Cyberotique

"Listen, I know what I saw," Millie insisted gravely, leaning across the table to push her face closer to Rossy's. "If you're totally trolling me, just tell me."

Rossy felt her fingers twitching, panic crippling her cybernetics as her brain worked overtime to come up with a response. "...it's...it's not what you think it is...".

"Good, because I have no idea what the hell I DO think it is," came the reply, doused in Millie-brand salt-and-vinegar sarcasm. "All I know is what I saw, and I just want an answer."

Rossy's mouth opened and closed a few times as she stalled for words.

She halted completely when Millie placed a hand atop her own. "It's okay, I'm not mad or anything. I promise not to call you crazy either, okay? Even if you are."

New message.

BETTER C0ME UP WITH A G00D LIE QUICK, R0SIE...

Ignoring it, Rossy turned the virtual overlay off and nodded timidly.

Not breaking eye contact, Millie nodded back. "Okay, I'm gonna ask again, plain and simple...why the hell did I see you shoving batteries in your mouth?"

As her words hung there in the air, Rossy felt time itself slow to a crawl. She felt herself waiting for the music overhead to abruptly cut out and for everyone in the room to turn and stare at her expectantly, as if their conversation was the spectacle on center stage, and Millie had just removed its sequined top for all to see.

...why...? she asked herself as she stared back into those alluring brown eyes. How did it come to this?

When the average Organic brain thinks those particular words, there is a brief instant, perceptible only to those who are looking for it, where the mind effortlessly calls up the entire string of circumstances leading up to the moment in question, and plays it back in an extremely rapid time-lapse format, a fraction of a second in length. This is due to the incredible real-time processing power of the Organic brain, reacting as it does in a situation of high stress. But in the case of cybernetically enhanced brains like Rossy's, memories like that could be stored and accessed later, and played back at more realistic speeds to experience them casually, rather than as a result of stress-induced sensory overload.

Almost as if reading about them in a book...

...the time on her virtual overlay read 12:21 AM, but Rossy felt more wide awake now than she had in the entirety of the past two weeks.

And it had nothing to do with finally charging up her primary power supply - or internal battery, if you had to call it that. Cybernetics didn't suddenly become jazzed up with extra pep after a hearty "meal" the way Organic parts did. No, this heightened awareness in her mind and deliberate extra spring in her automatic step was due to the special blend of adrenaline and endorphins electrifying her still-organic brain at the realization that she was, right now, for all intents and purposes, about to be on a date right now.

Okay Rossy, tone it down a bit...it's technically NOT a date. She imagined herself taking a deep breath. You're just meeting up with an extremely pretty lady for a late-night dinner after work...

She craned her neck back toward the bar to watch the slender, slanted figure of a young lady in a vibrant fuchsia sheath dress saying something probably dry and dirty to the stonefaced bartender pouring her drink. Even from this angle, with nothing to go on but the keen garden of sunflower hair and the unforgettable sculpture of the body beneath it, Rossy knew for certain the person she was looking was the fan-favorite dancer at the Silver Key Hotel and Erotic Boutique.

Tonight she'd billed herself as Cherry Liplock, and Rossy was definitely absolutely not imagining herself finding out why.

C'mon Rossy, get it togehter. It's NOT a date. It's not going to end like that. Probably. I mean, I hope it does. But until I know for sure she even swings my way, we're just two adults meeting at a bar in a strip club because we enjoy each other's company. Totally normal thing to do.

God, I feel like such a teenager right now...

She watched Sergey slip into the kitchen, shaking his head disdainfully as Millie turned around and began making her way back over to the table, drink in hand. Rossy met her with a smile and realized Millie was in fact carrying TWO drinks, one for herself and one for--

New message.

WAIT, ARE Y0U 0N A DATE, R0SIE?

Yes, she almost replied, automatically. I mean, NO. I mean...clearly she just ordered two drinks for herself because, well, honestly yeah that sounds like something Millie would probably do...

