and now they demanded to see this project for themselves. XJ-9 was far from ready to showcase any advancements but she hardly had a choice in the matter. It was either demonstrate her "greatest" technological achievement thus far or decommission XJ-9 and stop all future automatons in the XJ line. This ninth edition had to be able to impress these lacking idiots…these good-for-nothing military officers seeking, ironically, her protection in the form of technology. They had full authority to prohibit her creative mind though. They could even demand that XJ-8 be brought back under military direction…without her intervention. A dangerous idea…

"Oohhh please be a miracle…" Nora mumbled, more to herself than XJ-9, as they arrived at a secure gate guarded by four soldiers.

One of them approached the car and noticed XJ-9 in the back seat, perfectly still and staring directly ahead at nothing in particular. Its eyes were unfocused…as if any thought processes it may have had were either too dull or nonexistent.

The guard allowed her passage past the gate and she parked in a garage, a reserved spot nearest to an elevator specifically for her and any XJ prototypes she brought with her.

As she helped XJ-9 out of the car and into the elevator, she took the short amount of time she had to formulate some plan to prove XJ-9 wasn't completely incompetent…even though it was. At this point it wasn't even for the sake of this unit, it was for her own future.

The elevator stopped before she could finish thinking and she stepped out to the demonstration floor—an allegedly indestructible floor entirely walled up and down with thick concrete. After the demonstration of XJ-8, they'd decided to take less risks and did a little "remodeling" for the protection…and containment…of future XJ units.

"Gentlemen," she greeted professionally, nose turned slightly up to exude the confidence she didn't have.

"Come," she added, this time to XJ-9.

The most basic idea she could come up with was to give commands that XJ-9 already knew and perhaps activate some of XJ-9's preprogrammed features, such as speech.

"This is the next XJ unit?" a much shorter, but much more decorated, officer asked skeptically. "A far cry from the last one, Dr. Wakeman."

"As I explained before, XJ-8 showed too little restraint for its caliber of strength. This is a new and improved XJ unit."

"XJ-9, I presume."

"Precisely."

"And how is it any sort of upgrade from XJ-8?"

Nora took a quick breath. Honestly…XJ-9 wasn't an upgrade from XJ-8. It was supposed to be, certainly, but with such limited communication, its uselessness would become apparent in no time. The raw firepower XJ-9 was designed to have meant nothing if it couldn't utilize the weapons. She couldn't let them know about this robot's pathetic functioning capabilities though.

"Unlike XJ-8, XJ-9 is programmed to develop human behavior as it observes the human race from afar. This will subsequently assure humans that XJ-9 poses no threat to them but is perfectly able to defeat anything that does. Additionally, I have installed more safety overrides to avoid some of the same…eh…incidents caused by XJ-8."

She heard a few officers in the room snicker, including the decorated one.

"You're telling me you're giving a machine a sense of humanity?"

"Indeed. I find it necessary to ready the XJ-9 unit for interactions with normal citizens and vice versa."

"This thing looks like a teenager, Dr. Wakeman," one of the other, lower ranking officers pointed out.

Nora rolled her eyes sarcastically. "How very observant of you…"

"Will this model perform like its previous one?"

"Better!" she confidently exclaimed, once again bluffing her confidence.

"In that case, you know the drill, let's get this thing started."

Nora walked to the other end of the room with her machine standing still, awaiting her orders because it couldn't think for itself like it was supposed to.

"Come," she said.

The officers watched XJ-9 walk over to Nora but didn't seem all that impressed—which, honestly, was something she figured would happen.

"Come?" someone in the small crowd repeated sardonically. "Are you serious? That's what I tell my dog."

"This is supposed to be a highly advanced weapon, Dr. Wakeman. Dazzle us," someone else said.

Dazzle them… She didn't know how XJ-9 could possibly dazzle anyone when it couldn't even satisfy her.

She nearly stumbled over her own words by somehow remained collected as she said, "Identify 'Norene Wakeman'."

…

"Subject 'Norene Wakeman' already identified. View now?"

"View 'Norene Wakeman.'"

Once again XJ-9's monitor popped out of its chest and revealed the single image it had taken months ago—she'd since not added anything new to her own folder, seeing no need to.

