"And suddenly, I'm an angel on the cutting-room floor, wearing gore, a blank stare, and not much more." - Daphne Gottlieb, Slut

APRIL 7 2044

5:51 PM

Okay, look, it's a bad idea to power Astro back on, and Hamegg knows it's a bad idea before he ever does it. He's just here to do the repairs, run the updates, pick up his paycheck when the job is done, and nothing else — technically speaking, he's already fulfilled his half of the bargain, so he could just shut Astro down and leave him deactivated until he's back in Kusai's hands where he belongs — but he also knows he can tack on an extra two hundred to the final price if he goes ahead and gets the kid cleaned up while he's still in the shop.

Sure, he could always just wipe Astro down with a wet cloth and a bucket of soapy suds, or even drag him outside and spray him down with a couple blasts of mud-brown water straight from the hose, but that would be all kinds of counterproductive — whatever the hell comes out of that pipe, it's nowhere near clean, and he's not sure he can even call it water, either — and also unnecessarily mean.

(Jesus, this is the best opportunity he's had in his entire life to get even with the one person who screwed him over as bad as Tenma himself — and the one person in the world who Tenma gives half a damn about. If he's learned anything from these last five months of constant television broadcasts about Metro City's missing celebrity superhero, it's that Bill will do just about anything for his kid.

Hurting Astro is a surefire way to hurt Tenma, too.

And with the laws of robotics in his brain and the KURI ring around his neck, he's completely and totally helpless, vulnerable as a newborn kitten, with no choice but to rely on Hamegg for even his most basic needs, and Hamegg could be having some real fun with that right about now.

He should be having some real fun with that right about now.

But it's pyrrhic victory, and the bitter taste at the back of his throat isn't anything like triumph.)

So Hamegg powers Astro back on.

It still takes a while for his system to kick up, probably from all the recent overuse and the sudden avalanche of updates yesterday, but it's still much faster than it was. It's only a five-second lag before he moves, his tiny hand jerking up off the table to rub at his eyes with his knuckles, like a little kid who just woke up from a long nap.

How can someone be so annoying and so adorable at the same time?

"Is Mr. Kusai already here?" Astro asks as he pushes himself up on his palms, every movement stiff and slow and painful. The poor little kid must be sore as all hell, and Hamegg is pretty impressed that he isn't whining about it. "Or is he just on his way?"

"No, no, wait," Hamegg reaches out a hand to push him back up on the table, but he's only halfway there when he remembers Astro's reaction from yesterday — it was just a quick tap on the shoulder, but it obviously freaked the poor kid out real bad — and, at the last second, he drops his arm limply back to his side instead. "Kusai isn't here, and he won't be here for another week. Cool your thrusters, kiddo."

"Oh." Astro blinks up at him, blank and baffled. "Okay. So… what's going on, then? Why am I…?"

"You're waterproof, right?" All the latest models in Metro City can usually submerge themselves up to twelve hundred feet without so much as a single spark or loose screw, but he is not about to put it past this damn kid to be the sole exception to every last rule in existence. "Getting wet won't screw with your system or anything, will it?"

"No, I—I don't think so," Astro frowns, a slight crease between his brows, as he swings his legs over the edge of the table to let his bright red boots dangle five feet off the floor. "I mean, I can go swimming and stuff, so… I'm pretty sure I'm in the clear."

"Good," Hamegg nods. "So, you think you're up for a shower, then?"

And just like that — all in a blink, all in a heartbeat — the kid's tiny face slams shut like a door. His big brown eyes go completely and totally blank, all glazed and glassy like his whole system has just suddenly shut down on him, and his wrinkled brow smooths out like crumpled paper spread flat. His body is so stiff and still that he could be a stone statue.

"Yeah," he says, but it's the way he says it that catches Hamegg's attention — dull and flat, a perfect mechanical monotone, no emotion or inflection, like a bored teacher going over the basics with their students for the millionth time: one plus one is two, and two plus two is four, and four plus four is eight. "Yeah, I can do that."

He sounds like a machine.

He sounds like a robot.

And Hamegg knows that's a crazy thing to think, because he is a robot, isn't he? But he never acts like it. He never does the whole glowing eyes and toneless voice and what can I do for you, sir or ma'am thingthat all the other machines do.

He never acts like he's anything but human.

Maybe Hamegg accidentally said something that activates a specific sort of software, or triggers some kind of program that Kusai didn't tell him about (because Kusai didn't tell him about a lot of things when he asked him to take on this job, apparently), and that's why Astro is acting so weird. Or maybe he's having more trouble with his system. Maybe now that the worst of it has been fixed up, a smaller problem that got shoved to the back burner is emerging. Maybe the issues with the memory circuits really were a bigger deal than he realized.