She closed the virtual overlay without answering. It was nearly one in the morning, and Rossy had just finished helping Sergey lock up after ushering out the midnight show crowd. Cherry Liplock or whoever Millie was pretending to be tonight had just finished a special midnight performance, and had asked Rossy to join her for a drink after she freshened up. And, having once again missed the big finish due to a confrontation in the men's bathroom, Rossy had gladly taken the offer, hook, line, and sinker.

Not that that means it's a date...

New message.

I TAKE IT Y0U ARE, SINCE Y0U'RE N0T REPLYING. 0H WELL. W0N'T BE THE FIRST TIME I'VE PLAYED THE THIRD WHEEL...

She grit her synthetic teeth and considered sending a venomous response, but then realized that talking out loud to a person no one else could see was probably not the self-image she wanted to project. She had a manual on-screen keyboard she could type with as well, but typing out any kind of coherent response on it took ages, and she didn't have time for that sort of nonsense while she was out on a date.

...maybe I should just pretend it IS a date...

It was then that Rossy came to realize that she'd been staring this whole time, mesmerized by the subtle swing of those slim hips and the little bounce of the classy chain necklace against her chest. She snapped back to attention just as Millie placed both glasses on the table, taking care to ensure the bottoms of said glasses were firmly affixed to their stems this time.

Taking her seat, Millie tugged the corners of her dress into place and pushed one glass toward Rossy. "Sorry to keep you waiting. Have one on me."

She hesitated, knowing full well that her prosthetic mouth was not intended for use as an alcoholic beverage portal, but the pre-learned social conventions of her former Organic life took over and she gratefully pulled the glass toward her, already working out in the back of her mind how she would avoid actually drinking any of it. "Aww, you shouldn't have."

Millie shrugged, a dumb smile on her face. "Okay, then I won't." And she pulled the glass right back toward her.

...oh. Well that was easy.

"So, how have you been, Rossy?" she asked, lining up her two glasses in front of two other particularly prominent points of interest. "Seems like you're settling in pretty well."

Rossy gave her a half-smile and a nod. "Yeah, it's been a pretty easy transition so far. This place is pretty nice."

"So far?"

"Well, when it's not crowded with horny jackasses," she corrected with a shrug. "It's a welcome change from my last job."

"Ahh, okay," Millie nodded back, taking a sip from one glass, then the other. "So your last job sucked, is what you're telling me."

New message.

D0N'T TELL HER ANY M0RE THAN SHE NEEDS T0 KN0W, R0SIE.

"...ehhhhhhh," came the reply, complete with an undecided scrunchy facial expression and a release of hands. "It's more like...my last job was too full of problems that I couldn't handle."

Millie pointed a knowing finger. "...so it sucked."

"...yeah, I guess it did suck."

Smiling smugly, Minnie took another drink. "And here you are now, working the clearly superior job as a strip club bouncer. Really moving up, huh?"

Rossy raised an eyebrow, once again hesitant, but unable to resist giving into that smile. "...better than throwing my back out throwing midnight freight at some grocery store."

"Yeah? Which store?"

New message.

CAREFUL...

The words stalled and piled up in her mouth as she struggled to rephrase them. "...I...I don't even remember the name, honestly. That should tell you how good of a job it was, eh? Heh heh...".

"Hmm," Millie replied thoughtfully, expertly taking a sip from both glasses simultaneously without spilling a drop. "So you left a job with some low-grade grocery store in the name of some town you won't tell me, then moved far away to come work for a private strip club motel as hired muscle, no? Hmm. Okay then, my guess is you're either a retired musician trying to get back on your feet after a decade of failing to keep the band together, or maybe some kind of shady vigilante gangbuster with a troubled past."

"I'm not shady!" Rossy blurted out, halting suddenly as she restrained herself from standing up in a panic. She pulled back and lowered her voice again. "Uh, I mean...what the hell kind of guess is that, anyway?"

New message.