"Folder has no new items."

She turned the robot towards the small crowd and motioned proudly to the monitor.

"As you can see, gentlemen, XJ-9 is capable of identification and memory. It also contains a temporary storage system—a 'short-term memory' if you will—that will delete any sensitive data within two weeks unless transferred to a permanent folder. It will also self-scan for any new content to prevent hacking, unauthorized uploads, and unauthorized deletions or downloads."

"Close folder," she told XJ-9.

Its monitor popped back in as per ordered.

"And who controls all this information?"

"I'm its only admin at current but I can authorize secondary users and grant them full access to XJ-9's capabilities and system functions."

"Speaking of system functions, it's all fine and well to have an anti-virus computer but I repeat myself earlier. It's a war machine. Where is the strength? Where are the weapons you promised us? Please tell me this thing will be on par with XJ-8. It wasn't a perfect model I admit, but that was a true metal warrior."

"Eh…" Nora tapped her fingers together nervously. "XJ-9 is physically weaker than XJ-8–"

She paused to let the series of disappointed groans pass.

"—but it's still quite strong and this time it's equipped for long-range combat. That's something XJ-8 could never have done."

"Fine then. Show us its long-range combat functions," the highest ranking officer sternly commanded.

She knew deep down that they would compare XJ-9, a completely different—almost completely different—XJ model to its closest predecessor. XJ-9 had to perform better than XJ-8 and that would be a difficult feat. The entire branch of the military seemed rather fond of XJ-8. Beating that could prove to be impossible for XJ-9.

"W-Wouldn't you rather test its defensive capabilities first? Defense is the best offense, after all," she said.

Maybe they would be so impressed with XJ-9's practical infallibility that they would skip the offense altogether…an offense that had never been tested due to XJ-9's inability to evolve.

"We don't see eye to eye on that…" the big shot grunted. "But very well."

She counted that as a tiny victory for herself but couldn't get her hopes up as high as they used to be.

The crowd pulled out a few handguns and stood a good distance away from XJ-9. She herself backed up, much farther than them.

The XJ-9 unit stared at her, noticing her go behind the crowd, slightly perpendicular to them to remain in its line of sight. Nora chose to allow XJ-9 to see her at all times during this demonstration. There was a small chance it felt comfortable with someone it had already identified—perhaps it had also developed memories, or at least associations, with her.

"Open fire!" someone called.

Each of them began shooting at XJ-9, at her creation. She never did like watching this part of the demonstrations. Even her failed experiments didn't deserve this abuse, in her mind. Her earliest ones weren't so bulletproof. XJ-9, meanwhile, stood still and silent, the bullets bouncing off it like they were nothing.

Things quickly took a turn for the worse when one of them happened to hit XJ-9's left eye, managing to damage it and break the glassy screen designed to protect the eye more from dust and dirt, maybe thicker substances like mud. At first she didn't see what was truly going on. What XJ-9 was doing.

Its undamaged eye flitted from her to every single individual wielding a gun.

And then it hit her.

"Multiple threats detected."

She had designed XJ-9's defense mechanisms to activate so quickly that she didn't even have the time to run over and try to stop her invention from transforming into the weapon she designed it to be in the first place. Of all times for XJ-9 to show any amount of potential, why now?!

Small missile launchers popped out of her shoulder plates, lasers from the same spot and stretching out more towards its left and right side to avoid contact with the missile launchers, a much larger gun growing straight out of its head, and its pigtails turning towards the group of men to transform into more guns. Way too much firepower, where was the restraint—?

The guns. Multiple guns meant multiple weapons. Multiple weapons that could hurt it meant it saw them as a greater threat than they really were. And worse, it couldn't differentiate between friend or foe.

Then again…strangers attacking it was probably a way to differentiate between friend or foe. She wouldn't exactly consider them friendly either if she was in XJ-9's thrusters.

"XJ-9!" she cried. "Put your weapons away!"

"Command not recognized," it replied.

OF COURSE IT WASN'T.

She decided to take the risk and rammed herself into XJ-9's abdomen, pushing hard to at least draw attention to herself rather than the perceived threats that were now backing up even more, this time in terror. XJ-9's strength far surpassed hers though, and the robot didn't even budge.

