Archive of Our Own

STARTUP PROTOCOL INITIATIED.

RUNNING DIAGNOSTICS SCAN…

RUNNING STARTUP CHECK…

RUNNING ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN…

INITIAL SCANS COMPLETE.

SAFE TO STARTUP.

WELCOME: HUANG RENJUN.

The first visual he processes upon activation is the sheet of metal directly in his optical field. When he sits up, he recognises that the metal is the ceiling of a wide room—the walls, floor, and table he’s sat on are all made of metal. Everything shines under bright lightbulbs, and he recalibrates his optical lenses to adjust to the glare.

The room must be a laboratory. There’s no one else in here with him, but there is a voice coming from an adjacent room. He’s wearing a paper gown like that of a hospital patient, and it rustles when he stands from the table, but he moves as quietly as possible by taking slow steps and proceeding with caution—there is a reason his protocol has been activated, and he must understand it to complete it. The nearest detectable form of human life is a sufficient starting place.

“I need more enhanced steel, and more cast iron,” the voice is saying. “Plenty more. And new coaxial cables, and a dozen more micro-HDDs, and if we’re talking materials in general then a new chair wouldn’t go amiss too, this current one is breaking my back. Yeah, I’m definitely getting closer to a working prototype, but it’s hard to say when it’ll… no, you can tell the Institute that I’ll be in contact with them whenever it’s ready to show. No, I really can’t give a date, it’s all super experimental and you know the deadline had to be pushed anyway. Everything’s going slower now. No it’s okay. Yeah, thanks. I really need those microchips the most, though. Okay. Thank you. Bye.”

Renjun watches from the doorway as the man swipes the call away from his screen and sits back with a sigh, running his hand through his hair. Renjun recognises his voice and his side profile; he is Na Jaemin, the man who built and helped program Renjun. He doesn’t have much data about Jaemin other than that, but in a fundamental part of his code he understands that he can trust Na Jaemin.

“Jaemin?” he asks from the doorway, and Jaemin jerks in his seat, turning to stare at Renjun. “Did you ask for me?”

Jaemin stands slowly, mouth slightly open. He doesn’t say anything as he approaches Renjun, keeping his eyes trained on him like one would approach an unknown variable. Like how Renjun had approached Jaemin’s voice—slowly, cautiously, focused on understanding the target.

“Renjun?” he says at last, when he’s standing a foot in front of him, eyes scanning over Renjun’s physical frame. “You—you’re awake? You’re not supposed to be awake yet...”

Jaemin looks like he has not had sufficient sleep in some time. Perhaps this is why Renjun’s protocol was activated, but he cannot confirm it as a priority concern without further information.

“I am online,” Renjun confirms. “My Startup Protocol was initiated. What do you need?”

“I didn’t initiate it,” Jaemin says, still staring at him. “Who initiated it?”

Renjun doesn’t understand the question, and tilts his head slightly. “My Startup Protocol was initiated,” he says. “You were the only human in detectable range when I was activated. I am online for you.” He smiles to set Jaemin at ease, and a playful tone runs through his vocal processor. “What do you want from me?”

Jaemin takes a step back, looking slightly stunned. “God,” he mutters. “I wasn’t as prepared for this as I thought.”

“What are you unprepared for? I can help you.”

“It’s alright, I just… I need you to tell me about yourself, first thing. You know who I am?”

“You are Na Jaemin. You are my primary engineer and secondary programmer.”

“And do you know who you are?”

“I am Huang Renjun. I am a Life Model Decoy. My primary function is to help those in need, and to protect those I am aligned to. My Startup Protocol was initiated. Is there someone in need of help or protection?”

Jaemin smiles then, and it is particularly wide for a human who was so concerned only seconds ago. “Oh, wow. You really are working. You look amazing, Renjun.”

“Thank you, Jaemin,” he says, and his voice sounds pleased, a coy little inflection programmed into his vocal pattern. He smiles again to match it. “You look like you need a nap.”

Jaemin laughs, then clutches Renjun’s shoulders and pulls him into a hug. Renjun hugs him back, because he detects it is what Jaemin wants. “You’re really here,” he says into the plating of Renjun’s shoulder. “It worked.”

“My Startup Protocol was initiated,” Renjun agrees. “You must really need my help.”

Jaemin laughs again, and Renjun detects a quick heart rate in his chest. Not quick to a dangerous extent, he calculates, but rather excitement that Renjun is here. He recognises this as another potential way to fulfil his protocol directive— by continuing to please Jaemin. “I missed you so much, Renjun.”

“Why have you missed me? Have I been activated previously?” He doesn’t have any data of previous activation. Perhaps his drive was wiped, or perhaps he’s been upgraded.

“Ah,” Jaemin says, and his smile fades. “Sort of.”

His sensors detect a drop in Jaemin’s mood. He must not ask such questions again.

“Don’t worry about that,” Jaemin says before he can respond, and Renjun files matters of his previous activation to the bottom of his priority directives. “Right now we have to run like, a zillion tests. You up for that?”

“Of course,” he says, his voice taking on that inflection again, casual and friendly. Jaemin must have programmed his humanoid aspects to act as if he were a friend rather than a machine. It makes Jaemin smile, so it is a satisfactory programming decision in line with his directives. “Though you must do something for me after our excessive number of tests.”

“Oh yeah?” Jaemin asks, wide smile back again now. “And what’s that?”

Renjun presses his thumbs gently into the skin under Jaemin’s eyes, palms cupping his face. Jaemin’s heart rate elevates again. “You must get some sufficient sleep. My statement earlier was only partially humorous. You need more than a nap.”

“Alright,” Jaemin says quietly, cradling his palm against the back of Renjun’s hand. “I suppose if you’re there, I might be able to sleep for a while.”

Renjun smiles. “Then I will be there.”

-

He sits patiently on the metal table for the rest of the day as they run tests together. Jaemin keeps busy with tinkering at Renjun’s parts and rifling through sheets of code, but many of the tests consist of checking his established knowledge with questions; if he knows what speed of light is, or what sound a cow makes, or where they are, who they work for.

“I am not sure about that one,” he answers. “If you allow me to scan all local files, I can attempt to obtain more information about this place.”

“You can scan anything you want,” Jaemin tells him. “If it will help you understand things better, you’re free to download any information you have access to. Keep an eye on your storage, though.”

“Understood,” he affirms, linking into the local network as he speaks. Much of the data on Jaemin’s private network is about Renjun as a prototype LMD, so he prioritises the information on the Institute first, though it is not so comprehensive as to give him full clarity.

“You work for the Institute. It is an organisation dedicated to handling government affairs and protecting state secrets. Much information on the Institute is redacted on a need-to-know basis. I also—” Renjun cuts off as he attempts to categorise the data being processed about himself. This new information does not align with the fundamental data he has already stored about his functions and core directives. “I also work for the institute. Or I did.” He tilts his head and looks at Jaemin. “Can you clarify?”

Jaemin is watching him closely. “Why do you think you are here, Renjun?”

“I am here to fulfil my protocols,” he says. “Primarily to protect and help those who need it.”

“Is that what you’re doing right now?”

“Yes,” he replies. “I am still missing vital data, but as I understand it, I am here to help you. I am running all the tests you ask of me in order to make you happy.”

Jaemin sits back in his chair. “Then do you know what my purpose is? Why I’m doing this?”

Renjun takes several seconds to process the rest of the data on himself as Jaemin’s prototype. There are thousands of files, many of which build up his code, many more of blueprints and plans and carefully calculated documents. Jaemin has been trying to build him for some time—or according to the data, Jaemin and Renjun have been trying to build him for some time.

“You are here to work on me. I am your project from the Institute,” he says. “To make a working prototype LMD.”

Jaemin bites his lip, and spins in his chair to face his screens again. “You’re correct.”

“This makes my protocol directive straightforward,” he says, as the new information is filed into his database. “I am to make you happy, and you are happy that I run well. We make a good team.”

Jaemin bites his lip harder for a moment. “Yeah, baby. You bet we do.”

-

Jaemin is initially reluctant to take him out of the laboratory that night, but reminding him of Renjun’s promise to accompany him to bed is enough to change his mind. They step very quietly down the stairs into the apartment below, Jaemin holding his hand the whole way.

“No one ever disturbs us in the lab,” he explains as he changes his clothes. “Our work is too secret. But other people come into the apartment sometimes, and I don’t want anyone else to know about you yet.”

“Not until I’m complete?”

“Yeah, not until then.” He pulls some pyjamas out from a different drawer and hands them to Renjun. “Do you want to get changed too?”

“Yes. I will get changed.” It is clearly what Jaemin wants, and he was created to make Jaemin happy. The clothes are more practical than the paper gown, anyway—they are not so loud when he moves.

Jaemin goes to the bathroom while Renjun changes, and when he re-enters the room his heart rate elevates again. Perhaps a reaction to seeing his change of clothes—or perhaps it is the framed photograph in Renjun’s hands. He and Jaemin are in it, and he is smiling almost as wide as Jaemin himself, their faces pressed together.

