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She flickers online inside a cramped space, with a strange creature before-- beside-- no, under her. It makes a strange sound as she unfolds, and she nearly bumps her head against the ceiling of wherever she is.
It is tiny and filled with things, including something that she at first thinks is a deactivated frame, but a quick scan shows is merely a vehicle of… wherever she is. She knows its a vehicle of some kind. She isn’t sure how.
The creature- organic, she thinks -sits frozen on the floor where she had previously been standing. She takes a careful step away, because organics go squish and she doesn’t want that. An awful mess, making your bolts rust if you didn’t clean it all off.
How did she know that?
“What are you?” the creature breathes, standing up, and she narrows her optics and clenches her fist. It’s tiny, it’s no threat, and yet… there is something. Something she knows, but forgot.
Human, she decides. The creature before her is a human. But that is not what dances around at the edges of her mind, and she goes to speak.
No words comes out, only a strange buzzing sound, and she reaches one servo up to touch her throat. It feels torn, but not like something was ripped out. More like it was scratched, like dragging claws across a datadisc. That is troubling. That is bad.
“Can’t speak?” the human wonders, and it’s a male, with dark skin and blue eyes and yellow streaks through his black hair. She wonders if it’s natural, for humans, to develop stripes and streaks and spots. It does fit the one before her.
She shakes her head and crouches low, careful to make sure she doesn’t knock anything down. All the things around her are so small, and she doesn’t- she doesn’t know where she is or what to do. But it feels important to stay, for now. It’s hidden.
It’s important to hide.
That feels very important to remember. But then a fleshy servo reaches up to her, and she narrows her optics once more, suspicious. She still lets it do it, however, a soft, warm servo pressing against her face.
There is… something, in that tiny face. Awe, perhaps. It’s a good something, whatever it is. She relaxes and presses into it.
“Do you have a name? Sorry, that’s- fuck, that’s dumb of me to ask,” the human mutters to himself- it is a he, something tells her- “Would you mind if I gave you one? Feels better than calling you a- a robot, or some shit like that.”
Robot is an insult. Yeah, she would prefer a name. Fuck.
Fuck sounds incredibly satisfying to say. She wishes she could say it, but for now she can only think it, and she nods at the human to proceed.
He wrinkles his- his nose? His nose at her, which is oddly adorable. She suddenly has to battle the urge to hold him close and coo and pet him. He is clearly sentient, so that would make it rude. As fuck. She really likes that word- better than scrap, slag, frag. Fuck. It has a bite to it, like- like- like something she is meant to know--
“Charlie?” he suggests, gentle, dropping his hand to scratch at the back of his neck, “It’s pretty neutral, right? Boy, girl, I don’t- I got no clue what you are. Maybe you’re neither,” he muses, and then blinks and pats his chest, which is a strange gesture all on its own.
“I’m Bee. Well, people call me Bee. My real name is Benjamin, but don’t- just don’t. Just call me Bee. If- I mean, wow, I keep- I keep forgetting. Just. Bee. Is Charlie okay?”
Charlie nods, and wishes she could smile the way Bee does to her. His voice went a bit squeaky at the end there, and her fingers twitch as she stops herself from scooping him up.
Instead she lets her EM fields wrap around him, hoping he can sense her gratitude through it all.
Bee shivers, but his smile remains, and Charlie relaxes and settles down, ready to learn and respond as the tiny human begins to ask and explain.
Whoever or wherever she is, at least for now, Charlie feels safe.
And puzzled by the fact that organics can apparently make some beautiful smiles.