A Construct in a Box: Plot - I'm a Person!

K80 tottered on his new legs through the lab, avoiding the coils of wires and piles of equipment. He didn’t usually have to avoid such things, flying easily over them, but he had a new body now. A body with legs and arms and a voice box and a mouth to smile with and everything! He loved his little construct body, especially after a long day of senses that he was still new too, but he adored this one. It was wonderful to just open his mouth and speak like his father did. It was incredible to walk and hold things. Amazing to sit down and don’t get him started on having five fingers! It was all so wonderful! 

K80 was still a little unsteady on his feet at times, but he didn’t let that stop him or slow him down from helping his father out in the lab. 

Hyden was working at his set up of computers. K80 was actually born out of that computer, and he loved seeing his father working at it, creating other incredible feats of technology, code, and magic. 

“Dad! I have the hydrocore,” K80 said, stumbling over and putting the heavy piece of equipment down. 

Hyden finished up what he was working on quickly and looked over at his son. “Perfect! It wasn’t too heavy, was it K80?”

“Nope,” K80 said as he turned it so it would be oriented correctly for Hyden to plug it in. “It should be perfect once I get a better hang of walking. Do you need me to grab anything else?”

“No, I don’t think so. Could you read through my start up code, actually. I want to make sure it’s all ready to go to show my visitor when he gets here.”

K80 nodded, switching places with Hyden as he pulled the keyboard to himself, his fantastic new fingers hovering over the buttons as he read through the code. He reached up and tightened his ribbon cables in their binding, reading and stopping occasionally to check something here and there, cleaning up the code where it was a little messed up or where there was a typo. 

“Done,” K80 said, pushing the keyboard back and turning, only to find that Hyden had disappeared into one of the other rooms while he was distracted. 

K80 shrugged to himself and stretched, moving to take a lap around the room, practicing walking around when he heard the doorbell. 

“I’ll get it!” he called to let his father know before heading through the rooms to the greeting room, clean and well decorated. K80 smiled at the picture of himself and his father on the mantle, newly taken and placed there as soon as he had his new body and figured out how to smile. 

K80 glanced at the camera feed that showed the visitor outside. It was the man his father was waiting for, a paper demon by the name of Undeer Kiligan. He was a rather rich man and from what K80 understood he was here to commission Hyden for a project. Something to do with new software magic for his ships. 

K80 opened the door, flashing his new smile as he did so. 

“Hello, Mr. Kiligan. My father is busy in the back. Come in.”

The paperdemon looked K80 over, brow wrinkling. He hummed and brushed past K80. 

K80 didn’t have to keep his emotion off of his face since he still wasn’t used to having a face at all, but still annoyed by the way rich people always seemed to act. K80 closed the door and opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Undeer said, “Go get your master, android. And bring me a drink.”

K80 snapped his mouth closed, shocked by the rude way the man had spoken. As though K80 was a broomba. 

“Um, I’ll go get my dad, then,” K80 said. He hoped that would give Undeer the right hint. 

He just got another weird look so K80 retreated back into the rooms, looking for his dad. K80 wandered through the rooms for a while, unable to figure out where Hyden had gone, so he eventually wandered back to the front room where Undeer was looking around and picking up the memorabilia to examine. 

K80 cleared his throat (a new trick he thought made him sound mature) and said, “I can’t find him right now. I’m sure he heard the bell, though, so he should be out soon. What do you want to drink? I think we have-”

“Bourbon is fine,” Undeer said, cutting K80 off. “Goodness, Dr. Toma really is eccentric. You are the most annoying android I’ve ever encountered.”

K80’s jaw dropped this time. “What?”

Undeer rolled his eyes. “Go, android. Do not worry about it.”

“I am not an android!” K80 said, still shocked and startled. He’d never had someone talk to him like this. Wasn’t it clear he wasn’t just a set of code? Sure, he was AI, but he was a person. He had likes and dislikes and he got angry and he fought against his code just like organic people had to fight against their biology and emotions. He was a person!

“I don’t care whatever fancy name or coding you were programmed with. You are just an Android,” the paperdemon said, getting angry now. “Just go get me that drink you stupid thing!”

“How dare you!?” K80 shouted, growing angry himself. “What do you know!? I’m-”

The paperdemon stepped forward, grabbing K80 by the arm and forcing him around, holding his head by his ribbon cables. 

“There’s got to be an off switch around here somewhere,” Undeer grumbled, fingers probing over K80’s neck and pulling back his shirt to check if it was on his upper back. 

“LET GO OF ME!” K80 shrieked, struggling against the much taller man. 

“Stupid thing,” Undeer growled. “Where would Dr. Toma put that button. Surely somewhere accessible with how annoying you are.”

“I don’t have one! Leave me alone!” K80 demanded, reaching up to try and pry Undeer’s hand off of his cables. When the man switched from holding his cables to grabbing that wrist too, K80 screamed. “DAD!!! DAD HELP!”

K80 heard Hyden come running as Undeer threw K80 on the floor. 

Hyden came around the corner, taking in the scene with a thunderous rage on his face. 

“Undeer! What are you doing!?”

“Your android is violent and defective,” Undeer said, annoyed. “It-”

“That is my son you IDIOT!” Hyden yelled, scooping K80 up off the floor and back onto his feet, holding him to his chest. “Get out! I won’t have any dealings with you, you hear me!?”

“You can’t be serious,” Undeer chuckled nervously. “It’s just an android. I know you’ve been pretending that it-”

“By the portals! How stupid are you?” Hyden snapped as K80 trembled against him, face buried in his father’s chest. “Get out!”

Undeer spluttered for a long moment before turning and storming out, slamming the door closed behind himself. 

Hyden watched him go through the video feed for a moment before turning his full attention to K80. 

“Are you hurt? What did he do?”

K80 sniffled, wiping at his eyes, well equipped with tear ducts. “He was ordering me around and called me annoying. I t-tried telling him I’m not an android and he tried to turn me off.”

“Are you hurt?” Hyden asked, concerned, running a hand over K80’s head, neck, and back to check for damage since he knew that was where most androids had their off buttons. 

“We should check my arm. And my-my cables,” K80 said, reaching up to see if the cables were still attached properly. With how hard he was jerked around, he was worried they were damaged. 

“Okay, I’m so sorry, my boy,” Hyden said, leading K80 gently through the rooms back to the lab, his hooves gently clicking against the floor. “I’m so sorry. I was out fixing one of the antenna.”

Hyden lifted K80 up onto a table to sit and handed K80 a cable to plug in himself to check his internal diagnostics. 

K80 took it and attached it to one of his ribbon cables, rubbing his face and trying to get his pump to quit racing. 

“Why did he do that?” K80 asked finally as Hyden pulled up the diagnostics on his computer. “I thought I made it clear I am a person.”

“I know, K80. Some people are going to think you’re just a clever set of code,” Hyden sighed. “They don’t realize how much research I put into making you an actual person. You wouldn’t believe how long it took to find the right spells that would give you a soul, and not just a recycled soul from the nearest dead guy.”

K80 laughed a little at the thought. He knew how long it took. He had access to his father’s records while he was building K80. K80 was a 30 year project in the making, and he only developed a consciousness about 15 years ago, most of which he’d spent inside a computer. 

“I’ll have to figure out how to convince them then, hmm.”

“Yes. And I’ll be there to help you out,” Hyden said, pausing in his typing to smile softly at his son. “After all, you are my son.”

K80 smiled, finally relaxing. “I love you, dad.”

“I love you too, dear boy.”