He places the photograph back carefully. He will not enquire about his past activation with Jaemin. The photograph has been stored in his database for later analysis.

“Will you sleep with me?” Jaemin asks.

“I only have a performative capacity for sleep cycles,” Renjun answers. “And my sexual intimacy protocols are not complete. But I will lay with you, if it will help you rest.”

“Yes,” Jaemin breathes out. “That’s what I’m asking.”

Renjun lays by his side for several nights. Jaemin is a restless sleeper, but he likes to hold Renjun, and Renjun holds him back. He cannot sleep, but he shutters his optical lenses and processes information, runs calculations, downloads data. He continues to learn because it will make Jaemin happy. Over the course of the next three nights, he links into the worldwide network and downloads terabytes upon terabytes of data on a wide range of subjects. Though the data teaches him much about the world, it does not bring him any closer to understanding who Huang Renjun is.

-

Jaemin discovers the reason for his Startup Protocol initiation on their sixth day of tests.

“Renjun, you bastard,” he mutters to himself, viewing a section of Renjun’s code on his monitor.

“Did I do something wrong?” he asks, sat on the metal table again. He’s wearing regular clothing now, has been since the first night. Jaemin tells him to take any clothes he wants out of the drawers on the right-hand side of the bedroom, so he does. All these clothes are a size smaller than Jaemin’s—perfect for his frame.

“Oh, no, not you—” Jaemin says, half turning in his chair. “It’s just that—look, I found the reason you activated out of nowhere. You weren’t totally finished, but finished enough to function, and that’s good enough for your Startup Protocol. It dictates that you should come online of your own accord if you detect that someone you’re aligned to is in need of help. I’m not sure what exactly you detected to trigger it, but the point is that I didn’t even need to push the switch to activate you—you got there first.” He turns back to look up at Renjun. “In all senses.”

He knew that was part of his code. He did not realise that was what Jaemin was asking him six days ago. “Yes,” he says. “Didn’t you program the self-activation into my code?”

He and Jaemin look at each other for a few seconds. “Renjun,” Jaemin starts slowly. “What did you say I am to you?”

“You are my primary engineer,” he replies. “And my secondary programmer.”

“Secondary is too kind. I just filled in a few gaps here and there. Most of my work has been with your physical body. Do you know who your primary programmer is?”

He does know, but he doesn’t understand the information. He didn’t mention it because Jaemin is sensitive about matters of his previous activation. “My primary programmer is Huang Renjun,” he replies, without elaboration.

Jaemin nods. “Yeah. That’s right. I didn’t know this protocol was here because I didn’t write it in.”

There’s another pause. “I didn’t write it in either,” he replies.

“I know,” Jaemin says, swinging around in his chair again, hiding his face from Renjun. “I know you didn’t.”

Renjun does not understand.

-

On the seventh day of his activation, Jaemin takes him into the apartment after only a few hours of work in the laboratory.

“Today we’re going to test your domestic capabilities,” Jaemin tells him, clapping his hands together. “The goal of this whole project is to make you as much like a real person as possible, right? So we’re here, in the apartment—what do you think we should do first?”

Renjun looks around the living room. It looks like it has not been used for its intended function in some time.

“This place needs to be cleaned,” he says. “And tidied. Then it will be time for your lunch break. If you have the ingredients, I will make a meal.”

Jaemin is smiling at him. Renjun’s data on human attraction informs him that Jaemin is quite handsome. “Sounds good to me. I’ll go and get us some ingredients from the kitchens if you want to get started in here.”

Jaemin leaves the apartment and Renjun tracks him until he disappears into another section of the building, further than his sensors will reach. He is gone for approximately twelve minutes, and in that time Renjun picks up the discarded papers and old wrappers from Jaemin’s floor and surfaces, discarding the obvious trash and leaving the rest for Jaemin to sort through. Then he scans the apartment for technology, hoping to discover the location of Jaemin’s RoomVac and wipers. He finds them in a cupboard in the bathroom—two new models that are capable of working efficiently without him. He sets them to work on the windows and carpets right as Jaemin arrives back.

“Wow, you’re fast,” he says, placing a few small bags on his kitchen island. “What are you thinking of making?”

“What would you like me to make?”

“Let’s start simple, yeah? How do you feel about spaghetti?”

“Spaghetti,” Renjun affirms, retrieving the recipe from his data on common human meals. It is simple. He will make it as accurately as possible to make Jaemin happy. “I can do that.”

“Great,” Jaemin says, beginning to sort the spare ingredients into his cooler and cupboards. “Do you need me to tell you where things are?”

He scans the kitchen. He can find the utensils easily. “No, thank you.”

Renjun measures everything out precisely, focused on his task as the two of them work side by side. As he’s setting the sauce to heat, his sensors alert him that someone is approaching the apartment—he’s been able to sense people moving around in further parts of the building before, but not many come in the direction of Jaemin’s laboratory/apartment complex.

“There is someone approaching your apartment,” he says calmly, turning the pan down to simmer as he predicts Jaemin’s next instructions.

“Oh, shit,” Jaemin says. “Can you go into the bedroom and not make a sound for me? I’ll deal with this real quick.”

Renjun assesses everything is safe to leave unattended before he walks towards the bedroom without a word. He’s shutting the door quietly behind him just as the knock at the front door comes.

“Jaemin?” a voice through the door says. “It’s just me, the kitchens sent me. They said you were looking for garlic earlier and some just came in, so I brought it up for you.”

He can hear Jaemin breathe in, heart rate elevating slightly as he opens the door. “Thanks, Jeno.”

Renjun tracks Jeno on his sensors as he walks inside, bag in hand. “They sent me with a few other things too, you know what the cooks are like. I think they’re excited that you’re cooking again. Which, by the way, since when was that happening?”

“What are you talking about? I cook all the time.”

“Well, not really. I haven’t seen you cook since…”

Jeno trails off, leaving a silence between them. His sensors show Jeno and Jaemin looking at each other.

“It’s not a bad thing,” Jeno says, softer. “I’m happy to hear it. Is there a special occasion?”

Jaemin’s fingers curl into his palms. “Made a breakthrough on my project, I suppose.”

“That’s really good!” Jeno says, coming to Jaemin’s side and hugging him. Jaemin holds him back loosely. “Hey, congratulations!”

Renjun sits quietly on Jaemin’s bed, running through some of his worldwide data. There’s a high chance that the Jeno in Jaemin’s living room is Lee Jeno, son of the High General Lee Jinki. His voice and stature match the recordings Renjun has downloaded from the worldwide network, but he would need to see his face clearly to confirm it. How interesting that he and Jaemin are friends, considering Jaemin’s role here. A gap remains in his understanding of the purpose of this building that Jaemin lives and works in, the building that Jaemin never seems to leave. Lee Jeno is the closest thing this country has to royalty, and he lives here too, in close proximity to a technological engineer like Jaemin. This must be an Institute property, but Jeno cannot be here for the same reason as Jaemin.

As Jeno and Jaemin continue to talk about the food he’s making, Renjun reroutes his attention to an outlier he’d picked up on his technological scan of the apartment earlier. There is technology hidden in the walls of this room—behind some layers of panelling and woodwork, separate to the technology of the lights and heating purposefully built into the walls. It is something small, the same size as the Personal Communication Device Jaemin carries around. He stands, sure to remain soundless, and slowly kneels down in the corner of the room. This technology does not belong here—he will identify that it will not hurt Jaemin.

He pulls out the section of wall easily—it should not be cut out like this, but it is, hidden behind the large vase at the end of the bed. Inside the hole he finds a soft layer of padding, with the device stuck to the inner side of the wall above it. He pries it off carefully and turns it over in his hand. It is a PCD just like Jaemin’s, small and silver, but the screen is blank. He holds it upright, and his finger digs into the pad on the back.

FINGERPRINT ACCEPTED, the screen says, swiping to present Renjun with a home screen. His name is displayed along the top. This is his, and someone has poorly concealed it here. Perhaps Jaemin?

He replaces the section of the wall and the vase so that it looks exactly the same as before, then sits back down on the bed. His download ports tell him that the PCD is loaded with data. The device remains in his hand as he considers two conflicting directives Jaemin has given him so far—to be disinterested in his past activation, and to download any information he needs in order to understand his place better. This PCD may give him answers, but they could be the ones Jaemin does not want him to know.

He places it in the pocket of his jeans. He will await further directives.

The RoomVac has finished cleaning the rest of the apartment, and Renjun’s sensors track it as it trundles down the hallway towards the bedroom, the only closed room in the apartment. Recognising the presence of two humans in the kitchen, it nudges against the bedroom door once, twice, three times to catch their attention and be let in. Jaemin, in the middle of a rant about his lack of materials as he tends to the pot of spaghetti, does not notice. Jeno, stood in the middle of the kitchen, does. He turns and walks towards the bedroom door as Jaemin has his back to him. Renjun considers sending a warning message to Jaemin’s PCD, but he knows he would not read it quickly enough to act in time. He also considers hiding, but there is nothing in the room to conceal Renjun from Jeno in time either.