"Cancel!" she yelled, hoping to dear jobs she had programmed this command into XJ-9 already.

Most of its commands were simple and more similar to commands given to factory fresh computers.

"Command not recognized," it repeated. "Preparing to neutralize threats."

Nora truly began to panic when she heard the high pitched whine of electricity charging the lasers.

"Admin override!" she tried again. "Admin override!"

"Command not recognized."

WHAT DID SHE PROGRAM THEN?!

"Run for your life!" she screeched to the officers trembling so hard they were actually dropping their guns.

It was every man for himself as they scrambled to get to corners and some opting to huddle against the wall opposite of the direction XJ-9 was facing.

Its weapons finished charging in the next few seconds and the very next thing anyone knew, there was a huge blast from every laser and missile it had pulled from its innards.

The horrible ringing in her ears was intense and disorienting, almost unbearable. Why…? Why had XJ-9 activated such powerful weapons in a fairly small, enclosed area? With humans in it. Each XJ robot was very carefully programmed to protect humans. It was one of the first and most prioritized commands given to XJ-9 during its early construction. It was cemented into its very essence. Did XJ-9 somehow have even less restraint than XJ-8? Despite all the safety measures she'd tried to implement?

And why didn't she have any amount of control over the situation? She was XJ-9's sole admin, nobody else could control it. Did she really forget to program an admin override…? That was so unlike her… She had been so careful… XJ-9 had been her most meticulous work, even more so than Armageddroid. What went wrong?

XJ-9 was so useless five minutes ago.

Her creation scanned the entire room, managing to strike even more fear into the hearts of the officers and…even her as the cold, unfeeling good eye passed over them all. The damaged one seemed unable to move.

"Threats neutralized," the android said as it pulled its weapons back into their proper places.

She stumbled forward to reach XJ-9. Upon seeing her—at least with its good eye—it stood completely rigid again.

"Damage detected in left optic."

Part of her was surprised she could even understand, dazed as she was. Part of her was furious. Part of her…didn't entirely blame XJ-9. XJ-9 was her invention. This was just a machine doing what she had programmed it to do. But…it was too similar to Armageddroid to remain active anymore.

She looked at the scorch marks, still smoking, in front of XJ-9. It hadn't targeted the men, only the guns. Would it have targeted the men too if they still had those guns when it attacked? She had to assume the worst…

Her greatest achievement had just become her greatest failure.

"NORA!" one of the men growled. "EXPLAIN YOURSELF!"

She sluggishly turned to the general direction of the voice. Someone was stomping up to her. She had no idea how he wasn't swaying around trying to stay upright like she was.

"I…" How could she even begin to explain this? How could she spin this to make herself look any better than when XJ-9 had been useless, but peaceful? "I, um…"

"You what, Nora?!"

"I…programmed XJ-9 to—"

"To destroy humanity?! That's about what it did now, Nora! Your great invention nearly killed us all!"

"It's…it's a…a combat machine. It was designed to fight and…um…"

"Designed to fight people, obviously! What did you do to this thing? Why couldn't you control your own invention?!"

"No, no…XJ-9 was…it was just… It wanted to destroy the threat…which it saw in the weapons being used to attack it.," she truthfully answered.

"And you couldn't have shut this all down, Nora?"

"I programmed XJ-9 much differently… It needed to evolve to become more human in nature…"

"Well its human side disobeyed you—"

"No, it obeys me…sort of…"

"Sort of? What's sort of?"

"XJ-9 is just like any other robot right now…it obeys only commands it knows. It will develop cognitive abilities with time but for now…"

"For now it's a mindless computer." The man scowled. "And you're going to shut it down before it becomes anything else."

Another man stepped in to join this conversation from behind her just as her head began to clear and her hearing didn't include a literal shell shock.

"XJ-8 is acceptable," he said, "but any future models including XJ-9 are not. It's obvious that XJ-8 is the closest you'll ever come to replacing Armageddroid."

The other man—the first one—leaned in closer.

"We will not risk a repeat of that abomination. You'll go back to making normal weapons and that's it."