"What's wrong with you?" Hamegg asks, probably blunter than he absolutely needs to be. "Look, if you don't think you can make it through a shower just yet, that's fine, but you've got to be straight with me about that. 'Cause if you get in there, and then you collapse or something…"

"My systems are functioning adequately," Astro says, but he's still talking in that godawful voice, and he looks almost dead now — like he's already long gone, but his mouth hasn't gotten the message. Like the moment right before rigor mortis sets in. Like that final spasm before the end. "I'm perfectly capable of taking a shower. And I'll be ready to service you afterward."

Wait.

What?

Comprehension crashes over Hamegg like an ocean wave, saltwater stinging every inch of him, and suddenly, he feels so sick that he really thinks he might throw up right here. Of course that's where Astro's mind went. The Hotel staff always cleans their robots up real nice right before a new client comes in, don't they?

And Hamegg should probably just ignore it. He should just let Astro take a shower and let him think whatever the hell he wants, because it's no skin off his back, and it's not like he would ever actually do anything like that, anyway, but it couldn't hurt to let Astro think he might, could it? It couldn't hurt to let Astro live with the fear of it for a little while, could it? That would definitely keep him in line until he goes back to Kusai.

But.

But he can't just let a little kid walk around with that kind of crap in his head all week, scared to death and constantly on edge, always looking over his shoulder and always holding his breath, always waiting for the moment that the hammer drops, and Hamegg orders him to get down on his knees and—

No.

No, he can't do that.

Not even to somebody like Astro.

"No, you're not going to 'service me'," Hamegg says firmly, leaning down a little so he isn't too much taller than the kid. He knows he probably fits the basic demographic of all the usual clients in the Hotel, but it can't hurt to try and look a little bit less intimidating, right? "Believe me, I'm not interested in that kind of thing. Especially not from you. I'm just asking you to take a shower so you aren't walking around my shop covered in all that crud for the rest of the week. That's it."

"He won't care," Astro says, still blank and flat as a wall, staring straight ahead with eyes duller than a damn corpse. "Just knock a couple grand off the price. He'll know what it's for."

Hamegg freezes, his brain screeching to a halt like broken gears catching on their own metallic teeth as he turns it over and over and over in his mind, because that can't actually mean what he thinks it means, can it? That can't actually mean what it sounds like, can it? But the straightforward, matter-of-fact tone Astro used when he said just knock a couple grand off the price and he'll know what it's for, like that's a completely and totally normal thing to say, and this is just the kind of crap that happens to him when he goes off to a mechanic, and this is all just par for the course, and is this the kind of crap that happens to him when he goes off to a mechanic? Is this all just par for the course to him?

Because it shouldn't be.

That shouldn't happen to him when he goes off to a mechanic. That shouldn't be par for the course to him. But the casual, detached way he's talking about it means it's got to be, and the fact that he said he'll know what it's for means that Kusai knows about it — and he's okay with it, and he doesn't stop it, and he just steps back and stands aside and lets it happen, and he never interferes or intervenes, he never gets involved or gets in the middle, he just lets it go on and lets it happen and lets them all get away with it, and for what? A freaking five-thou discount?

Jesus Christ, Hamegg wants to break the bastard's nose.

"Listen to me, kid, I—Astro," he quickly corrects the slip with a small firm shake of the head — and maybe it's a stupid thing to do, but he'd said thank you, all banged-up and barely conscious, thank you, you called me Astro, no one's done that for a while— "I'm not going to do that, okay? I'm not going to do that to you. Ever."

"I told you," Astro says, in that perfect mechanical monotone, no emotion or inflection. "He won't care."

"This isn't about him," Hamegg fires back immediately, crouching down just a little farther so he can look the kid in the eyes and make sure he's made his point, make sure he's made himself absolutely clear. That crushing squeeze has made itself a permanent home in his chest, apparently, because he feels it all over again every time he sees that blank look on the poor kid's little face. "This is about me, and I don't want that. I don't want to do that to you. I'm not going to do that to you. As long as you're here under my roof, no one is going to do that to you."

Astro's body goes very, very still on the table, but he finally tears his gaze from the far wall on the other side of the workshop to stare at Hamegg instead, blinking rapidly like he's never seen him before, and his dull brown eyes have the faintest spark of real life in them again. Hamegg can't tell if the kid actually believes him, or if he's just surprised he hasn't already received the order to get off the table and get down on his knees.

Jesus, he feels sick just thinking about it, and he can't even wrap his mind around the fact that the kid in front of him has actually lived it, day in and day out, forfive months straight. And the poor little guy wouldn't have had any way to say no, would he? With the laws of robotics in his brain and the KURI ring around his neck, he would have been completely and totally helpless, vulnerable as a newborn kitten, with no choice but to rely on Kusai for even his most basic needs. He didn't have any way to stand up for himself, or fight back, or get away from the men who used him. He just had to let it happen.