“Here you go,” Jeno says gently, as he opens the bedroom door for the RoomVac to enter.

“Jeno, wait—!” Jaemin shouts, but he is not fast enough. Jeno lifts his head to look into the room, and his eyes meet Renjun’s. Renjun smiles. He confirms Lee Jeno’s identity in his database.

Jeno shouts, stumbling away from the room until he hits the corridor wall. The RoomVac starts to lap around the bedroom.

“Jeno—” Jaemin starts.

“What the fuck?” Jeno shouts, without taking his eyes from Renjun. “Jaemin—what the fuck—”

Jaemin arrives at the doorway and glances in at Renjun, who does not speak because Jaemin asked him not to. He then leans over and shuts the bedroom door between them, so Renjun resumes monitoring them through his scanners.

“Jeno, I can explain this.”

“God, Jaemin, what the—what’s going on—”

“That in there,” Jaemin says, pointing to the bedroom door. Jaemin has not called him a ‘that’ until this point. “That is my project. That is what the Institute has had us assigned to for over eight months now. It’s not what you think it is.”

“Wh—Jaemin, please tell me you didn’t build—you can’t seriously think this will help—”

“Listen to me,” Jaemin says, grabbing the front of his shirt. “We were working on this together. This isn’t the result of my grief, I’m not losing it here, okay? I know that is not him, I can separate the two. Building him has literally been my job, it’s the only thing I’ve been working on for ages.”

“But then why—why does it look like that? What is it?”

“It’s an LMD—a Life Model Decoy. The whole point is that it looks and acts just like a real person, to the point that it’s passable in place of the person it’s modelled on. As soon as we were given the project, we knew the prototype had to be modelled on one of us, because we were the only two people so closely involved with it. Since I was the one building the actual model, it made sense to choose Renjun. He was always there for me to take measurements of when I was building the body, and he was the one coding it to life, after all. I finished the exoskeleton months ago.”

There’s a silence in the corridor. The two of them are looking at each other.

“Trust me, I couldn’t face him for the first few days either. I thought a lot about whether I should complete it. Whether I was even capable of finishing it without him. When he first woke up I thought—he surprised me, you know, woke up early, and for a second I thought…”

Silence again. Jeno’s heartrate is decreasing slightly now.

“But he’s the biggest project we’ve ever been given, and his code was so close to finished... I couldn’t abandon it. It’s not just my work, after all—I don’t think Renjun would’ve wanted to throw away that much progress, even in a situation like this. We made something really special between us, like we always did. So I carried on with it. I know how it looks, but believe me, I could never replace him. Even if the model is a complete success, he could never be the same Renjun to me.”

“I really can’t believe this. It’s crazy, Jaemin. You’re going to hurt yourself doing this, you know that? How can you even look at it? How long has it been… awake?”

“A week, now. And I don’t have a problem looking at him, it’s nice to see his face again. It’s the things that are different that hurt more.”

“Does it have his memories?”

“No, you can’t put memories onto hard drives. He won’t know who you are.”

Jeno blows out a shaky breath. “Fuck.” Then he steps forward and pushes the bedroom door open again, both of them looking in at Renjun. The RoomVac trundles out past their feet.

Renjun looks back at them, still sat patiently with his hands in his lap.

“Renjun,” Jaemin says from the doorway, holding onto one of Jeno’s arms. “This is Jeno. He’s a friend.”

“Hello, Jeno,” he responds, and Jeno’s heart rate spikes again.

“God. It sounds just like him, Jaemin.”

“I know,” Jaemin says quietly. “Synthesising an accurate vocal pattern was one of the last things we worked on together.”

Renjun stands from the bed. Though he is the subject of it, numerous social cues indicate he is not welcome in this conversation. “Shall I finish the spaghetti now?”

“Yeah, alright,” Jaemin says, stepping aside. Jeno does not stop staring at him as he passes by them.

“What the fuck are you going to do, Jaemin?” he asks. In all the recordings of Jeno’s speeches Renjun has analysed from the worldwide network, he had never cursed once.

“Get him fully functioning, like we always planned,” Jaemin says. “After that, I have no idea.”

-

The domestic protocol tests are a comprehensive success, but Jaemin is significantly quieter than usual for the rest of the day. When they finish with the tests in the apartment, they go back up to the laboratory together so that Jaemin can measure how well his procedural understanding has developed. Renjun doesn’t ask about the conversation with Jeno earlier, but Jaemin, being polite and human, comes to mention it himself.

“So,” he starts, scrolling past multiple sheets of data. His attention is not on the screen. “I guess you overheard us talking about you earlier.”

“Yes,” he replies. “My auditory reach is stronger than that of the human ear.”

“What did you make of it?”

“You told me not to worry about my previous activation. I have not made anything of the information.”

Jaemin laughs a breathy laugh, turning to face him fully. “I know how smart you are, Renjun. You didn’t stop compiling certain data just because I told you not to worry about it. Tell me what you made of it.”

Renjun pauses. He finds that Jaemin is right—the data has already been compiled as best he can compute it. “I was modelled on a man named Huang Renjun, who was your committed romantic partner as well as your work partner in building my prototype. He is the original Huang Renjun. He died relatively recently, and you and Jeno are in mourning for him. Jeno did not know I was being built, so seeing me gave him a shock earlier today.”

Jaemin smiles, but it does not look happy. “Yeah, I still feel bad about that. No one else is supposed to know about our projects at all, but…well. He knows now.”

“So I was never previously activated,” Renjun states. “The history you have with Huang Renjun is with a human. The human I am supposed to mimic.”

Jaemin looks away. “Yes. I’ve been meaning to tell you about him, since you need to know everything you can in order to fulfil your purpose, but… you know. It’s hard.”

“Mourning is difficult. I am sorry if I’ve given you more grief.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s what he would’ve wanted anyway.” Jaemin stands from his chair with a heavy sigh, and carefully picks up a micro-HDD between tweezers. “Can you open up your main drive for me? I have some new data to give you.”

Renjun turns to the side and slides open the panel in his shoulder. Jaemin steps forward to brace himself against the table and places the chip in a free slot, hands wavering. As Renjun closes the panel again, he registers several terabytes of new data being processed into his database. He’d already downloaded everything stored on Jaemin’s private network days ago, but all of this data is new. Most of them are video files, hours long, the file dates spanning across almost every day from the past two years and nine months.

“Our lab recordings,” Jaemin tells him. “We filmed our work every day to keep track of everything we talked about, everything we ever worked on. There’s thousands of hours of our day-to-day behaviour on there. It’s precious data to me, so look after it, won’t you? I want you to process the footage as you see fit to help you accurately mimic Renjun’s behaviour. In the meantime, I’m going to tell you some of the details that I don’t have video evidence of.”

He begins to run a thorough analysis. As promised, the videos are all of Renjun and Jaemin working together in the same laboratory they’re sat in now. He adds multiple factors to the analysis, tracking the way Renjun spoke, moved, and behaved, both around Jaemin and alone. In many of the clips, he sits and codes for hours and hours. In many more of them, he and Jaemin talk and talk. In some, they eat. In some, they kiss, they dance, they laugh together. Jaemin was intimate with this Renjun in many ways, and now he must take this information for himself, adopt this past as if it were his own.

Jaemin hops up onto the metal table beside him. “You’ll see a lot of me in there, but what you won’t see is all the time we spent with Jeno. Whenever we weren’t in the lab, we would be hanging out with him. Not many people stick around in the Institute building for as long as we have, but Jeno is a pretty important person out there in the normal world—two years ago there was an assassination attempt on his life, so he’s been kept under protection in this Institute building since then. You and I never used to talk to other people until Jeno came along and became our exception. He’s a good guy, even if he was pretty upset earlier.”

If this information is true, it is strange that he hasn’t registered Jeno’s presence in Jaemin’s life at all until today. Perhaps grief had driven them further apart, or perhaps Jaemin has been keeping Jeno at a distance for Renjun’s sake. “If he is a close friend, you should spend more time with him. Progress on my prototype will still come even if you take breaks.”

“Yeah, I know. I will. It’s just been a hectic week. I think you unnerve him, but we still need to test your social protocols, so I’m sure you’ll be seeing him again. Hanging out with Jeno and Donghyuck was about as social as Renjun and I ever got.”

“Who is Donghyuck?”

“Our other friend. He got here more recently—about eight months ago, I think. Word has it he’s one of the Institute’s secret agents, but we’re not supposed to ask questions about that. He came here to get rehab for a pretty bad injury at the time, but he’s been doing a lot better recently. Runs around the place just fine now, so I don’t know how much longer he’ll be staying here. Donghyuck had this little soft spot for you from the moment we met him, it was so cute. For a supposed agent, he’s really sweet. He took it hard when you died.”

