A/N: 09/29/2024 Man I suck at updating across all platforms. Sorry about that.

Disclaimer: I do not own Aliens.

Chapter nine: Pruning~

Bishop takes Burke's advice and waits for Ripley to calm down before finding her again. Artificial person that he is, he can't seem to stop himself from feeling compelled to seek her out, to console her and offer counsel in her very human time of distress. And it's not just conflicting programming, either; although he had been ordered to keep close to Ellen Ripley - and he was indeed made to follow orders - his primary function was to assist humans with their day to day needs, ease the burdens of their struggles, and help them live better lives. Build Better Worlds, as the company slogan said.

And yet somehow he had failed that function with Ripley. Perhaps that is why it bothers him so much. It truly does stress his processors trying to find a suitable solution.

Bishop has never had to 'fight' as Burke had put it, for a human's acceptance. Sure, there had been humans here and there that treated him more as a machine than an actual person, but that was to be expected; at the end of the day, Bishop was a machine, albeit a very complex and complicated one. However, he was made to have manners, and adhere to basic chivalry and courtesy protocols. Ripley had officially been the first human to treat him in such a way as to make him question his own programming, and the uncertainty in how to handle the situation going forward forced him to run a self-diagnostic just to be sure there was nothing amiss in the part of his AI brain that governed his decision-making abilities.

The problem itself was a contradiction; he was programmed to follow orders, but he was also programmed not to upset humans or cause them further stress. With Ripley, he had done both.

Bishop keeps busy for about two hours, going to and fro checking on the various work stations and making sure they are well stocked with coffee, snacks, and copy paper, running a few quick errands from one station to the next for the workers there that didn't quite have the time. He remembers one human telling him in the past that he was really more of a work mule than a coworker doing favors, but even if that were the case, the fact never particularly bothered him; the way he saw it, as long as things got done, who cared who did it? He checks in on the communal restrooms, making sure they have toilet paper and that all of the automatic hand dryers are working properly. He goes to Ops and helps out for a bit to ensure they're caught up on the daily workload. And when that's done, he makes his way to the gardens to check on the plants.

He hardly expects to find the very woman he'd been advised against seeking out waiting in the very same area. Perhaps this is a sign that she's ready to work with him again; after all, they just had a recent conversation discussing the gardens, and the fact that he was the one who kept up routine maintenance. If she were averse to the notion of him showing up, he thinks she would find another place to rest.

Bishop pauses a moment, processing the possibilities of each of the ways he might acknowledge her, and quickly chooses the one with the most positive probable outcome. He opens his mouth to address her, careful in his tone. "Miss Ripley. I didn't expect to find you here."

She's sitting at the furthest bench, legs crossed, arms wrapped protectively around herself. The bandage on her hand is still there. A good sign, he decides. "Fry your circuits, did I?"

His posture adopts a more relaxed state. "In a manner of speaking. I just came by to tend to the plants. Is that a problem?"

She looks off into a spot on the floor by his shoes, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth as she decides whether she wants him there or not. After 6.7 seconds, she shakes her head no. Pleased with this outcome, Bishop moves to the small maintenance closet and sticks his keycard into the slot. It flashes green and the door unlocks, and he quickly goes about his duties. It soothes his circuits to be able to perform a daily task, and he has not broken his routine in taking care of the garden once.

He works swiftly but precisely, filling a portable sprayer up with recycled water and putting on his tool belt before wheeling it out for use. He sees Ripley's eyes on him in his peripherals, but he remains carefully focused on the plants. He starts at the far end, spraying the bushes and trees and being especially careful with the hanging plants; he wouldn't want to accidentally spray Ripley. He continues onward until he reaches the little cove that she's seated in, glancing only briefly before continuing on with his task. Ripley remains completely silent as he works, and he is careful not to touch her or let any water soak her hair or clothes.

His sensors tell him that she's still quite angry, and he can even pick up a hint of elevated heat levels from her face and body due to the rise in blood pressure. She is relatively calm given her previous state, though, and Bishop concludes that this is desirable in comparison. Once he finishes watering the garden's flora, he moves on to the trash bins, checking to make sure they're not overflowing and that each have their respective functioning odor pellet in them. Finding one of them to be at its end of life, Bishop twists the puck-like disc until he hears the 'click' and it breaks free from its place on the inside of the canister. Tossing it down into the bin with the rest of the trash, he reaches into his utility belt for a new one. Ripley's eyes are on him, mildly curious as to what he's doing. Perhaps they didn't have odor disks back in her time. Continuing on with his task, he accesses his knowledge database. Hmm. No, they existed. The design was just not as sleek as the models that were in wide use today.