SHE'S T0YING WITH Y0U. PR0BABLY LIKES SEEING Y0U SQUIRM. JUST KEEP Y0UR M0UTH SHUT.

Millie paused for a moment, her spellbinding gaze working wonders on Rossy's easily excitable brain. "...alright, fair enough,. We don't have to talk about your checkered past if you don't want to."

She received a sharp look from Rossy.

"There's lots of other topics of conversation out there," she continued, gesturing with a flourish across the table. "Your wacky sense of style, for example."

Rossy snorted, approximately. "Wacky?"

"Mmhmm," Millie nodded, as if it were a genuine compliment. "You look like the lead singer for some kind of Cindy Lauper tribute band."

She puffed up her chest defensively. "Yeah, well...".

"I like it."

"...oh." Rossy blinked, then cracked into a stunned smile, once again immeasurably grateful for her inability to blush. "...well, thanks. It's, uh...I take a lot of pride in my look, you know? And I don't hear too many compliments about it."

"I can tell," Millie agreed, leaning her head to one side to get the full picture. "Don't know if I'm feeling the zebra print top, but I like the high-rise pantyline."

"Ha, you would," Rossy laughed, thrilled that Millie had noticed the neon green band riding high on her waist from her low-rider jeans. She reached down and playfully snapped the elastic against her silicone skin. "Still can't believe I found a place out here that'd sell this kind of thing. I wasn't even sure there'd be any clothing stores at all out here."

Millie chuckled. "Well, that's Barrinten for you. Too small to be a city of infinite possibility, too big to be just a bunch of cabins in the woods. You never know what you're going to find out here."

Then her eyes narrowed in on Rossy's. "...or who."

In an instant, everything locked up again.

Rossy felt her nonexistent heart stop beating. Her eyes felt tight in her carbon fiber skull and wouldn't budge. If she'd had any lungs, she wouldn't be breathing. Her very thoughts all but stopped flowing. She may as well have died, caught in the demanding intensity and sparkling curiosity of Millie's pearlescent brown eyes.

...god damn, she's beautiful.

What felt like a hot and awkward thirty minutes in Cyborg time must have taken barely a millisecond in Organic time. When it came to emotions, no digital processor could ever be a match for an Organic brain. Scientists could add as many processing cores as they could afford and they'd still never create a digital brain that could process dozens of unique and simultaneous emotions in a fraction of a second and then still rebound back into normalcy before the conversation became socially uncomfortable.

With a ghost of a shudder, Rossy came back to her senses. And then, remembering her manners, she smiled and nodded. "Guess I'm one of the lucky ones, then. I couldn't have asked for better company."

"Wow..." Millie's brow raised and her lips curled into a smile. "Are you always this smooth when you're on a date with a pole slider?"

"Well, you think I'm smooth now," Rossy started--

...then what? Wait until you see me in your dreams tonight...?

--"...then wait until I see YOU up on that stage?" Millie finished for her, with a wink.

...dammit, she beat me to the punchline.

Rossy slumped forward and chuckled into the table.

New message.

...W0W, IS IT GAY IN HERE 0R WHAT?

Clearly quite pleased with herself, Millie leaned forward, taking another sip of her drinks. "What, you think nobody would pay to see you up there? Who wouldn't want to watch a hottie with a body like you?"

Rossy managed a half-smile in response, but the other half was drooped in painful reminder. She appreciated the comment coming from Millie, but any comment about her body came saddled with certain indelible baggage that inevitably soiled the moment.

"Listen, I'm just kidding," Millie added, brushing it off as if it were nothing anyway. "All I'm saying is I'm glad you found something special for yourself out in our sleepy little asscrack-of-the-mountains town. People here can be...a little close-minded when it comes to weirdos like us."

Rossy gave her a pointed counter-stare, tongue securely poking her cheek as she tried not to giggle.

"What?" she continued, her smile genuine. "I'm just saying you're a weirdo. Nobody around here wears cartoony red hats and zebra stripes. Hell, I don't even wear that shit, and I wear costumes for a living. For someone who likes their privacy, you sure do stick out like a boner in business slacks."