"You and your XJ unit are dismissed. We'll be checking in to ensure you have shut this machine down," the highest ranking officer said. "You're granted permission to use it for research purposes only, to design guns and missiles for military use, but you will not activate XJ-9 again. Are we clear, Nora?"

She took a deep breath and nodded. Previously, there had been no need to shut XJ-9 down. It was probably a better idea to have done so; she could've reported XJ-9 as another failure and been granted more time to design XJ-10 since she was the only scientist with the know-how to replace Armageddroid…but…with XJ-9's severe reaction today…and with the deaths and injuries it could've inflicted on the humans it was specifically built to protect…she would have to shut it down. It…and the entire line of XJ robots.

She pulled on XJ-9's arm, trusting this android to follow her safely without any weapons present and without any assaults, and led it back to the elevator.

"See you boys later…" Nora sighed.

As the doors closed, she noticed a few men still getting up—these ones nearer to the black blast marks on the solid concrete floor. Dents and cracks caused by a series of very powerful weapons. Guns turned to dust. Brains being knocked around from the aftershock.

XJ-9 had no more restraint than XJ-8 and while weaker, was still more powerful in different ways. And now she was paying the price for that ignorance. The lack of weapons testing. Reactions to threats or perceived threats. XJ-9 wasn't her undoing, she was…

XJ-9 repeated its diagnostic results multiple times during the car ride home. It just reminded Nora of what today had been like, how screwed up everything was. Not even XJ-9 in particular, either. Her own incompetence. She knew… She knew the XJ-9 unit wasn't ready yet, she knew additional tests were necessary, and she knew XJ-9 didn't have the capacity to communicate at the most basic level. It was already a recipe for disaster and if not for XJ-9 only targeting the weapons—the threats that were in attack mode—everyone in that room could've lost their lives and that blood would've been on her hands…assuming she hadn't lost her life too.

She pulled into her driveway and snuck XJ-9 inside. As soon as it walked through the door, it repeated its diagnostic report again.

Exhausted, Nora simply replied, "I know."

She brought her invention…her creation…the thing she slaved over…downstairs into the basement to be deactivated forever. She would have to say XJ-9 had the shortest activation period in the entire XJ line… That was actually saddening to her. It was almost as if XJ-9 didn't really have the chance to grow the way it was supposed to. At least the other XJ prototypes had shown their potential and their limits. XJ-9 was fully functional but mentally…not all there. Perhaps it would've had the chance if she had simply run more tests…maybe rewired a little circuitry… Maybe there could've been a way to speed up its progress, if it was making any.

But truthfully…all she had seen was a humanoid machine stuck following its basic programming with no more potential than that.

Maybe a human brain was too complex to replicate and that was why XJ-9 would never be able to be…human.

"Sit," she said.

XJ-9 followed her orders and sat upright on its table.

"Damage detected in left optic," it repeated for the hundredth time.

Nora had to shut this robot down, but she wasn't going to lock it away looking like this. They were only machines but she still worked too hard on them to let them fall into disrepair, active or not.

She sighed heavily and took a look at XJ-9's left eye. That was she noticed something new, something that helped explain a few things about why XJ-9 had obliterated the guns. Its right eye had mild scratches on it. She even saw a small crack near the bottom. XJ-9 had only reacted when it had been hit in its left eye, which was also when the bullets stopped…which meant XJ-9 hadn't cared much about minor damage. It inherently knew not to attack or defend itself. She wasn't entirely sure why. She…didn't remember ever programming that…

But regardless, XJ-9's reaction was too extreme to allow it to remain active…and even if it wasn't, she was under strict orders to deactivate it anyway.

She focused on the more severely damaged eye for now. The bullet hole was in perfect alignment with its optical lens, the camera completely broken inside it with the bullet still there. XJ-9 wouldn't have been able to see out of that eye. Must've used the targeting system…

She carefully took out the left eye. The crack stemming from the bullet hole was enormous and covered the entire eye—it wasn't exaggerating the damage part of its diagnostic report…and…she realized it never brought up the right eye, which also sustained minor damage. Why? Did it just not care? Did it not know?

Did…XJ-9 feel forced to respond when one of its systems was actually damaged rather than just scratched?

For humans…that was self-defense.