For the first time in his life, Hamegg wonders what it must be like to be a robot: to have such a strict, set-in-stone list of what he can and can't do, to live in a body that doesn't belong to him and a brain that doesn't belong to him, to live with a line of code installed in his system that forces him to blindly follow every single rule they lay down for him and obey every last command they give him, even the ones that don't make sense to him and even the ones that hurt him.

For the first time in his life, Hamegg thinks maybe the way robots are treated isn't very fair.

"He won't care," Astro has finally dropped the flat monotone, but the exhausted resignation that takes its place isn't much better. "No one ever does."

I care, Hamegg thinks, the thought bursting up in the back of his brain like a firework, loud and bright and blazing through him in a storm of color and light, burning a black-edged hole in the tip of his tongue with how much he wants to say it, grab the kid by those little shoulders and look him full in the face and tell him. I care if they do that to you, I care even if Kusai doesn't, and I don't care if he doesn't care, I don't care if no one else cares, because I do, I do, I care about this, I care about you—

Wait.

No.

That's not right.

That's not what he means, because he doesn't actually care about Astro specifically — he literally could not care any less about Astro specifically, actually, even if he tried, and he doesn't care what Kusai does to Astro and he doesn't care what any other mechanics might do to Astro, and he doesn't care what the men in the Hotel do to Astro, and he doesn't care what anyone does to Astro, because he doesn't care about Astro.

Look, he feels bad for the kid, okay? That's not a crime. It doesn't mean he actually gives half a damn about the little brat, because that would be totally crazy. It's just that he feels kind of sorry for him, because he really did get a raw deal in all of this, and even an annoying, self-righteous pain in the backside like Astro doesn't deserve the kind of crap Kusai is putting him through.

But.

But at the end of the day, Astro is just one more mindless machine in a million, and he'll be gone in a week — out of the house, out of the shop, out of Hamegg's life forever. As soon as this job is over, he'll never have to see the stupid kid, or talk to him, or even think about him ever again.

Kusai will get his robot back.

And Hamegg will get his paycheck.

And he'll never think about Astro again.

NOVEMBER 14 2043

12:22 AM

Astro doesn't actually know exactly when it is, because every day in here just blends and bleeds and blurs seamlessly into the next into the next into the next into the next, smearing into and smudging over each other like wet paint on a white canvas, but sooner or later, he goes away.

And he goes away a lot.

Mr. Kusai takes him out for these long slow rides in the back of the gleaming black hovercar — he pops open the trunk with a sharp snap and a quiet click and he tells Astro to get in. The first time he does that, Astro gets this sudden, insane urge to laugh, because it's just so comic-strip villain—get in the trunk, like the bad guy in some kind of cartoon, or one of those low-budget fearmongering after-school specials on child abduction—

—but then he can't say no and he can't stop himself and he has to do it.

And it's too small for him to roll over, or turn his head more than half an inch to the side, and he has to curl up with his heavy, ball-jointed knees tucked tight to his chest and his arms wrapped around his own legs, and Mr. Kusai slams the trunk shut so he's all alone in the dark and it's too small it's too small it's too small and he can't breathe, and the trunk door is barely a centimeter from his cheek, closing in on him and closing down on him and crushing him, pounding into him like Frasier's big brass-headed hammer, pushing him deeper and deeper into the endless black, and he just knows he'll die if he doesn't get out right now, but he can't get out he can't get out he can't get out and he doesn't want to laugh now and it isn't funny anymore.

And when it's over, Mr. Kusai will open the trunk again, and he'll stare down at Astro with that awful awful awful smile (and how could Astro have ever thought this man was nice?) and he'll tell him to get out.

Astro will scramble up so fast that the whole world spins around him, and the steel joints in his knees and his elbows will be stiff and tight and painful, locked up like doors from the long drive in the cramped trunk, and it will hurt when the light hits his eyes, painfully oversensitive from all those hours in the dark. And Mr. Kusai will hook a thick, glowing blue chain onto the KURI still clasped around Astro's throat and he'll yank on it to pull Astro along behind him. And Astro will dig in his heels until a spray of gravel spurts up beneath his red boots, but he's not heavy enough to stop Mr. Kusai, or even slow him down, and Mr. Kusai goes too fast for him to get back up on his feet, so he gets dragged over the bumpy, uneven asphalt on his hands and knees.

Like a dog on a leash.

And Kusai will hand him off to strangers he's never seen, shaking their hands and laughing with them and telling them to bring it back in one piece.

It. That's what Astro is now.