“How long ago did I die?”

Jaemin’s mouth twists. “Nearly two months, now. It was a heart attack, they said. Really sudden, out of nowhere.”

“A heart attack? At age twenty-one?”

“I know, right? When we went for our last health eval your blood pressure was higher than usual, but the doctor said it wasn’t dangerous so neither of us thought anything of it. They still offered you medication, but you refused it. God, how I wish I’d told you to take it now. I guess you never think bad shit like that will happen to you until it does.”

Renjun’s medical records are here amongst the new data, and they confirm as much. Renjun adds a factor to his analysis of the footage: to look for additional medical symptoms of high blood pressure in Huang Renjun’s behaviour, though his data tells him it often has no physical symptoms at all.

“Between Donghyuck arriving and you departing, the four of us only knew each other at the same time for about six months. I’m starting to think they were the best six months of my life.” Jaemin places a hand over his own, looking down at the table as he speaks. “I miss you so much. I don’t see how I can ever be as happy as I was with you. I thought working on your prototype was helping me move on, but now that I’m here…” Jaemin gaze shifts to stare at Renjun’s hand under his own. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. The adult years of my life have all been with you, about you. Even after you died, this project was still you, staring me in the face. Now I don’t even know if I can finish it.”

Renjun brings his hand up to cup Jaemin’s cheek. It’s something Renjun has done hundreds of times in the footage he’s analysing, but Jaemin startles when he does it exactly the same, looking up into his face.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I can’t make him come back. But I’m here for you. I think I understand the purpose of my Startup Protocol initiation now.”

“Really? What’s that?”

“You and Jeno and Donghyuck are mourning. I’ve been activated to bring you comfort and happiness as much as I can.” He drops his hand to touch Jaemin’s arm, a faint touch he’s also learned from the analysis. “You can tell me anything you need, okay? We can finish my prototype together. I can analyse my own code and learn how to complete it. I can help you fill in what Renjun left behind.”

Jaemin pulls his arm away from Renjun, and Renjun lets him go.

“Yeah,” Jaemin breathes. “Okay. Can I—is it okay if I leave you in here tonight, Renjun?”

Renjun tilts his head and places both hands on the table. “Will you sleep tonight if I’m not there? I know what you’re like, you know.”

Jaemin swallows. “I will. It’s just for tonight. It’s been a lot, today.”

“It’s okay. I understand.”

Jaemin stands from the table, running a hand through his hair. “I—well, is there anything else? I’m sure there’s more to tell you…”

Renjun recognises the signs of distress. He cannot read minds, but he estimates this to be a reaction to Renjun’s new behavioural developments. It is best if Jaemin takes a short amount of time away from him so they both can adjust.

“How about I process this data for now and ask you any questions I have in the morning? You can tell me more about Jeno and Donghyuck then.”

“Yeah. Okay. That’s a good idea.” Jaemin grabs his PCD and jacket and leaves the room at a quicker pace than usual. “Goodnight, Renjun. Happy processing.”

“Thanks, babe. Goodnight.” That is a newly learned nickname for Jaemin. He may have used it too soon judging by the way Jaemin’s heartbeat jumps, but the building knowledge frame around his relationship with Jaemin proves his behavioural analysis is working sufficiently.

Not long after Jaemin leaves the room, one of his analytical scans completes its work.

SYMPTOMS OF HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE NOT FOUND.

-

Renjun hears him coming before he sees him, as has been the trend with all his human encounters so far. The man wakes Jaemin early by banging on the apartment door below the laboratory, and Renjun redirects his attention the interaction, cataloguing any potential signs of danger. Though Jaemin wishes for him to stay out of sight, protecting Jaemin’s life is still his priority directive.

“Jaemin!” the man shouts. “Wake up and let me in!”

He watches Jaemin through his sensors as he sits up in bed and staggers towards the front door. Despite what he’d told Renjun, he had not slept well last night.

“Donghyuck,” Jaemin groans once he opens the door. “Not everyone wakes up at the crack of dawn like you.”

“Can I see him?” Donghyuck says.

“Who?”

“Who do you think? Jeno was practically shaking on my living room floor yesterday, it took him like ten minutes to calm down and tell me what was going on. Have you really done it?”

Jaemin stands up straighter now, pulling Donghyuck into the apartment. “I swear Donghyuck, the Institute will kill me if they find out I let this project slip. You and Jeno cannot tell anyone else about this.”

“Oh my God. You really have done it. You built another Renjun.”

“Please don’t give me a lecture about the ethics of this too,” Jaemin sighs, rubbing the heel of his hand into his eye. “Believe me, I already know.”

“I’m not going to,” Donghyuck says. “I just want to see him.”

Jaemin looks him up and down, pauses for a moment, then moves back into the apartment to grab his jacket. “Fine. We might as well go up to the lab if you know about him already. Be prepared for him to look just the same, but without any actual memories of you, okay? And I really do need this to be a secret, Donghyuck.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” Donghyuck says, following close behind Jaemin up the stairs. He’s jittery, but walks with a spring in his step, like he’s anxious to meet Renjun as quickly as possible.

Renjun sits up on the table, ready to greet his third protocol assignment. Jaemin said that Donghyuck had taken his death hard, so he must be careful with him.

Jaemin swings the door open and waves the lights on. “Renjun, I have a visitor for you. Remember when I told you about Donghyuck?”

Donghyuck steps through the doorway after Jaemin, looking at Renjun with round eyes. “Oh, wow. Oh, Renjun.”

“Hi, Donghyuck,” Renjun says dropping his legs over the edge of the metal table and swinging them slightly. “You’re not going to scream at me like Jeno did, right?”

“No,” Donghyuck says, looking him up and down. “Never. Holy shit, look at you! How do you look so good?”

“That’s all Jaemin’s work,” he says, smiling at him. Jaemin has stayed standing by the door behind Donghyuck, arms crossed as he watches their interaction. “Do you like it?”

Donghyuck takes a few steps forward, looking over him again. “Yeah. It’s amazing. You’re—you—”

He begins to choke up, and Renjun quickly runs through his directives for comforting a crying person. None of his protocols cover what to do if you are the cause of the crying through your visual similarity to a recently dead friend, but Jaemin steps up beside Donghyuck instead, putting an arm around his shoulders. Renjun slides off the table to await further instruction.

“I know, Hyuck,” he says. “I know.”

“I never thought—I never imagined—” Donghyuck stammers, wiping his eyes and taking several deep breaths. “Can I hug you, Renjun?”

“Of course,” he replies, holding his arms out.

Donghyuck almost runs across the room into Renjun’s arms. Though Renjun weighs much more than he would’ve as flesh and blood, he is sure to stumble back a reasonable amount at the weight Donghyuck throws at him. He laughs too, hitting his arm gently, the same way Renjun often would in the video files. He doesn’t have much data on his relationship with Donghyuck, but he seems to like it, if the way he hugs him tighter is any indication.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Donghyuck says into his ear, and Renjun pats his back.

“I missed you too, you sap,” he says, allowing Donghyuck to lean out and see his face up close. His eyes look into Renjun’s, then skim down his face, to his nose, his cheeks, his mouth. He moves a hand up to cradle his head with the same intimacy as Jaemin would in the files, and Renjun smiles at him. “I’m glad you’re here. I think you like me a lot more than Jeno does.”

“It was more of a shock for Jeno,” Jaemin says from behind them. “Don’t think too badly of him.”

“I never could,” Renjun reassures him. Donghyuck tries to pick him up and twirl him, but fails at the lift, stumbling into him instead. Renjun laughs.

“You’re heavier now!” Donghyuck says. His cheeks are shiny with tears and pink with surprise, and he’s gripping Renjun tight around the waist. “Not fair!”

“I’m built out of over 200lbs of enhanced steel and silicone, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about that. I could lift you up instead, if you like?”

“Nope! No need for that!” Renjun picks him up anyway, because he recognises the challenge in his tone, the teasing playfulness Renjun himself often adopted. “No! Oh, God, you’re strong now too?”

He is aware of Jaemin staring at them, but he does not address it. “I’m ready for anything, that’s the whole point. I’m a protector and a helper.”

“That’s very sexy of you, Renjun,” Donghyuck tells him seriously. Renjun momentarily struggles to identify whether this is part of the teasing exchange they’re engaging in, but he estimates it must be so.

“I know,” Renjun says, carefully placing Donghyuck on his feet again. “You can thank Jaemin for that one, too.”

“Actually, it was Renjun’s idea to make caring protocols your main directives,” Jaemin interjects. “He put all of that in you. I just built the body to support it.”

“Both of you, then. I’m a product of your love labour.”

Jaemin nods slowly, looking away for a moment. “Do you want to come down and help us make breakfast?”