Did she program self-defense into XJ-9? She programmed human defense, absolutely, but did XJ-9 ever develop a sense of self-preservation?

Or was XJ-9 actually trying to defend humans from the start? At first, the bullets—and by extension, guns—weren't threatening to it. However, when it took serious damage, it reacted and only targeted the guns. What if that damage was a sort of wake-up call? What if XJ-9 realized in that moment that if the bullets could hurt it, they could most certainly hurt humans?

This was all speculation of course but…it would explain why XJ-9 reacted the way it did… And if that was the case, now it was being shut down for good.

"Brutes…" Nora growled to herself as she used a thick pair of tweezers to pull out the bullet. "Uneducated pigs…"

XJ-9 stared at her with its one good…or, semi-good eye.

"Can't think for themselves any more than you can…" Nora continued, this time venting to her creation. "Build an attack drone just as they wanted and when it performs an attack, they want it gone! You technically did what they asked you to do!"

Out of sheer frustration, Nora pointed an accusing finger at XJ-9.

"Why didn't you just let them shoot?! I could have fixed you up better than new later!" She shrugged but more sarcastically than sympathetically. "Of course it isn't pleasant but you can't just shoot your missiles and lasers at anything, it was just a demonstration! You're forcing me to shut you down for that stunt you pulled!"

The android quietly looked on, keeping its gaze locked on its inventor.

Nora grabbed its head and yanked it down to eye level with her.

"And why…WHY can't you JUST be more HUMAN!" she yelled.

She noticed a shiny, reflective substance pooling in the back of the optical cavity, underneath the area the eye would typically be fitted into. She growled and tilted XJ-9's head down more, draining some of the fluid. It was clear, as expected.

"Great…those monsters damaged your artificial tear duct…" Nora took a very slow, very deep breath to try to calm herself down—after all, a scientist of her stature wasn't supposed to get so emotional over some lifeless machine. "I suppose it wouldn't matter anyway. Window wash is pointless without a window…or a glass case…for you, anyway…"

She tilted the robot's head back up to eye level and despised what she saw next. XJ-9 was incapable of emotion and expression but the window wash hadn't entirely drained. Some of it had slipped out when the head had been moved up, looking more like tears now. There was still no facial expression, no signs of any emotion whatsoever…and even though Nora knew this, she couldn't ignore how similar her invention looked to a real person crying.

Sometimes she hated her own humanity for sympathizing with humans and now she hated it for sympathizing with nonhumans. XJ-9 wasn't even organic.

She felt tears of her own sting the edges of her eyes but refused to let them slide down her cheeks.

"Don't look at me like that…" she hissed.

But XJ-9 wouldn't—couldn't—obey.

"Command not recognized."

The robotic, monotone voice sent her over the edge and she hiccuped, wiping her eyes only to break a dam and invite more salty liquid to pour out.

"You were going to do great things…" she sobbed into her sleeve. "Maybe you just needed a little more time…"

Her android still didn't move from its spot. The broken duct was still leaking, this time the wash overflowing out of the socket and making XJ-9 continue to "cry." It shouldn't have broken Nora's heart—she'd already permanently deactivated eight other XJ models—but then, none of the others had seemed more human than XJ-9 did now.

Nora had to look away to focus on XJ-9's eye. She'd hoped it could be repaired but the bullet had done too much damage. She would have to construct another eye. The right eye would be fine. The damage was so minute that all it needed was a replacement case. But the left… Why did that bullet have to land so perfectly?

She would have to deactivate XJ-9 before she could even fix an eye…

She had XJ-9 follow her through a different, more hidden door in the basement. She quickly thought of how her invention acted on a normal basis. No cognitive abilities…no emotion…no expression…no real speech… It had no idea what was going on. And while she had been uneasy about being stared at day in and day out at first, she had grown very used to XJ-9's constant gaze. She would probably miss that. Regardless of how frustrating XJ-9 could be sometimes, it did give her company she so sorely needed. She had something to talk to and interact with even if it couldn't talk or interact back.

That would be gone the moment this last XJ model was deactivated…

Nora had XJ-9 stand on the same ground-level pedestal its predecessors were on and with an extremely heavy heart…deactivated it, one last tear slipping out as she watched XJ-9's cracked right eye darken.