And the strangers take him away, and they tell him to do awful things — they tell him to break into locked-up, closed-down offices and technology labs and federal banks, and they tell him to steal, to just go inside and take things that aren't his or theirs, money and documentation and blueprints and weaponry and drugs and other robots, until one job just blends and bleeds and blurs into the next into the next into the next into the next, smearing into and smudging over each other like wet paint on a white canvas. And they tell him to hack into computers and laptops and email accounts and other robots (and then they tell him to just leave those robotslike that, to walk away as they twitch and gasp and shake on the floor, helpless and alone with their circuitry sparking and buzzing, and they tell him to let it die, and don't save it, because it's just a robot, and it's too risky, and who's going to give a fuck about one little robot, anyway, and he knows he could fix them if he just tried, but they won't let him try) and they tell him to hurt other robots with his own hands (take down those security drones and wipe out those border patrols and disable this and rewire that and blast it to pieces, and he's got so much blood on his hands now that it'll never wash away, and he'll see the stains on his palms for the rest of his life, glossy black and sickly orange and deep red, all mixing and merging together on his skin, smudging into and smearing over, each other like wet paint on a white canvas) and at the end of the night, they take him back to Kusai.

No matter what, they always take him back to Kusai.

No matter what, he always always always ends up back with Kusai.

He tries to get away. He tries to fight, he tries to run, he tries to fly, he tries to hide, but nothing ever works, because Mr. Kusai always knows what he's doing, and Mr. Kusai is always one step ahead of him, and Mr. Kusai always catches him. Sometimes, he lets him do it — sometimes, he pretends he doesn't know what's going on, so Astro tries to get away, and Kusai lets it happen just so he can chase him down and drag him back and tell him you are never never never going to get away from me.

It always ends with his hands against the wall and the white-hot sting of the electric whip on his back, tearing into him like a million razor-sharp needles, and it doesn't end until he can't stand up any longer, until he crumples to the ground gasping and shaking, his whole body on fire with agony.

When it's over, Kusai takes him away and locks him up alone in a cold dark room, where he'll stay for hours on hours on hours that just blend and bleed and blur into the next into the next into the next into the next, smearing into and smudging over each other like wet paint on a white canvas until he has to go away again. And in the pitch black and dead quiet of his little prison, he's got nothing left but his own mind running in circles, asking him a hundred thousand questions he can't answer: what's going on in the city? is everything okay in the city? is everyone okay in the city? what if the city needs me right now? what if the city needs me right now and I'm not there? what if there's another bad fire down at the bank, with dozens on dozens of people stuck inside, and they can't get out and no one else can get to them, so they all die because I'm not there to save them? what if that crazy scientist launches another attack on the museum, and I'm not there to protect everyone, so they all die? what if there's another stick-up at the corner store, or another shoot-out at the cinema, or another bomb hidden on the subway, or another lunatic with grenades in the Ministry of Science, or another runaway train, or another collapsed bridge, or another rogue robot on the fritz, and I'm not there, and everyone dies because I'm not there?

He has to get out of here.

He has to get out of here and get back there. He has to get back to the city. He has to take care of the city. It's his job to take care of the city and everyone who lives in it. He made a promise to protect those people, to defend them with every artificial pump and pound of his metaphorical heart, to shield them down to the last breath in his body, and he's breaking his promise, because he's not there.

But maybe they don't actually need him to be there anymore. Maybe they don't actually need him anymore. Maybe Mr. Kusai was telling the truth when he said he's been building your replacements, and they're basically you, more or less, probably better, and they're designed to protect the city, and you didn't really know what the hell you were doing half the time, did you, and you weren't very good at it, anyway.

Maybe he was telling the truth when he said Dr. Tenma legally forfeited all rights to you, and transferred your ownership over to me. Maybe he was telling the truth when he said he has no further interest or authority in any decisions concerning your placement, your uses, or your care from now on. Maybe he was telling the truth when he said he won't see you, he said he didn't want anything to do with you, he was pretty firm about it, too. Maybe Mr. Kusai was telling the truth when he said you're my robot, and you belong to me.

Maybe Dad just doesn't want him anymore.

It's been almost three full weeks since he woke up on that lab table, after all, and his dad hasn't come for him, even though the Blue Core is really easy to track, and even though he has all that Ministry technology at his disposal, and why hasn't his dad come for him? Why isn't his dad here yet? Where is his dad? Is his dad even trying to find him? What if his dad hasn't even noticed that he's gone? Or what if his dad has noticed that he's gone, but he's not looking for him because he doesn't want him to come back home? What if his dad is just relieved to be rid of him? What if his dad is just relieved that he doesn't have to deal with him anymore? What if his dad doesn't even want to find him? What if his dad doesn't miss him at all? What if his dad is happier without him? What if his dad is better off without him? What if his dad really did sell him? What if Mr. Kusai is telling him the truth?