Rossy took a moment to log those words in the back of her mind as Millie took another long, thoughtful drink. 'Like a boner in business slacks' was a phrase she intended to keep in her mind for as long as she lived. But more importantly, something about the accusation seemed to bother her, reaching in under her artificial skin and cajoling a response out of her.

"Well shit, Millie, I guess when you put it like that, I AM kind of a weirdo, aren't I?" She pitched herself back in her seat, no longer measuring her words beforehand. "But maybe you just don't get it. I CAN'T just put on a T-shirt and jeans every day like a normal person. I can't. I NEED to be this weirdo character I've created for myself. I'm out here living on my own out of a motel with nothing to my name but this hat and this job, and sometimes it's just nice to remind myself that I exist. Sure, I definitely stand out like a boner in business slacks, but at least this way, I stand out to myself, too. My weirdo fashion is like a reminder to myself that I AM myself. You feel me?"

As she finished, Millie seemed to take a moment to drink it all in, rolling the thought around in her head the way she'd rolled the drink around in her mouth, sampling the wine of Rossy's heartfelt confession. She nodded silently, seeming to reach a calculation in her head. Rossy felt her fingers clench up automatically, hardware responding to a thought she hadn't realized she'd been thinking so hard.

New message.

EASY THERE R0SIE. THIS C0NVERSATI0N HAS BEC0ME ALL AB0UT Y0U AND I D0N'T LIKE IT. I THINK IT'S TIME Y0U LEFT.

She ignored the text and continued watching as Millie's expression softened, as if she'd come to a different answer than she'd expected.

...c'mon, say something.

Her attention seemed to wander a bit, somewhere off her face.

Was I really that brutal? Just say something...

Her expression changed to something slightly more urgent.

If you don't say anything, I will...

She held up a finger.

Spit it out already!

And, putting a fist against her heart, Millie let out an abrupt belch, followed by a sigh of relief. "Woof...excuse me, that one was stuck way down in there."

It was Rossy's turn to sigh with relief. She cradled her head in one hand, propped up on her elbow. "Thanks for taking that seriously."

Patting her chest to make sure she'd gotten it all, Millie gave her a little chuckle. "Hey, I said excuse me, what more do you want?"

Rossy replied with nothing more than a furrowed brow.

"Alright, alright," Millie assented, hands up. "I told you, dry humor is all I know. It's one of the only weapons in my arsenal."

"Oh yeah? What are the others?"

"Well, I've got a couple of bombshells on my artillery rack..." she replied automatically, gesturing to the two round warheads at the forefront of her dress.

Again, Rossy sighed and hung her head, trying hard not to laugh.

"...but I guess you've heard enough stupid jokes for tonight," Millie continued, finally choosing to be sober in spite of the two glasses in front of her. "And I agree, what you said does make sense."

"Okay, good." Rossy drew herself back up to normal sitting height. "...wait, what did I say, again?"

"About recognizing yourself or however you put it," she replied, shifting in her seat. "I know that feeling. It's important to feel like you have a 'self' to be. There's a lot of people out there, in the world and especially here in Barrinten, who try to tell you who you're supposed to be, or who you 'should' be. If you don't act like your 'self', then people will try to force you to be who they WANT you to be...but nobody can ever deny who you ARE when you've very clearly made a 'self' for you to be."

She glanced down at the drinks and then back up at Rossy. "...okay, I don't know if that came out right, but I think I understood what YOU said, so you have to at least pretend to understand what I said. Deal?"

Rossy didn't need to pretend at all. Somewhere deep down in her electronic guts, she felt a certain tingle, like someone had just plugged a USB drive into her heart. She half expected a message to pop up in her notifications tray, because she'd just made a new connection.

She nodded, tempted to place her hand on Millie's for confirmation. "I do understand. Believe me, I do."