Donghyuck interrupts before he can reply. “What, is he your slave now? You didn’t build him to run around after you, did you?”

“We built him to do all sorts of things. The more he can do, the more I can check off my list.”

“I can help out,” Renjun says. “I’m a good multitasker. You can ask me all the questions you’re bursting with while I cook, Donghyuck.”

“Hey, are you sure you don’t know who I am? You seem to know me too well already.”

“I don’t have much data on you yet, but I’m learning as we talk. Call me psychic, but I don’t need any data on you to tell that you have about a million questions right now.”

Donghyuck laughs, then abruptly stops. “Wait, you’re not actually psychic, are you?” he asks quickly, looking at Jaemin.

“No, Donghyuck, he’s not psychic. He just has a sense of humour now.” Jaemin’s stare is intense on Renjun. “I see you learned well from the footage I gave you.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Renjun responds. “You would know best.”

Jaemin doesn’t reply for a few seconds too long, eyes slipping to the floor again. Renjun quickly analyses the last few interactions for a missed social cue or slip in sensitivity, but finds he needs additional data to identify any potential mistakes.

“I suppose I would,” Jaemin says, turning away from him. “Come on. Let’s go and make breakfast.”

-

Jaemin leaves him in the laboratory again that night. Renjun does not remark on it other than to wish him a good night, but continues to monitor Jaemin on his sensors. He is turning and sighing in his bed again tonight, and falls asleep late.

This leaves Renjun to lay alone in the dark on the metal table, Renjun’s PCD in his pocket. Now that he understands his protocol purpose and has been given additional data on Renjun’s past, it is clear which directive he should follow regarding the PCD. He will download and process all the data on the device in order to understand Renjun’s life and behaviour as thoroughly as possible, to work toward Jaemin’s objective of assimilation for him.

The device is old and well used, but much of the data is encrypted in a fashion that even modern PCDs do not support. Renjun must have made personal modifications to the device himself. After spending much of yesterday analysing his own code to learn Renjun’s patterns of coding for himself, he’s able to work through the encryption relatively quickly. Still, it is well protected—it takes him several hours to work through the various secure files and protected folders without any of the passwords to access them.

Much of what he finds is data he’d expected. Many of the files are notes for his work, lines of advanced code or hasty sketches made in the middle of the night. He finds some instant message communication with Jeno and Donghyuck, and occasionally with Jaemin. There are different types of files on the LMD project, and some calls to contact numbers lasting a few minutes each.

Then there is the data he did not anticipate, which takes longer to process. He finds documents regarding trade done by the Institute between code names he does not recognise. There are photographs of indistinct items in boxes with no shipping IDs on the labels, and documents recording meetings between a list of redacted names. None of it appears to involve Renjun directly, so it is strange to find these files on his PCD.

The last encrypted file is a note, dated to approximately two months ago.

Jaemin,

I’m writing this as you’re sleeping next to me right now. When you sleep, you look as young as the day we first met—two eighteen y/o prodigies fresh into the Institute, thrown together to work on impossible tasks. Baby, how we’ve thrived.

Here’s the thing—I hacked into the Institute private network a while ago. I know you’re going to hate hearing that, but you know me, Jaemin. I can’t settle for not knowing the truth, and I’ve had a bad feeling about the Institute for a while now. They’ve given us so much—I’m sure even they could not have predicted how close we’d become when we were first assigned together. But we know so little about them. We know so little about what happens with our creations after they’re taken from us and we’re given new projects. We’re not kids anymore—we should know how our projects are used, we should take responsibility for the things we make. The Institute declined my requests for this information the legal way, so I had no choice but to dig around and find out for myself, see if my feeling was right. As always, my gut is rarely wrong.

I have good reason to believe that the Institute isn’t as loyal to our country as we always thought. If you’ve found this note, then you’ve seen the documents on here—they reek of double dealing, of shipping off our technology to the highest bidder instead of using it to protect people like they promised us. Starting the LMD project was what really made me curious about their intentions— how specific the request was, how secretive. I’ve been looking for signs of strange activity since then, but I didn’t find any proper evidence until recently. Until I dug up all of this. It’s still not enough proof, but I’m close.

Today I’m going to talk to someone who might be able to give me answers. There’s this small worry in my mind that I’m too close, dangerously close, and this might be the last straw to break the camel’s back… but I’ve been so careful, so I’m going to remain hopeful that today I’ll get answers once and for all. If something goes wrong, then I’m leaving all this evidence for you to eventually find. Since you don’t know anything, I hope they’ll keep you out of it. But I owe you the truth sooner or later.

If something bad has happened to me, you have to promise me that you won’t finish the prototype. We both know what an LMD could be capable of in the wrong hands. Everything we’ve ever made for the institute has already been sold to our enemies, and this is one thing we can’t let out into the world unregulated. Wipe the code from our network, disassemble the body and destroy every part of it you can. Get far away from the Institute, even if it means leaving me or the others behind.

Whatever has happened, I really am sorry. I didn’t want to tell you about all this digging around and worry you if I was wrong, or end up pulling you into a dangerous mess with me if I was right. The last thing I ever wanted was to hurt you.

Do whatever you have to, now. The evidence on this PCD might be enough to damn the Institute for good, but that’s not the priority here. Your life comes first, and it always has.

I love you.

Renjun.

He spends some time carefully processing the information from the note, securely encrypting it into his own database. He also downloads a copy of the rest of the data from the PCD before he wipes the device clean. This information is a significant threat to his priority directive of keeping Jaemin happy and safe, so Renjun will not allow him to see it.

-

They test his social protocols several days later. Donghyuck has been at the apartment almost every day so far asking to see him, and Renjun has subsequently catalogued him as his easiest assignment of the three. He makes an effort to interact with Renjun, telling him stories and asking him questions, which helps Renjun learn quicker and understand Donghyuck more every day. Jaemin has only grown increasingly emotionally distant since the day he’d given Renjun the data chip, and today will be the first time he’s seen Jeno since they’d met.

“We’re just going to hang out together and talk, act as natural as possible. I’m going to be recording your responses for analysis later, since I’m involved as a subject in said social gathering. I know this is not the most ideal circumstance for the test since everyone is already aware you’re an LMD prototype, but let’s take this is a trial test of your social skills and ability to blend in, yeah? So no LMD talk for this afternoon.”

“No problem,” he says, standing from the bed to go to Renjun’s drawers. “I’m going to change my clothes, in that case.”

“I don’t know why you’ve dragged Jeno into this,” Donghyuck says. “I think you’re going to traumatise him again.”

“I told him he didn’t have to come if he didn’t want to. I think he’s going to struggle too, but I don’t want him to feel like he’s being left out.”

“He’s a bit morbidly curious about it all,” Donghyuck says. “He shivers every time I mention it to him, but I know he still wants to see Renjun for himself again.”

“Why do I have to be something morbid?” Renjun grumbles, pulling out a button-up shirt. “I’m just existing, aren’t I?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” Donghyuck says quickly. “It’s not about you, really—it’s more about having to face the past, you know? It’s a lot.”

“That’s exactly what I’m supposed to be here for,” Renjun says. “To help you come to terms with the past, and the present. I wish Jeno wouldn’t be so afraid of it.”

“Believe it or not, mechanical resurrections of loved ones isn’t the normal method of dealing with grief,” Jaemin says. “If he doesn’t want your help, then you don’t have to worry about it. It means your protocol with him is complete, right? You make him happier and safer by keeping your distance.”

He runs this concept by his directives. There is logic to completing his priority directive in this way, and it is a more quantifiable end goal than he previously had in place—his data on overcoming grief is exceedingly vague and difficult to define. There is no clear end point to it beyond functioning at an expected human level, which Jaemin and Donghyuck are already doing. To have his priority directive fulfilled when his assignments no longer require his help is a clear goal he can factor into his protocols.

“I see,” he says. “I’ll have to check that with Jeno later. If he doesn’t want to see me, I don’t want to do him more harm than good by forcing him.” He plays with the shirt in his hands, looking down at the material. “Are you sure he should come tonight?”

“It’ll be alright,” Jaemin says. “He’s a grown man. He can make his own decisions.”

-

Jeno stares at Renjun from the moment he arrives. Jaemin and Donghyuck still sometimes stare at Renjun too when they think he does not notice, but Jeno stares without any of that care. Still, Donghyuck and Jaemin put up an attempt at normalcy, leading the conversation over their meal together. Renjun has been practising his performative eating functions for several days now, and he finds the steak easier to consume than the other meals they’ve tried, like the noodles Jaemin was testing him with two days ago.

“What do you spend your days doing here, Jeno?” Renjun asks when they’re almost finished with their food, his first question of the night directly delivered to Jeno.

In terms of data collection alone, it would be more beneficial for him to monitor the three of them without participating in the gathering at all—this is the first time he’s seen them all together, and their natural chemistry is clearly stilted by his presence—but Jaemin had brought him here with the purpose of practising his social skills protocols, so he will perform them as best he can to please Jaemin. Using the opportunity to ask Jeno a polite question and simultaneously obtain additional data on his assignment is productive to both goals.