Astro wants to say it isn't true. He wants to say it's all a lie that Mr. Kusai cooked up just to be mean, and he wants to say it isn't real, and he wants to say his dad would never do something like that, but he can't. He can't close his eyes and plug up his ears and pretend the possibility isn't there. He can't just shake his head and say that would never happen, and his dad would never do that, because it's not like this has never happened before.

It's not like this is the first time his dad decided he didn't want a robot for a son. It's not like this is the first time his dad decided he didn't want him for a son.

Just because Astro never talks about it doesn't mean he doesn't know that he's not even a halfway-decent stand-in for a real, living and breathing, flesh-and-blood human kid. It presses down on him heavier than the city on his shoulders, and it burns in his brain when he can't sleep, and he feels it in everything he does — in the way he breathes, and the faint pulse of the Core where his heart should be, and the wires where his veins should be, and the iron where his bones should be, and the cameras where his eyes should be.

And he's been trying so hard to make up for it, to apologize for it, to say he's sorry for it in every possible way except out loud, to be the perfect son in every way he can, to earn whatever love his dad has left to give him, but it just doesn't work like that, does it?

Astro could be the best son in the whole city, but at the end of the day, his dad has already had the real thing, and he'll never measure up to that even if he tries for the rest of his life. Astro could be the best son in the whole city, but at the end of the day, he's still him.

And no one could ever really want a robot for a son.

No one could ever really want him for a son.

He wants to believe he's wrong about that — he wants to be wrong about that, to know his dad is looking for him, and his dad is loving him even though they could be thousands on thousands of miles apart right now — but the days blur into a week, and one week blurs into two, and two weeks blur into three, and his dad doesn't come.

Mr. Kusai takes him out to the hovercar, and locks him in the trunk, and hands him off to strangers he's never seen.

And his dad doesn't come.

Astro tries to get away. He tries to fight, and he tries to run, and he tries to fly, and he tries to hide, but nothing ever works, and Mr. Kusai is always one step ahead of him.

And his dad doesn't come.

The white-hot sting of the electric whip tears into his back. And he gets locked up in a dark, cold room for hours on hours on hours, all alone in the pitch black and the dead quiet of his little prison.

And his dad doesn't come.

One day, Mr. Kusai takes him away to a place called the Hotel, where it's all smooth black marble, and plush red velvet and solid, shining gold, with rooms full of robots that look a lot like him — their skin soft and stretchy and smooth like a human, and thick locks of real hair on their heads, pulled up in elaborate, eye-catching styles, and their faces caked with powders and creams and pretty colors that turn their full lips a smoky crimson shade, and make their eyelashes look long and sleek and very black. They've all got human bodies, too: pink nipples and round breasts and all the right things between their legs.

And they're all naked, sprawled out on sofas and settees and chaise lounge chairs, and beds, angled perfectly so he can see every last inch of them as soon as he steps into the room. He doesn't look at them, because he knows he wouldn't want to be looked at if he was in their place (he doesn't even want to be looked at like he is right now: stripped down to his underwear with nothing beneath) but he doesn't need to look at them to know where he is.

He doesn't need to look at them to know that the Hotel isn't really a hotel at all.

This is a brothel full of sex robots.

But Mr. Kusai doesn't want him to do any of that, right? He's all wrong for this kind of thing, anyway — he doesn't even have the right body for it, just smooth black fabric where his genitalia should be, and he doesn't have the right software for it, either, so he really wouldn't be much use to the humans in that sense, would he? He couldn't go inside a human like that even if they told him to, and a human couldn't go inside him like that, either, so he shouldn't be here. He doesn't belong here. He's not that kind of a robot.

But.

Testing, subject 7517, SAI software, and get up on your knees, and suck me off, and his own hands, shaking and pale and pulling at the stiff, dark fabric of Mr. Kusai's pants, and he'd stared at it hanging there in front of him, so big and thick and hard and hairy, and he'd wondered how on earth he was supposed to obey the order when he had never done anything like this before, he had never even kissed anyone before, but then he'd just taken the tip of it in his mouth, and he'd done it.

Just like that.

He didn't want to do it. He hated every last second of it. He thought he was going to choke on it, or gag over it, or throw up on the floor, and he still doesn't really know how he managed not to. He wanted to disappear. He wanted to die so he didn't have to live in the body that had just done such a sick, disgusting thing.

But he did it.

And he didn't even know how.

Mr. Kusai has turned him into a sex robot.

And now he's taking him to a brothel full of other sex robots, and he's going to have to do it again, he's going to have to get up on your knees and suck me off all over again, and he can't do it again, he doesn't want to do it again, please don't make me do it again, but he can't say no, and he can't control his own body.