Millie's smile was all the reassurance she needed that the connection was real. Or at least it was on Rossy's end. Whether this was a romantic date or just gals being pals, she felt as though she'd made her first real friend in as much as a year, and that feeling was a moment worth treasuring.

"Alright then," Millie announced, placing her hands on the table definitively like a manual segue into a new subject, "...the whole reason I wanted to talk to you tonight was to make sure you're fitting in with the rest of us weirdos. We've all got a freak flag to fly, so yours will always be welcome here. Remember when I said we're all family here? I really meant that."

Rossy gave her a warm smile. "That means a lot to me, Millie. Thank you."

"It DOES mean a lot," she agreed, nodding decisively. "It means you're welcome to wear your weird fashions to work, stay up late in your room and talk to yourself out loud, and eat batteries when you think no one is looking."

The entire world skidded to a crashing stop.

The familiar feeling of full-body paralysis took hold of Rossy's body once again. "...w-what?"

"Like I just said," Millie replied, almost conspiratorially now, "...we're a family now. You've lived with a family before, haven't you? It's impossible to keep secrets from a family. No matter how careful we are, sooner or later we're inevitably gonna walk in on each other with our hands in our pants or something. Or, in this case, eating batteries."

Rossy shook her head, struggling to form some kind of response. The red light in the notifications tray was blinking already. "...I, uh...I really don't know what you're talking about...".

"Well I know what I'm talking about," she continued, not taking her eyes off Rossy's. "I saw you in the bathroom the other day, shoving whole AAs into your mouth like a toddler. Can't believe you didn't notice me spying on you."

Rossy's eyes darted back and forth, frantically searching for an Escape button to shut her down. All she managed to do was close out the chat window without reading the message. "I, uh...".

"Listen, I know what I saw," Millie insisted gravely, leaning across the table to push her face closer to Rossy's. "If you're totally trolling me, just tell me."

Rossy felt her fingers twitching, panic crippling her cybernetics as her brain worked overtime to come up with a response. "...it's...okay, it's not what you think it is...".

"Good, because I have no idea what the hell I DO think it is," came the reply, doused in Millie-brand salt-and-vinegar sarcasm. "All I know is what I saw, and I just want an answer."

Rossy's mouth opened and closed a few times as she stalled for words.

She halted completely when Millie placed a hand atop her own. "It's okay, I'm not mad or anything. I promise not to call you crazy either, okay? Even if you are."

It was all she could do to nod timidly.

Not breaking eye contact, Millie nodded back. "Okay, I'm gonna ask again, plain and simple...why the hell did I see you shoving batteries in your mouth?"

Rossy was petrified. She should have been laughing; out of context, the question sounded like it had come straight out of a game of Mad-Libs. But here, in an intimate moment with her new friend, having been caught red-handed, and with the voice in her head screaming at her to get out of there, the question had her paralyzed in fear.

...and yet, for all the terror that had seized her mind, she found herself unable to tear away from Millie's expectant, almost hypnotic gaze. The look in her eyes demanded, calmly, that she speak.

So she did.

"...yeah, I was eating batteries."

The words had been spoken into existence, and the earth continued to rotate on its axis silently.

She waited.

Millie held her gaze for another moment, then finally blinked, nodded vaguely, then raised a brow, her eyes searching Rossy's for more information. "...okay, so what the fuck, then?"

Reality became real again and her brain resumed processing. She frowned back. "...it's rude to spy on people, you know."

"What? I wasn't doing it on purpose," Millie replied with a shrug, pulling back to her seat slowly. "Spying, I mean. I don't go out of my way to spy, I'm just a natural people-watcher."

Rossy stared levelly back at her. "...not much of an excuse, is it?"

"You're right, it's not an excuse at all." Millie finally finished the contents of one of her two drinks. "You have to be sorry you did it in the first place for it to be an excuse."

Blink. "...and you're not?"

Millie cocked her head to one side. "I mean, no offense, but you WERE doing it in public."