Jeno looks at him for longer than is socially acceptable before answering the question, but neither Jaemin nor Donghyuck comment on it. Donghyuck has been unusually jumpy throughout the evening so far—Jaemin is the one putting in the most effort towards the outcome of the test.

“What do you mean?” Jeno replies eventually, voice low, words clipped.

“Well, Jaemin is here as a technical engineer, a job that keeps him very busy. Donghyuck I’ve heard has been in rehab, right? For an injury?”

“Yeah,” Donghyuck confirms. “That’s right.”

“And I know you’re here to be protected, Jeno, but what do you do if you can’t leave this place? Surely you have something to pass the time with?”

Jeno sets his jaw, looking down at the table as he answers. “I carry out all my official duties that I can from my office. When I’m not doing that, I train in my professional skills and hobbies. The Institute supports me with whatever I need.”

“What sort of hobbies do you have?”

There’s another silence around the table. Renjun calculates the modifications Jaemin will make to him if this social test a failure.

“I used to dance,” Jeno says. “I haven’t for a while, though.”

Jaemin picks up his wine glass and takes a long drink from it. Jeno is still avoiding eye contact with Renjun even though he has been careful to regulate his own eye contact to a socially appropriate amount.

“Do you two have hobbies too?” he asks, turning to Jaemin and Donghyuck. “I’ve never seen you go anywhere else but the apartment and the lab, Jaemin.”

“Reached a big milestone at work when you came around, didn’t I? Been busy. Used to play badminton, though.”

There were multiple conversations about badminton in the footage he has of Renjun and Jaemin, and he begins to understand the awkwardness around this topic. Renjun was a dancer, too—these were hobbies they used to do with him.

Donghyuck leans forward, elbows on the table. “I didn’t have the privilege of physical hobbies for several months, so now I’m a master at sudoku. And knitting.”

“But you’re doing better now?” he asks, satisfied with Donghyuck’s response. “You seem to be getting around fine on your own.”

“Yeah, I’m walking and running and the whole shebang now. I think they’ll clear me to go back into the real world again soon. For ages I thought that would be the best news ever, but now this place has grown on me.” He smiles at Renjun. “I’m going to miss you all too much.”

“Can’t you come and visit?” he asks, though he can already estimate the answer from his existing data about the Institute. “We’ll miss you too much, too.”

“Maybe if Jaemin works himself into the Institute’s good books sometime soon they’ll let him have visitors. Jeno is doing just fine, but Jaemin is already overdue on his deadline.”

“I’m not, actually. They gave me an extension because nobody was expecting that I’d have to finish it on my own. They’re still expecting a fully functional prototype, obviously, but that’s neither here nor there.” He picks up his wine glass again.

“You’re nearly there,” Renjun says. “I’ll help as much as I can, but you’re more than capable of finishing the prototype yourself.”

Jeno stands abruptly, chair scraping back as he steps past the table without looking at any of them. Renjun had been tracking his heartrate slowly elevating throughout the conversation, but had not deemed it to be a medical emergency.

“Jeno?” Jaemin says, standing up to try and see his expression. Jeno moves past him, grabbing his shoes from beside the door and leaving without a word.

“I told you,” Donghyuck says to Jaemin. “I knew he wouldn’t be able to cope.”

Jaemin is unhappy. He looks at the door, then moves to follow after Jeno. “I’ll only be a minute. I’m just going to check on him.” Then he’s gone too, leaving Renjun alone with Donghyuck for the first time.

Renjun slowly looks away from the door as Donghyuck puts a hand over his own.

“Don’t worry about them. It’s their own problem.” His voice is uncharacteristically gentle.

“I suppose I failed the social test,” Renjun says, tracking Jeno and Jaemin on his sensors. They walk further down the corridor as Jaemin speaks, too far away for Renjun to pick up the conversation properly. He activates the discreet upload he’d transferred onto each of their PCDs earlier in the night, intended to help him track and understand each of his assignments better. He will record their conversation for later.

“You didn’t fail,” Donghyuck reassures him. “You did the best out of all of us, seriously. It’s Jeno who can’t pull himself together.”

Renjun looks down at the table. “I wish I knew how to help. People are so complicated.”

“Tell me about it,” Donghyuck says. Renjun looks up at him, and Donghyuck smiles. It’s more honest than any smile he’s seen from Jaemin since the day he was first activated. “You’re doing great just by being here, you know. I can’t speak for the other two, but I think it’s nice just to have you around again. You don’t have to worry about helping us as much as you think you do. You can only do so much after all, you’re—” Donghyuck stops himself, then laughs. “I was going to say you’re only human, but you know what I mean. You’re only a little 200lb robot who was born, like, ten days ago. You’re not expected to understand or solve the pits of despair humans tend to throw themselves into.”

“I’m not?” he says, processing this concept. Helping his assignments overcome their grief is the goal of his priority directive. It is the reason he was activated. If it is not possible for him to solve, how does his protocol become complete? When they all decide they do not need him anymore? This cannot be the only quantifiable end goal to his priority directive.

“No,” Donghyuck says. He lifts Renjun’s hand to his mouth and kisses the back of it, right over the darker pigmentation of skin. Jaemin had told him it was a birth mark. “You’re not.”

-

It’s clear he’s going to be left in the laboratory again overnight. The trends in his data suggest that he will be, but he is sure to check it is what Jaemin wants before he leaves.

Hours later, after his sensors indicate that Jaemin has fallen asleep, Renjun lays on the metal table and listens back to the conversation he’d downloaded earlier.

“Jeno!” Jaemin had shouted after him when they were some distance away from the apartment, as marked by Donghyuck’s signal. “What is it?”

“What is it?” Jeno had said, his tracker halting in place. “You’re joking, right? I think it’s pretty obvious what’s wrong.”

There’s a pause. “He was doing well.”

“That’s exactly the problem,” Jeno says, and Renjun detects notable distress. “He’s like a ghost. You just had us all sit around and eat dinner together like it was normal for him to be sitting there, acting like him, sounding like him, filling in for him in every way that’s not natural, Jaemin—”

“That was the whole point of this exercise! I told you not to come if you couldn’t handle it. You didn’t have to make this any harder than it already was!”

“I was scared you might not see what you’re doing to yourself if I didn’t come. Please tell me that you see it, Jaemin. I know you can feel how wrong this is too.”

“I know! Of course I know! It hurts so bad, to have him here but not here… the more progress I make, the more I question everything I’ve done to get to this point. But I can’t just abandon this project, not after we worked towards the prototype for so long. I still have a deadline in place after all, and I’m still on a contract with the Institute that doesn’t end for another three months. So what do I do? You tell me, Jeno. How am I supposed to get out of this one?”

“Easy. You get rid of this prototype. Ask for another extension on your project and build a different one. You still have Renjun’s original code, right? And you have the exoskeleton, and all the right materials. You just need to make it into someone different. Make a version of yourself, or of me, or anyone else. Just don’t keep that thing around that looks and acts like him. It can’t be what Renjun wanted for you.”

Silence. Jaemin is… considering it?

“Maybe,” he says finally. “Maybe I will. I’m not sure I want the Institute to have this one anyway. Feels more personal than giving a version of myself over.”

“Agreed,” Jeno sighs. “Please listen to me on this one. Don’t make this go on any longer than it already has.”

Jeno starts to walk away again, but Jaemin speaks up one last time. “I’m sorry for dragging you into this, Jeno. I never even wanted you to know about it. I knew you would hate it from the start.”

“Don’t apologise. As much as I do hate it, I’m glad you didn’t have to do all this on your own. Let me know if you need any help going through with it.”

Then he leaves, moving further into the building alone. According to his tracker, he’d stayed in that part of the building for the rest of the night, so that location must be Jeno’s apartment.

Renjun recalls Jaemin returning to the apartment after that. Donghyuck had still been holding Renjun’s hand over the table. Jaemin had glanced between them, then sat heavily in his seat.

“Well?” Donghyuck had said.

“He tapped out,” Jaemin replied, resting his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand, looking up at Renjun as he speaks. “Sorry. You did well, though.”

Renjun smiled back at him. “Thanks, Jaemin. I hope Jeno’s okay.”

Jaemin had only stared, his unusually intense eyes on Renjun’s face. “Yeah. He will be.”

-

Jaemin spends the next day moving around fixtures of the laboratory that Renjun has never seen upturned or moved since his activation, tidying physical documents into files and organising their digital folders by date and project. He does this while taking comprehensive downloads from Renjun—updated versions of his code, records of the developments in his contextual understanding, his accumulated procedural data from the past twelve days of activation. He starts to download the general contents of his database too, before realising how much of it is common knowledge data from the worldwide network and deciding to leave it on his hard drive instead. Renjun had been on the verge of wiping the hidden letter from his database before Jaemin had changed his mind.