The one who runs the Hotel is a man called Jazz, dressed in thick purple velvet and smooth black silk, with a silver-topped cane in his hand and big jewel-studded rings on all his fingers. He's got a shiny gold tooth in the corner of his smile, and dark hungry eyes that look and look and look at Astro like he wants to eat him alive. Astro waits for him to do it, waits for him to say get down on your knees and suck me off like Mr. Kusai did, but Jazz just takes him down a long narrow hallway, with dozens on dozens of sliding silver doors on either side, and glowing blue keypads flashing their sickly greenish light all over the walls, asking for the passcode. Jazz takes him over to one of the doors and types in the code, quick and precise like he's done it a hundred times before, and he shoves Astro into the big, empty room on the other side.

The walls are dark red, with a gleaming pattern of golden roses papered all over them, and the glistening hardwood floor smells like lemon polish, and the bed is so huge it could be a castle, and oh, god, this is really happening, isn't it, he's really going to make me do it again, isn't he, and oh, god, he's going to be sick if he has to do it again.

One wall isn't even a real wall, just a stretch of giant floor-to-ceiling windows with a raised dais right in the center — it's so big that he could stand up straight or lay down flat on it — and he can see the whole city through the clear glass panes, all lit up and glowing so bright in the black night, shining and beautiful. He wants to run across the room and throw those windows open and jump out, fly away, go home, but he knows better than to think that could work. The KURI wouldn't let his rockets kick on, so he'd just sink to the ground like a stone, smash his body to pieces on the cold concrete seven floors below — but maybe that would actually be better than this.

At least if he died right now, he would never have to get down on your knees and suck me off again.

Over in the corner, a glossy black camera has been built into the top of the wall, barely half an inch away from the ceiling and too high for him to reach, and it's staring back at him with its dull, steady red light, like the enormous and unblinking eye of some massive monster.

It's recording him.

It's watching him.

(—date, 10.26.2043, testing, subject 7517, LOR software, date, 10.26.2043, testing, subject 7517, SAI software—)

Astro looks away, his chest painfully tight.

Jazz takes him into the big bathroom leading off from the bedroom, where there's a white marble floor under his boots, and a massive porcelain tub against one wall, and a narrow shower stall with thin frosted-glass walls, and another camera in the corner, just like the last one. The dull, steady red light shines directly in his eyes. He can hear Mr. Kusai's voice in the back of his brain, telling him to sit up and stand up off the table and stand up straight and walk over to the wall—

"Take a shower," Jazz says, short and sharp, and he gives Astro a harsh shove between the shoulders in the direction of the tiny little stall.

And Astro can't say no.

And he can't control his own body.

So he opens the stall, and he steps inside, turning the water on with a quick jerk of the silver tap.

But Jazz doesn't leave the bathroom.

And he doesn't turn the camera off, or block the lens, or put a piece of colored tape over it, or anything, and Astro wants to ask him if he will, wants to ask if he can just take a shower without that red light fixed squarely on his naked figure the whole time, but that would be stupid, because Jazz would probably just say no. The glass of the stall is pretty warped and opaque, anyway, so any footage from the recorder will probably be all blurry and distorted and unusable. And it's not like he's got a real human anatomy like all the other robots in all the other rooms, is it? It's not like he's really got anything to hide. Why is he being so dramatic about this? Plenty of people have seen him like this before. There are videos of him like this all over the internet. He's just being a baby for no reason.

But the whole time he bathes, Jazz stands right outside the stall, and stares straight at him with that hungry, dark-eyed leer — like he's starving, and Astro is the biggest meal he's ever seen.

The spray from the shining spout pours down his cheeks like a rushing river or a heavy rainfall (like oil and coolant that's not his own) and he turns the tap all the way to the left, until the water feels like fire licking at his bare skin and he can't feel the steady red light from the camera, or Jazz's dark, hungry eyes, or the sick churning in his stomach like a ship in a stormy sea.

As soon as he steps out of the shower, Jazz gives him away to a tall bony lady called Clemency, with bushy brown hair and brown eyes like his (except hers are a shade darker, and a whole lot prettier) behind wire-rimmed glasses, and a dark blue pencil skirt, and black heels so high she totters side-to-side when she walks. She tells Astro to sit down on the edge of the bathtub, and she paints over his face with powders and creams and pretty colors — and when it's over, and she's done, he looks in the mirror and he sees a robot with smoky crimson lips and long and sleek and black eyelashes, and he can't tear his gaze away.

He doesn't know who that boy in the mirror is.

But it isn't him.

"I look like a sex robot," he says, out loud, before he can stop himself—low and shaky and horrified, his insides seething and frothing and boiling over, like a pot on a stovetop.

Clemency caps up a tube of wine-red lipstick and tucks it back in her white leather bag. "That's what you are, honey."

