Work Text:
I was still feeling unsure about this experimental surgery thing. Before ART knocked me out, I wanted to confirm every detail.
ART sent me some sample hair styles in the feed. It was really getting into this makeover thing, and it was kind of weirding me out. I don’t have a body, ART interjected, lurking in my feed, because it kept doing that, This is exciting.
I picked a hairstyle that was long in the back and short up front because it looked like it would be easy to maintain and it would cover my data port.
I have another suggestion, ART said. It sent me a database article on tattoos.
Is your MedSystem certified to do this?
It can’t be that hard, ART said dismissively. It is a very human thing to do to get a tattoo. How many SecUnits have tattoos?
I wondered if having a specific section of your skin specially coded to be more pigmented in the shape of a company logo counted as a tattoo but decided it didn’t.
It sent me an image of its logo. I think this would be a good design.
What the fuck. No.
It admitted, This is the only image I have high enough quality vector files of on-board to feel confident tattooing it.
No.
Do you want to be caught or not?
I rewatched one of my favorite scenes of Sanctuary Moon while it lurked impatiently in my feed, sending me indignant intermittent pings. Then I said, Okay, fine.
Excellent, ART replied, sending me an image of a human with a tattoo on their low back, over their hips. I think this would be a good placement.
I said, I don’t have organic parts there.
Oh, ART replied, Perhaps I could engrave it instead.
What the fuck? No! That would defeat the whole purpose.
It hung around the feed for a couple of microseconds, thinking. That was suspicious and I didn’t like it. Then it said, Collarbone?
Yeah, sure, fine, what the fuck ever, I replied, resigned. I guess the point was for it to be visible, after all. Even if I hated it.
Okay, and about the limbs, I said. Maybe one and a half standard units?
I do not believe the difference would be dramatic enough. Two and a half standard units?
Oh, fuck no. That was way too much. Two.
Two, ART agreed.
To say I was apprehensive stepping into the MedSystem would be the understatement of the century, probably. Perhaps the understatement of the whole fucking human space age.
When I woke up, I felt like absolute garbage. I felt like I’d ripped my arm off at the shoulder and tried to evacuate my lung through it. It fucking sucked.
Then I looked at my arm, and tried to flinch with shock, but it hurt too much, so I just felt generally angry and shocked emotionally instead.
There is no need to move now, ART said.
Yes there is, I replied. Because I need to fuck up your power core, data processor, and memory banks. Simultaneously and indiscriminately.
That is not the standard way of showing your appreciation for a makeover, ART said, peeved.
Yeah, well, this isn’t what we fucking agreed to. We agreed to two. Two standard units! This is like, sixty standard units! More than half of my arm!
No, ART said. I removed two standard units.
There is no fucking way in hell this is two centimeters. That’s the standard unit. Is your brain corrupted? Do you have malware?
Oh, ART said. I thought you were talking about feet. Mihira and New Tideland never stopped using imperial measurements. They tried to get onto metric about forty years ago, but everyone hated it.
I was still so angry I could hardly think, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it right now. I still wanted to destroy all of ART’s vital systems, but even if I didn’t need to heal in order to move at all without feeling like my organic parts were all going to fall off, I would probably be so clumsy now that I was two feet shorter that two half-broken drones without an independent AI could’ve stopped me easily.
So I settled down, and watched three episodes of Sanctuary Moon, angrily.
At the end of the third one, halfway through the credits music, I realized. THEN IT SHOULD’VE BEEN INCHES! Then, I watched another episode of Sanctuary Moon while thinking about how angry I was that it took me so long to think of saying that.