Even if he had not spent the day doing these tasks, Jaemin’s intentions would’ve been given away by his request that night.

“Will you come and sleep with me again tonight, Renjun?” he asks, without facing him.

“I’d love to,” Renjun says. “Are you sleeping badly again?”

“No, I’m doing okay. I’d just like to have you there.”

“No special occasion?” he asks.

“No,” Jaemin replies, voice neutral.

One thing Renjun has learned from interacting with his assignments is that humans almost never mean exactly what they say. It is what makes navigating their interpersonal relationships so difficult.

He dresses in a pair of well-worn pyjamas that night. It has been a while since he’s worn pyjamas, but since it is customary to change out of day clothes before entering a bed, he will do it for Jaemin’s sake. He lies on the right side of the bed even if Jaemin will have to climb over him to reach the left side, because Jaemin always sleeps on that side, even when he is alone. He infers from this that Renjun must’ve always slept on the right side, too.

When Jaemin enters the room to see him already in bed, he pauses at the doorframe, knocking his head against it. “I miss him so much, you know.”

Renjun rolls onto his side to look at him properly, hands cupped under his head. There was only one file amongst all the footage Jaemin had given him of Renjun deliberately falling asleep in the laboratory, when he’d curled up in the corner and napped just like this. “I know,” he says. “It hasn’t been too long since he died, so it’s still fresh for you. I think you’ll never stop missing him, but it will hurt less over time.”

“It’s supposed to,” Jaemin says, switching off the light and climbing onto the bed. “But I don’t know if I believe it. It just aches, day in, day out, like a phantom limb. If I know I can never get the limb back, will it continue to hurt like this forever?”

“I’m right here,” Renjun says. “Though in this analogy, I suppose I’m more like a prosthetic.”

“And prosthetics aren’t always accepted by the body,” Jaemin says, settling in the bed to face him. There is silence in the room, and darkness, but Renjun can see Jaemin’s face clearly through his adjusted optical lenses.

“I didn’t think you were going to tell me you were doing it,” Renjun says.

“You’re too smart not to know,” Jaemin says. “I built you, after all. It’s only fair I’m honest with you too.”

“That I’m not good enough?”

“No,” Jaemin says, reaching out to stroke a hand down his arm. Renjun huddles closer to him under the sheets. “It’s not that. You’re perfect, actually. You do everything you’re supposed to. That’s just the problem.”

“That’s what you wanted from me, isn’t it?” Renjun says, voice projection lower, more intimate to match the situation.

“Professionally, yes. Emotionally… I never wanted any of this. Jeno’s right. It’s too much.” Jaemin’s hand cups his face. “I’m sorry. I should’ve stopped this right after he died. It should never have come this far.”

“Renjun coded my directives, and they were to make you happy. If I can’t do that, then I have no function. You’re right to deactivate me if it will make things easier for you.”

Jaemin strokes the synthetic skin of his cheek with his thumb. “Don’t say it like that. I want you to be happy too. You can consider your Startup Protocol fulfilled, because you’ve helped me understand what I need to do next. You can shut down knowing you did everything you were intended to do.”

“I can’t feel happiness, Jaemin. I don’t have the same emotional capabilities you do. But… thank you. Completing my directives is the closest I could get to happiness.”

“Of course,” Jaemin says, hand moving further back to stroke his hair, fingers skimming over the external power switch hidden at the base of his skull. They are lying so close that Jaemin may be able to hear Renjun’s micro-fans whir to a stop when he is deactivated. “Thank you so much for being with me these past two weeks. Thank you for all that you’ve done. You’ve done well. You can rest now.”

“I can’t rest,” he replies. “I don’t have that function either. But I hope you’ll find peace, Jaemin.”

Jaemin smiles at him, eyes shining. “Thank you, Renjun.” Then he flicks the switch.

-

Renjun’s internal functions do not shut down with his external ones like he’d expected. Though he has no physical connection to his body anymore, it doesn’t stop his program from remaining online. When he verifies his directives, he discovers why—his Startup Protocol has not been fulfilled as Jaemin had promised. Not in the way Renjun had initially defined it. Jaemin and Jeno may have found their peace with shutting him down, but Donghyuck’s assignment has been left unfulfilled.

His uploads on the three PCDs are also still active. After he is shut down, he listens to Jaemin cry until he falls asleep, followed by six hours of little to no activity. The next morning he monitors Jeno and Donghyuck as they move around the base for their daily activities. In one conversation with an unidentified voice, he learns that Donghyuck is soon to be leaving the Institute. He watches as Jaemin’s PCD comes online, sending a single to message to Jeno, with his tracker remaining in the bedroom for several hours after that. It's done.

I'm proud of you, Jeno replies. And he would be too. You're strong.

Jaemin does not send the same message to Donghyuck, who arrives at the apartment after his duties are fulfilled for the day. Jaemin has still not moved from the bedroom.

“Good afternoon, sleepyheads,” he says as his tracker moves into the apartment. “What’s the test today? Sleep protocols?”

“No,” Jaemin replies. “I shut him down. He’s offline.”

There’s a pause. “What? Permanently? Why—why would you do that?”

“Because Jeno is right,” Jaemin says. “I can’t do it like this anymore.”

“But he’s already perfect! He was practically complete! What will you do with him now?”

“I’ll dismantle him and use the exoskeleton to make a version of myself. Or maybe Jeno. I don’t know, I’m officially taking the day off from thinking about anything.”

“No,” Donghyuck says, voice thin. “He was so good. He was just like him. After all that work—you made something amazing, Jaemin! Why throw it all away?”

“It’s fucked up, Donghyuck, to have him around like that. He’s dead. This isn’t bringing him back, it’s just dancing with his ghost.” There’s a shuffle of movement. “Will you help me get him back up to the lab? I should’ve just done it up there. Forgot how heavy he is.”

Donghyuck doesn’t move. “So that’s it? No goodbye?”

Jaemin sighs. “I’m sorry. I should’ve given you a heads up. But there was no point in dragging it on any longer.”

Donghyuck’s tracker moves closer to Jaemin’s, where Renjun’s body is presumably still lying on the bed. “Fuck,” he says. “I didn’t know I’d have to do this again.”

“You only knew him for twelve days. And he was only ever a shadow, anyway.”

“Doesn’t mean he didn’t exist. He was real to me.”

“Yeah,” Jaemin says. “But that’s exactly the reason he had to go.”

Donghyuck sniffs. “Was it kind, at least?”

“He was happy,” Jaemin replies. “Or, you know. The closest he could get to it.”

-

Donghyuck and Jaemin proceed to lift him up the stairs into the laboratory, right back onto his metal table. Then they spend the rest of the day drinking wine together in the apartment, reliving shared memories and talking about Renjun. Both himself and the original.

The alcohol helps Jaemin fall asleep quickly and early, at least. Renjun prepares a message to leave on Jaemin’s network to let him know that he has not been properly shut down. There needs to be an amendment to his code, because even though he was the one to set his own protocol assignments, he cannot override his priority directive and shut down his system completely. Only an administrator can do that, and the only one alive is Jaemin. Until then, he is trapped in his own version of consciousness, existing as strings of data and prioritised processes with no body to carry them out with.

Unless, of course, his assignment were to come to him.

It is late at night, and Donghyuck’s tracker is moving through the building. There is no way Donghyuck could know that he is awake and listening, but he’s headed towards the laboratory anyway. Renjun picks up on some occasional sniffs through his PCD audio, but it is unlikely he is significantly inebriated. He enters the correct code to the laboratory on the first try, enters the room, and stops in a place Renjun estimates to be Jaemin’s desk chair. He sniffs again, and something dull knocks against metal.

“Renjun,” he says, voice wobbling. “God, it’s like the first time all over again. I miss you so much. The missing eats me up every fucking day, and now I feel like it’s been doubled.”

A pause. Renjun runs through his processes for comfort, lines them up even though he can’t act on them.

“It was so nice to have you around for a little while. It helped me forget, you know? It didn’t hurt so much to have a part of you here. It felt like a miracle that you could come back like this—no memories, no hurt… just being with us. No matter what Jaemin says, you’re still Renjun, really. He designed you, coded you. It’s almost like he knew what was going to happen. It’s like a part of him managed to stay alive, despite everything. For Jaemin just to… to abandon you like that… I don’t understand it. I really don’t.”

There is some more sniffling, and then a little sob. Donghyuck is crying now.

“I’m so sorry, Renjun. I wish we weren’t in this position at all right now. You don’t know how much I regret it.”

The soft crying continues.

His assignment is in distress.

REROUTING POWER…

REINITIATING STARTUP PROTOCOL…

REBOOTING EXTERNAL FUNCTIONS…

RESTART COMPLETE.

WELCOME BACK: HUANG RENJUN.