"I was in the bathroom!" Rossy wailed, then zipped her lips, somewhat mortified.

New message.

IN THE BATHR00M? I LEAVE Y0U F0R TEN MINUTES AND Y0U RECHARGE Y0URSELF IN A PUBLIC BATHR00M? C0ME 0N R0SSY, Y0U KN0W BETTER THAN THAT.

"So was I," Millie shrugged again. Then she let herself get serious again. "Listen, I'm not trying to get you in trouble or anything. I just want to know if you're...okay? Like, what the fuck?"

It took Rossy a moment to adjust to the coolness in her eyes, the concern in her voice. The Millie she had grown to know was one hundred percent sarcastic and carefree, but this Millie sounded very genuine, maybe even cautious. She was speaking honestly, and asking only for honesty in return.

New message.

D0N'T TELL HER, R0SIE. I KN0W SHE'S PRETTY, BUT THE LESS SHE KN0WS, THE BETTER.

She felt her mouth open and close again. She knew the voice in her head was probably right, but she couldn't stand the thought of lying to Millie, especially not here and now, in this special moment they were sharing together. Her fingers slowly unclenched.

...I'm out of options, huh? Rossy felt her defenses softening up. She says I don't have to tell her anything, but she's backed me into a corner and I can't dance around the question anymore. She knows what a lie sounds like and she's not gonna accept any more of them. Guess that's what I get for trying to out-dance a dancer...

Mentally, she took a deep breath. "...look, I'm fine, I'm just...".

She couldn't break away from those eyes.

"...I'm a cyborg."

And for the second time that night, the words that should never be spoken had been spoken into existence, and once again, though time felt like it had stopped flowing altogether, the world around her continued spinning...

And then time flowed again when Millie broke that silence. "...so...?"

Rossy's eyes darted left, then back center. "...so that's, uh...that's why I was eating batteries. Because I'm a cyborg. Like, I don't have an actual stomach, it's just this...energy receptacle kinda thing that keeps my body charged--"

"--but that's it?" Millie cut in, one brow strangely furrowed. "That's your big secret?"

Again, Rossy's eyes shifted left, then returned center. It was her turn to raise a brow. "...yes? I'm...not a normal human, Millie! I'm more silicone and circuits than flesh and blood! I've just...I've been trying to keep it under wraps and not make a big deal out of it."

"Then DON'T," Millie replied plainly, leaning back in her chair. Then, realizing her tone, she quickly followed up, "...what I mean is...I don't think it's that big a deal. None of us are gonna care if you're a robot or whatever, it doesn't have to be as big a secret as you think it does."

"Cyborg, not robot," she corrected her, with a curt slicing motion. "And, uh...yeah, it kinda IS a big deal, depending who you ask. Didn't you just say people around here were close-minded?"

"Well, PEOPLE are close-minded, but I meant PEOPLE-people, not people like me," Millie continued, rolling her neck until she heard a satisfying crack. "I don't care if you're a rob--er, sorry, cyborg, I mean. Honestly, I would have preferred to know earlier, so I didn't have to worry you were trying to commit suicide or something by swallowing a goddamn battery."

"...actually, it was a whole pack of them," Rossy replied sheepishly.

Millie blinked, impressed. "...damn, girl."

"And anyway," Rossy added, sharpening her tone, "...i-it's not like this is something I could just tell you up front, like, 'hey, I like your dance moves, also I'm a biomechanical freak of technology so don't be surprised if you catch me eating batteries sometimes'."

"How's that work, anyway?"

"Well, my stomach's where my rechargeable battery is, and it's equipped with a system that transfers energy between any battery I put into it and my own system battery," she answered matter-of-factly, as if giving a science lecture or a tour guide speech. "...but, anyway let's not get too far off-topic."

She saw Millie's mouth open to deliver some automatic sarcastic counter-attack, and cut her off. "And before you ask, yes, that means after the charge is transferred, I shit out the battery. I know, ha ha, it's SO funny."