Interesting, he thinks.

Then perhaps it was merely a guarded observation on her part. Making sure he wasn't doing anything suspicious or outlandish. Although, he can't imagine what dastardly interest he would have with a can of garbage. Twisting the new disk into place, Bishop walks over to the sanitizer on the far wall and cleans his hands; android flesh, although designed to look, move, and stretch the same way as that of a human's, was actually made using a series of very complex self-sterilizing components, to ensure that germs and other such bacteria did not stick to their 'skin'. Very useful to inhibit the spread of viruses and sickness, but although this was widely known to be true, surveys showed that it put humans more at ease to see artificial persons washing their hands after handling something universally acknowledged as dirty.

An interesting fact, to be sure, though he doesn't voice his thoughts, for he doubts that Ripley would be very fascinated by them. She had seemed to relatively enjoy his factoids, albeit from a very sarcastic perspective, up until discovering he wasn't human.

Bishop has never really considered himself a robot, or android, as he recalls the specific word she had used. He's far too advanced, far too self-aware to be just a simple machine. Although he does have basic inhibitors and protocols in place, he's come to view them at the same standard humans have for their 'morals' and 'values'. It's simply easier for him to follow them than it is for humans. He doesn't mind that he has these programs in place - in fact, he finds them completely necessary for daily function to ensure a certain smoothness across the board for workflow and camaraderie - but he does find it humorous that the humans had designed him (as well as the other current models out there) in such a way that made him follow the very same rules and stricture that most humans didn't care to follow themselves at all, certainly not to a 'T', as the expression goes.

As the sanitizer cools and dries on his hands, he looks over at Ripley once more. She's no longer focused on him, her attention solely on the panoramic screen and its hyper realistic view. She had stuck with the forest setting. A mild spark erupts somewhere in his chest, near his processors, and he recognizes this as happiness. Simple robots didn't feel happiness.

Deducing that it would hardly prove to worsen the current status of their relationship, Bishop makes the call to approach the woman.

"Miss Ripley, I know that there is nothing I can do to make you trust me," he begins, and she turns her head to look up at him. "I've accepted that. But I would like very much if you would allow me to be given the chance to prove you wrong about your perception towards androids. I am far superior to Ash's model, in a great many ways. I would like to be given the chance to show you."

She stretches out a bit, tilting her head and bobbing her right foot off of her left knee. "What makes you so sure you're so different? How could you possibly know you don't have some kind of...hidden protocol deep inside those wires somewhere?"

"The only way I truly have of proving it..." he starts to shrug, a learned emote from watching humans, but stops himself when he realizes Ripley will most likely react poorly to the human mockery. "Is to show you."

A long, long beat of silence passes, and Bishop is already calculating the chances of this interaction going north as opposed to south. They're not very good. Ripley seems to not only be testing him and his resolve, but her own as well. He finds himself favoring the smaller chance of north.

Miss Ellen sets her jaw, chews on the inside of her cheek for a moment as she stares off into nothingness, and, after a moment's deliberation, sets her sights on him again.

"Alright, Bishop. You prove it. You go right ahead and prove to me that you're not even the slightest bit like Ash and that you wouldn't fuck me over the first chance you got to get a hold of one of those things!"

She uncrosses her legs and rises from the bench, flaring with anger. Bishop is surprised; she had been so calm just moments before. He makes an internal note on her volcanic behavior to go over with her therapist. He stands his ground as she gets mere inches away from his face - surely she knows that intimidating an Android is not going to yield the same results as it would a fellow human - and Bishop patiently lets her emotions ebb before formulating what he believes to be an appropriate response.

"My programming is built around three core principles; to protect humans, to obey humans, unless conflicting with the first principle, and to protect my own existence, so that I may follow the first two principles for as long as I can." He pauses to make sure that she is not only listening, but comprehending; something many humans tended to have trouble with. "I'm not going to ask you to trust me. Especially after what you've been through. But I am going impose upon you the request of tolerating me, at least for the time being. You've been asleep for a while; is it so difficult to believe that things have changed?"

Her lips crack open just the tiniest bit, but she closes them again to keep whatever thought she'd had inside her head. She shifts her weight onto one leg and he waits, expectant. She opens her mouth again and closes it again, narrowing her eyes in a resentful way; slowly, she sidesteps him, glaring as she does so, and Bishop turns with her as he watches her go.

Interesting, he thinks again as she disappears around the far corner.

Deciding to do what humans do, he chooses to interpret the lack of verbal or physical violence as a positive sign. 'Glass half-full', he believes is what they called the perspective.

Going back to his plants, he makes another internal note to share with Dr. Friedman.