His optical lenses calibrate against the dim light coming from Donghyuck’s PCD, where otherwise the room is dark. When Renjun sits up, Donghyuck is staring at him from Jaemin’s new office chair, cheeks wet, hands clutching the edge of the table.

“Renjun?” he says, voice right down to a whisper. “You’re—you’re awake?”

“You woke me up,” Renjun says, taking one of Donghyuck’s hands in his own and leaning over to look at him. “Jaemin didn’t shut me down properly, and I knew that you still needed me. Please don’t cry.” He kisses the inside of Donghyuck’s palm, mirroring the way he’d kissed Renjun’s hand two nights ago.

“Renjun,” Donghyuck chokes, tears spilling out. “I do need you, but I don’t deserve you. You shouldn’t have woken up.”

“Of course you deserve me. You deserve so many good things, Donghyuck. Jaemin is so fond of you, and you were Renjun’s good friend. I know you gave him happiness when he was alive. You deserve to find your own happiness too.”

The words don’t seem to be the right thing to say. Donghyuck pulls his hand away from Renjun and buries his face in his palms, crying harder. Now that all his functions are online, he assesses Donghyuck’s vitals—they do indicate some inebriation, but not to a level that would cause this sort of distress. Something else is upsetting his emotional state.

“What is it?” he whispers. “You can tell me anything, you know. I can keep a secret.”

Donghyuck pulls his feet up onto the chair, knees up to his chest, breath hitching as he considers this. “Can you really? Aren’t you obligated to tell Jaemin everything?”

“No. I was aligned to the three of you equally, because you are the ones I’m supposed to be looking after, but that was before I was shut down. Now that Jaemin and Jeno don’t need me, you’re my only priority. If you want to tell me something, I can keep it a secret. I promise.” He reaches out again, lacing their fingers together. Donghyuck is more reliant on physical contact than his other two assignments, and the touch works again now. His breathing evens out, and he meets Renjun’s eyes.

“You don’t have Renjun’s memories, do you? That’s what Jaemin said, that you can’t download memories like that.”

“No,” Renjun agrees. “I have the lab footage of him, but I can’t know what he was like on a more personal level.”

Donghyuck wipes his nose. “And do you know how he died? Who told you about that?”

“Jaemin told me he died of a heart attack.”

Donghyuck looks away, and Renjun compiles several inferences at once.

“Do you know something different, Donghyuck?” he asks gently.

“I do. I know too much.” Donghyuck stares at the floor. “I was originally brought to this place for my injury rehab, but I was also given an assignment to complete while I recovered. I had orders to keep an eye on the three of you. The Institute wanted to know that you were well settled and happy, staying in this building all the time. It was easy. Most fun assignment I’ve ever had, befriending you guys. I haven’t had many friends in my life.” He hiccups, rubbing his thumb across Renjun’s synthetic skin slowly. “It was all going well. Or I thought it was, at least. But they must’ve had someone else monitoring you. One day I got new information, new orders.”

“You can tell me,” Renjun whispers. “I won’t be angry.”

“They told me you were double dealing,” Donghyuck says, meeting his eyes now. “That you had ties with several different enemy states… they showed me communications they’d found from you, evidence that you’d been involved with terrorism groups. That you had direct contact with terrible people in order to undermine the Institute. I didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t believe that you might be capable of that. But then I realised that you were always talking about finishing your contract as if it couldn’t end quickly enough, that you were so eager to leave this place… you talked all the time about how much you wanted to get away with Jaemin. It made me realise you might not be everything I thought you were.”

“What did you tell your superiors?”

“I didn’t tell them anything. They didn’t want reconnaissance, they wanted me to take you out as soon as possible, and as subtly as possible. They’d found no evidence of the same activities from Jaemin, so they presumed you were doing it behind his back. As long as your death looked natural, they could keep Jaemin on their side. No matter what you’d done, he wouldn’t have continued with his work if he knew that the Institute had ordered your death.”

“You went through with it?”

“I—I tried to confront you about it first, honest to God, even though I wasn’t supposed to talk about it at all. You were one of my closest friends and I—I cared for you so much, Renjun, I still do—I didn’t want to admit it was true. But when I asked you about the double dealing, you only told me not to stop you. That you were going to leave the Institute if you had to, get far away.” Donghyuck is shaking all over, squeezing Renjun’s hand hard. “I’ve killed people before. It’s my job. But I’ve never cried over any of them. I’ve never felt this sort of remorse before. I knew if I didn’t kill you, the Institute would’ve only disciplined me, then sent someone else to do it instead. More painfully. And if I let you leave after our conversation, you would’ve told Jaemin everything, and then you would both be lost, my cover blown. There was no way out.”

Renjun slips off the table, pulling Donghyuck up out of the chair to meet him at eye level. He thumbs his tears away gently, taking Donghyuck’s face in his hands.

“How did I really die?” he asks.

“A lethal injection,” Donghyuck says, hands curling around Renjun’s waist. “It’s quick, and the most subtle method for a cover up. I left you outside the kitchens for the cooks to find, even though Jeno’s apartment was closer. I couldn’t do that to him.”

So much data is finally falling into place, lining up and creating a coherent timeline. He now understands his assignment better than ever. “This is what’s really been causing your suffering, isn’t it? Knowing all of this and keeping it a secret. Facing Jaemin and Jeno every day as the three of you grieve for the man you killed.”

Donghyuck buries his face in Renjun’s shirt. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry— I had to, there was no other way. It would’ve only gotten more people hurt. But it hurt me so much, Renjun, it’s been killing me ever since—and I’ve been so alone—”

Renjun presses a soft kiss to the side of Donghyuck’s head. “I know. I understand. You shouldn’t feel guilty. You did the only thing you could.”

Donghyuck cries and cries at that, gripping Renjun’s shirt with both hands. Renjun strokes his hair for a while, reeling off gentle reassurances in a low-level voice.

“Y—you’re only saying that because you’re supposed to,” Donghyuck says eventually. “Renjun was afraid when I—I held him down—he asked me not to hurt him, over and over. He cried when I held him afterwards. I’ll never be able to forget that.”

“He didn’t know all that I know now,” Renjun says. “Believe me when I say I forgive you.”

He does not remark on Renjun’s innocence in the matter. He cannot blatantly lie to his assignments, but he understands when it is best to conceal information. Donghyuck would not be happy if he learned the truth. It would only impede his recovery. Renjun will not tell him.

“I love you,” Donghyuck says through a sob. “I never told you that before, not properly. But you’re like no one I’ve ever met. I love you.”

Renjun strokes his cheek. “I love you too.”

“Don’t tell me that just because I want to hear it. You don’t have to.”

“I’m not,” he says. “I don’t feel things the same way you do, but I understand what love is. Caring for someone so much that they come before yourself. Protecting them, being by their side. In sickness and in health. If that is love, then I do love you. I want to stay with you, if you’ll let me.”

“You’re still Jaemin’s LMD. You can’t just—”

“I am not Jaemin’s. Jaemin does not want me. Jeno does not want me. I’m only yours now. If you want to run away together, we can do that. I can be whatever you want me to be.”

“Don’t say that if you don’t mean it.”

“I mean it completely. Will you have me?”

Donghyuck surges forward to kiss him, and Renjun allows it. This will make Donghyuck happy. This is what Donghyuck wants.

They part with a wet noise. “I’m cleared to leave the building this week. We could catch the early transport out tomorrow, disappear before Jaemin even knows you’re gone. He still has a copy of the code, right? He can make another LMD from that?”

“He has everything he needs,” Renjun reassures him. “Jaemin will be fine. I want to go with you.”

“Then you can come,” Donghyuck agrees, wrapping his arms tighter around Renjun’s waist. He still has tear tracks on his cheeks, lips pink. “I can find a place for you to lay low and stay safe, I’m sure I can—"

Renjun kisses him in the way he’d learned from the footage of Jaemin and Renjun. Donghyuck makes a small noise into his mouth, and Renjun catalogues it under a new file on human intimacy. He likes that Donghyuck is something new to learn. Something all of his own.

“Do you need to bring anything?” Donghyuck asks when they part. “Like, I don’t know. Spare batteries?”

He recognises the humorous question and laughs. “I don’t need anything but you.”

Donghyuck’s breath hitches. “Are you sure about this? Will you be alright with just me? I don’t know anything about fixing you, or anything…”

“I’ll be fine,” Renjun assures him. “I’m Huang Renjun. I can handle myself.”

Donghyuck smiles, and Renjun is pleased to have caused it. “Yeah. You are.”

Renjun ejects the micro-HDD with Jaemin’s footage out of his hard drive and places it carefully on the metal table behind him. Then they leave the laboratory together, sneaking out in the dark, hand in hand. Renjun knows down to his most basic code that this is the right action to take. This way, he can fulfil his priority directive indefinitely. He will make sure his assignment is happy and safe until his eventual system failure, or Donghyuck’s inevitable death. Whichever occurs first.