No, and he tries to say it, tries to shake his head, tries to tell her no, I'm not, I'm not like them, I'm not like the others, I'm not like the other robots here, I don't belong here, I shouldn't be here, this isn't me, this isn't where I should be, this isn't where I'm supposed to be, this isn't me, this isn't me, it looks like me but it isn't me, but it sticks in his throat and it sticks in his mouth and it sticks in his teeth, and he can't swallow it down and he can't spit it out so he holds it under his tongue and tries to dissolve it like a Tylenol tablet, let it bleed back into him so he can carry it in his head and carry it in his chest and know this isn't him.

Clemency takes him out of the bathroom and over to the bed, where she tells him to lay down flat like all the other robots in all the other rooms—angled perfectly so she can see every last inch of him, back arched and knees up and legs spread open, and it's—

—the frosted-glass walls of the tiny shower stall, and Jazz's dark hungry eyes and the dull steady red light off the shining black lens, and the too-hot water running down his back and his cheeks and dripping off the spiky ends of his hair, and all of a sudden it's that, all over again, and he's stripped to the bone, a raw bundle of nerves with all the skin torn off, picked clean like a dead bird on the side of the road, so thoroughly and painfully exposed he doesn't know how he survives the sharp swell of blazing, bone-deep humiliation burning him alive.

"Just stay still, sweetheart," Clemency tells him, and she looks almost sorry when she says it, her mouth twisting in a small, sad smile. "Your first client will be here soon."

"Please," Astro blurts out, so quiet and hoarse he doesn't even know if she can hear him, and he's not sure he wants her to hear him because he's not sure if he even really meant to say it, but it's just falling out of his mouth, and he's shaking so bad that he can't do what she tells him, he can't just stay still, sweetheart— "—please, I can't—please, I—I'm not—please—"

But Clemency just smiles at him, so strained it looks like it's hurting her face. She shakes her head so hard that her thick brown curls bounce with it, and she pats his bare knee with a quick, light tap of her open hand. It's the first time since he ended up here that anyone has touched him without trying to hurt him, and he wants to lean into it, drag himself up off the sheets and press his cheek into her palm, and he wants to ask her to please stay please stay please stay with me please please please don't leave me alone please I don't want to be alone in here, but he knows she wouldn't care and he knows she wouldn't stay, because—

(—robots don't need names and the way Mr. Kusai laughed, so safe inside his little glass booth, as he watched a room full of robots die, and it's just a robot and who's going to give a fuck about one little robot, anyway, and they're just junk waiting to happen, and they don't have real emotions, and it's just a machine, and you're not my son, you're a robot, and I don't want—)

"You'll be okay, honey," Clemency takes her hand off his knee, and his skin feels cold without her warmth. "You'll get used to it."

And then she turns on her heel and she goes away, back through the heavy silver door. It drifts shut with a low whirr and a quiet click, and then he's all alone, spread out on the bed with his head tipped up so his makeup doesn't smudge on the pillows, just like she told him to do.

And he waits.

That's the worst of it.

The waiting.

It's worse than the burning-hot shower under dark hungry eyes and steady red lights, worse than the hundred thousand combs and brushes and towels and washcloths and soft spongy pads Clemency scraped over his skin, worse than all the icky oozing gunk she smeared on his face, worse than the made-up boy in the gleaming mirror who was not him, worse than Clemency's sad strained smiles and Jazz's greedy, dark-eyed leers—it's worse than anything, worse than everything, and he doesn't even know when it finally ends, because every minute in here just blends and bleeds and blurs seamlessly into the next into the next into the next into the next, and it's going to happen again, they're going to make him do it again, but he can't do it again, he can't do it again, he can't he can't he can't—

Astro doesn't know when the waiting ends.

But sooner or later, the waiting ends.

The heavy silver door slides open again, and a man he's never met walks inside. So he gets down on his knees, and he opens his mouth, and he swallows.

And he does it again.

And he does it again.

And he does it again and he does it again and he does it again and he does it again and he does it again and he does it again, over and over and over, until every man just blends and bleeds and blurs seamlessly into the next into the next into the next into the next, smearing into and smudging over each other like wet paint on a white canvas, and it's all just a dizzying whirl of brand-new faces, and quick, hard thrusts that go all the way to the back of his throat, too fast and too deep, and hands in his hair and moans in his ears and big powerful thighs on both sides of his face like prison bars, trapping him.

They don't all want his mouth, though. One man tells him to use your hands, and he thinks but I can't do that, I don't know how to do that, I've never done that before, I've never done anything like that before, and how am I supposed to do that when I don't even know how, but then he does it, just like that, and he stares at it in his hands, but he can't actually feel it, and he thinks I can't believe I'm doing this in a kind of numb and distant way, and maybe the neuroelectric wires between his brain and his body got cut in half or torn out or unplugged at one end or the other, or maybe he's not even in his body anymore, but standing outside his own skin, standing on the edge of himself, standing over himself and staring down at himself as he palms and pumps it until the man gasps sharply, and sprays his skin with thick, sticky white.