"I didn't say ANYTHING," Millie pouted, hiding a grin behind her other glass. "Sorry, I'm probably getting a little tipsy now and everything is funny to me."

Rossy sighed and nodded, fondly remembering the pleasant feeling of being tipsy. "Well...I guess if nothing else, I'm glad you're being so cool about this. Thanks for not threatening to call the police, or tattling to Sergey."

From across the room, in the kitchen, she heard a gruff voice respond: "Like I didn't already know."

She snorted. Well shit, was I really THAT obvious?

"I don't think I've ever called the police in my entire life," Millie followed up, then gestured across the table. "They're useless anyway. Far as I'm concerned, around here you ARE the police."

That finally got another brief chuckle from Rossy.

"Imagine me calling the police because I found out you were a rob--I mean a cyborg, and I said I was worried you might blow up or something stupid like that," she added, once again tugging her dress back into place with a hearty jiggle. "You may be a weirdo, but I damn sure wasn't kidding when I said you're family now."

A new message appeared in her notifications tray, but Rossy brushed it away and managed to give her the other half of the smile she owed.

"You can be as private as you want to," Millie carried on, pushing her second empty glass to the center of the table. "Just know that you don't HAVE to be. Nobody here is gonna judge you. You know why?"

Rossy stared back at her intently.

"Look around you and tell me where we are."

She took a moment to scan the room from left to right. "...in a bar?"

"Keep going," Millie gestured, rolling her wrist. "Tell me more."

Frowning, Rossy dug for more details. "...a bar in a strip club?"

"Erotic boutique," Sergey corrected her from the kitchen.

"Whatever."

Millie placed a hand firmly on the table between them and continued, more seriously now. "And now look at the two of us, and tell me WHO we are."

This time Rossy took a moment before responding. She used the opportunity to run her eyes up and down Millie's body, then looked down at her own hands, flexing each finger in turn before returning to those deep, compelling eyes...

"Outcasts," Millie cut in again before she could reply. "We're two women having drinks together in a strip club. You're a machine, I'm a whore, the dancers are all gossipers and runaways, and our boss is an enigma who says he keeps a loaded shotgun behind the counter at all times."

Strangely, Sergey didn't respond to that one.

"...my point is," she concluded, extending an upturned palm across the table toward Rossy, "...whoever you are, whatever you are...we don't care. People out there will hate us for being ourselves because they fear what they don't understand. But we don't do that in here. We treat each other with the respect that we don't get from the world. That's why we call ourselves a family. Because if nobody else will take us in...".

She took Rossy's hand in her own.

"...then we need to be the ones who will."

And for the third time that night, the flow of time came to a complete halt. Rossy felt each of her limbs detach completely, as if the electronic highways connecting her brain to each of her respective motorized joints had simply shut down altogether. Adrift in her own mind, she felt like the world around her was already becoming its own memory. And all she could do in this moment was exercise the only muscles that still worked. She broke into a slow smile.

Mechanical engineers and marketing artists the world over have been at odds for centuries over a long-standing feud between form and function. When a machine needs to perform a very precise movement, the engineer prefers to create it using a size and shape that best fits the machine's intended function, usually relying on basic geometry to keep the mechanics of it as simple as possible. The marketing artist, however, prefers the machine take a specific shape first, to focus on the correct presentation before worrying about the underlying mechanics. Most designs opt for a happy medium, discarding form where function is needed, and leaving out function where form will suffice. In the case of Robots, Androids, and Cyborgs, form and function must coexist in extremely delicate balances to achieve the machine's desired effect.

This is why Robots don't have faces, Androids don't have genitals, and Cyborgs can't cry.

"...okay, you're now free to burst into tears and hold me tightly as I press your head gently to my bosom and run my fingers through your hair and make soft shushing noises back at you," Millie offered quietly, with a wink.

Rossy fell back into herself and gave her a consigned look. "...I would, but I can't cry."

Millie tsked. "Too big and tough to shed a tear during a moment of tender intimacy?"