And it just—it just goes on and on and on like that.

For hours.

One man tells him to pretend you're a real little boy, pretend you're a real little boy and you don't know what you're doing, pretend this is your first time and I'm teaching you, so he does it — he widens his eyes, and he pitches his voice a little higher, and he pretends to be a real little boy who doesn't know what he's doing, pretends this is his first time and the man above him is teaching him.

One man tells him to pretend I've taken you far away from home and you don't know who I am, and you don't know where you are, and you're scared of me, so he does it — he pretends to be a terrified kid snatched off the street, pretends he doesn't know where he is, and he doesn't know what's going on. One man tells him to pretend I'm your master and you're my slave, tell me you belong to me and only me, so he does it — he pretends to be a slave, helplessly imprisoned, and he says I belong to you and only you.

One man tells him to call me daddy.

So he does.

One man tells him to beg for my cock.

So he does — he says please give it to me, god, please give it to me, oh god, I need it so bad, I need it from you, I need you to give it to me, I need you in my mouth, I need you to fill me up, I need to taste you, I need your cum inside me, oh god, I'm such a horny little slut for you.

And he just—he just does it, all of it, everything, they come into the room, and they tell him what they want and they tell him what to say and they tell him where to put his hands and they tell him where to put his mouth and they tell him to what to do and he does it, he does it, he does all the gross and vile and repulsive things they tell him to do, and it's so disgusting, and he's disgusting for doing it, and it's so disgusting the way he's just blindly going along with it, saying yes to it and not fighting it and not stopping himself and not saying no and why isn't he fighting it, why isn't he saying no?

What's wrong with him?

It's like he's not even trying — he's just doing it and doing it and doing it, and he's not fighting back and he's not saying no, and why isn't he saying no? Why won't he just stand up and stand his ground and say no?

Why isn't he even trying?

Does he like this?

Does he want this?

He doesn't know when the last man leaves, because every hour just blends and bleeds and blurs seamlessly into the next into the next into the next into the next, smudging into and smearing over each other like wet paint on a white canvas, but sooner or later, the last man takes what he wants and leaves.

And then he's alone again, collapsed on the floor with cum all over his face, and clinging to his skin like glue, and he's crying so hard it hurts, hot tears pouring down his cheeks and dripping off his chin, falling to the floor in tiny crystal droplets that shine and glisten against the pristine hardwood, and the smell of lemon polish floods his nose, sharp and immediate, and he can feel the semen smeared on his painted crimson lips, sticky and damp at the corners of his mouth, and it's all over his face and it's in his hair. He cries so hard that he runs out of tears, the constant flow of fluid finally slowing to a dead stop, and he's left with wet streams on his cheeks, and puffy, swollen eyes. The wracking sobs give way to weak, whining little whimpers in the back of his throat, like a beaten dog, and then the whining little whimpers give way to dead quiet, and he just lays still and silent on the pristine hardwood with the smell of lemon polish all around him.

He's disgusting. He's awful, and rotten, and ugly, and bad, and he knows, in a sudden and sharp and unshakably certain way, that if he cut himself open right now, it'd all just be garbage and mold and decay coming out of him. No iron or steel or alloys or wires. Just pure stinking trash.

If he cut himself open right now, he'd be bleeding filth.

Astro lifts his head up off the gleaming, hardwood, lemon-polished floor. He can't breathe past the smell, past the cum, past the shake in his hands and the knots in his throat and the tearstains on his cheeks and the rot and the garbage and the filth inside him, but that's okay, because he doesn't really need to breathe, anyway.

He doesn't even know why he does it. He doesn't even know why he pretends to be a real person like that.

It doesn't matter.

He crawls over to the window on his hands and his knees like an animal, and he drags himself up onto the dais to look out over the glittering city. He can just see his dad's penthouse, a shining speck of brightest white off in the distance.

He can't go back.

He can't ever go back.

Dad isn't coming for him. Dad isn't looking for him. Dad doesn't want to find him. Dad doesn't want him to come back home. Dad doesn't want him.

And it doesn't even matter, because he can't ever go back now, anyway.

Because no one — not his dad, not Cora, not Zane, not Widget, not Sludge, not Orrin, not Dr. Elefun, not anyone — would ever want him again if they knew what he just did. No one — not his dad, not Cora, not Zane, not Widget, not Sludge, not Orrin, not Dr. Elefun, not anyone — would ever come near him again if they knew what he just did, and what a rotten, ugly, disgusting, filthy, pathetic piece of trash he really is.

Astro sits still and silent on the dais, his forehead pressed to the ice-cold glass of the windowpane, hundreds on hundreds of miles above the beautiful, sparkling city that doesn't want him, and he stares numbly out over all the rooftops.