"Noooo," she explained, stretching the word as she gestured vaguely to the room around her. "I mean, like...my eyes are cybernetic. I'm physically incapable of crying."

"...oh." Millie tilted her head like a curious cat. "Damn, even your eyes? How much of a cyborg are you, anyway?"

"97 percent," she recalled from memory before realizing she probably shouldn't have. A new message in her notifications tray confirmed that.

"97?" Millie repeated incredulously. "...holy shit."

"Tell me about it."

She nodded back and finally released her hand, looking down to marvel at how real it looked and felt. "Or maybe you could tell ME about it sometime. When you're comfortable, of course."

Mind still adrift, Rossy simply replied back, "...yeah, maybe sometime I will."

There was a part of her that dared to argue that such information was classified and that she shouldn't be sharing it with anyone, let alone an erotic dancer she'd only met a few weeks ago. No matter how pretty she was, or how much of a connection it felt like they'd already made, it was simply too risky to get anyone else involved in her mysterious backstory.

...but that doesn't mean we can't still be together in the here and now, she added mentally. Voice In My Head can go fuck himself.

Against her better judgement, she opened the message and skimmed over it.

GETTING A BIT C0ZY, AREN'T WE? WELL. I GUESS Y0U'RE ALRIGHT F0R N0W. BUT C0NSIDER Y0URSELF LUCKY. I HAD MY FINGER 0N THE KILL SWITCH THIS WH0LE TIME, JUST IN CASE THINGS WENT S0UTH. D0N'T Y0U EVER F0RGET THAT I HAVE THAT P0WER.

She felt a shudder ripple down her mechanical spine. Well, THOUGHT she felt it, anyway.

"Well I'll be looking forward to unraveling your deep dark past, then," Millie announced, pulling herself to her feet and pushing her chair in. "Thanks for indulging me tonight."

"Aww, time to go already?" Rossy politely stood up to join her.

Millie's brow shot up. "Rossy, it's nearly one-thirty in the morning. I may be young, but even I have a bedtime, you know."

"I don't," she replied with a smirk.

She watched Millie's eye scan her from bottom to top. "...by choice, or by programming?"

"...both, I guess?" was the only answer she could decide on.

"Good to know." Millie nodded, as if pleased with this answer. She made her way over to the other side of the table and opened her arms. "Well if you can't cry it out, then at least come here and hug it out."

She didn't need to be asked twice. Never one to turn down the opportunity for sappy romance, Rossy graciously stepped into the first human embrace she'd had since her new life as a Cyborg had begun.

And it felt...somehow incomplete.

Gifted with human-like skin, but no sense of touch, Rossy wasn't sure what her skin felt like to Organic humans. She assumed it was like rubber or teflon; a decent substitute, but any Organic could probably tell the difference right away.

And then on the other hand, while Rossy could perceive the body pressed against hers, it felt like she wasn't FEELING her. Touch, in her experience, was about more than just directly sensing the other person's presence. She couldn't feel the warmth of Millie's body, the tickle of her breath against her neck, the beat of her heart, the press of her breasts...without a sense of touch, it looked like a hug, but just didn't feel like one.

And when Millie finally pulled herself free, it felt like falling asleep and missing the sunrise.

"Alright, well, thanks again for the chat," Millie said pleasantly, pushing her hair behind her ear, blissfully unaware of what was being missed. "I'll be looking forward to our next date."

Rossy managed a smile. In spite of the incomplete hug, the looming presence of the voice in her head, and the sinking terror over having spilled her deepest secrets...there was something about Millie...something in her tone. Nonchalant. Seamless. Witty.

Something about her just seemed to take the edge off those fears.

"Yeah, I can't wait," Rossy agreed, ignoring the red light in the corner of her vision as she watched her unofficial girlfriend walk out the front door and into the sharp chill of the winter evening. And no matter how hard she thought about moving them, her facial muscles remained locked in a state of smiling that she simply couldn't undo.