Archive of Our Own

All things considered, the job seems like it might actually be legit, but Ajax is trying not to be too optimistic about it. It could just end up being a big stupid scam to get free labor out of them for a while, which wouldn’t be the worst thing, but would still suck. Or they might get killed and stripped for parts, which would be the worst thing.

The shop owner didn’t seem to have any ulterior motives when they talked with her the day before, though, and they’re very good at reading people. The fact that she’s willing to hire them in the first place — despite the fact that they’re a bot, and despite the nonexistent work history on their shiny new employment endorsement — was both relieving and… slightly concerning. Humans usually care more about that kind of thing. They’re willing to risk it, though, because… well, what other choice do they have? They need cash, and this place has the benefit of potentially giving them access to spare parts and repair equipment.

They still haven’t fully shaken the worry that they might get killed and stripped for parts, though; it is an electronics store, after all, and android parts aren’t cheap. They would know.

They make sure to arrive 10 minutes before the start of their shift, which multiple internet sources assure them is early enough to be punctual but not so early that their arrival would be unexpected. Or, they try to, at least, but find the employee door in the alley is locked. They shift their weight side to side as they replay their meeting with the shop owner from yesterday, but yes, she said “The front doors don’t get unlocked til 9:00, so just come in through the alley door when you get here.” They’re in the right place. They try the handle once more (still locked), wait exactly 30 seconds, then give three short knocks on the door, taking care to make them clearly audible without being too forceful.

The door opens a crack a few seconds later, and Lizzie, the gray-haired shop owner from yesterday, peers out.

“Oh, shit!” she exclaims, and swings the door wide open, kicking a foot out to stop it from closing again. “Sorry, forgot to leave it unlocked.” She gestures for them to come in, and they follow her across the threshold into an unlit back room lined with shelves full of hundreds of electronics. Stacks of old-world consoles from brands they’ve never even heard of, shelves of radios and stereos, televisions, computers, and unsorted piles of electrical components.

Before they can stare too long, though, Lizzie leads them through the open doorway into the brightly-lit workshop area that they had seen the day before.

“Hang out here for like 10 minutes while I finish up this order, then I’ll walk you through all the basics you need to know,” she tells them, then retreats into her little side-office. “Feel free to check the place out!” she adds.

They had already seen the shop yesterday, but they take the opportunity to poke around in a few cabinets and drawers, just to get an idea of what’s inside them (tools, pens, sticky notes, a candy bar, more tools). It seems like some the drawers contain personal effects, though, so they stop investigating and switch to reading labels on the organizational bins on the tables and shelves. They had only been at it for a few minutes (3.53 minutes, actually) when the door at the front of the shop jingles as someone enters. A customer, maybe? But shouldn’t the front doors be locked?

They don’t have much time to wonder, because the curtain that covers the doorway into the main storefront is parted, and an unfamiliar person crosses the threshold into the workshop, a ring of keys jingling in his hand. Ajax’s initial visual scan highlights the dark, messy hair, multitude of piercings in each ear, and purple shadows under the eyes as distinguishing features.

The newcomer stops in his tracks as he registers Ajax’s presence, looking over them as his brows draw together; their analysis of his expression returns a variety of emotions, all negative — displeasure, confusion, mistrust, anger, wariness.

“Who the hell are you?” he demands.

They run a near-instantaneous assessment of his tone and body language, and decide that the best response strategy is likely ‘earnest, with a slight overtone of apologetic confusion’.

“Oh, I just got hired yesterday,” they reply with a sheepish smile. “My name is Ajax.” They would offer their hand to shake, but they’re standing too far away for it to be a feasible gesture, so they do a little wave instead.

The newcomer narrows his eyes at them, unreceptive to the introduction, and gives them a disdainful look as he brushes past them. Wonderful. Ajax watches as he makes a sharp left into Lizzie’s office, closing the door behind him, which does very little to muffle his subsequent exclamation of, “Who the hell is that! Since when are we hiring?!”

“Since yesterday,” Lizzie replies, her voice slightly more muffled than his.

“Are you kidding?”

“Oh, sorry, I forgot I’m supposed to put new employees in the bathroom and let you two sniff each other through the door first.”

“I mean, a heads up would be nice!”

From there, the conversation devolves into muttering and whispers too low for Ajax to interpret, though they do make out the words ‘fuck’s sake’ and ‘goddamn robot’.

After a few minutes of that (2 minutes 54 seconds), the door opens and Lizzie marches out, with the stranger sullenly following behind her.

“Alright, c’mon, I’ll show you the basics so you can get started,” she says, beckoning to Ajax. “And don’t worry about Mace, he’ll warm up to you.”

The stranger (who is presumably called Mace) scowls at them before stomping over to a desk and shoving his headphones on, and Ajax gets the impression that Lizzie might be too optimistic in that regard.

——————

Mace does not warm up to them. He barely even looks at them the first few days, and keeps his headphones firmly on — a clear deterrent to any potential conversation. When he speaks to them, it’s short sentences or commands (like “customer” to indicate that they need to man the counter, or “take these apart” with a gesture toward a box of various broken electronics.) And it turns out that Lizzie is only in the shop three days out of five, and works in her office most of the time that she is there, so Mace is their main point of contact.

If they’re going to work with him, it’s strongly in their best interest to ensure that he tolerates them — especially considering the amount of influence he seems to have with Lizzie, and how tenuous their own employment is. The only problem is that it’s impossible to build any kind of rapport or behavior protocol for him, because none of the behaviors they attempt seem to work.

And it’s not for a lack of trying. They were quite literally built to elicit positive responses from humans, and they have an arsenal of strategies for approaching even the most challenging individuals. They know how humans act, they know how to reckon with hundreds of variables and choose the appropriate actions to achieve predictable responses.

But apparently nobody told Mace any of that. He just… doesn’t respond the way people are supposed to, the way they’ve been taught to predict from thousands of hours spent interacting with humans. They follow all the right scripts; they analyze his tone and body language and micro-expressions, monitor his heart rate, respiration, blood flow, pay attention to his overall mood at different times of day. Yet he consistently deflects every attempt they make at garnering even a lukewarm response.

They start simple — just tossing out idle small-talk, something to establish a low-stakes social connection. They time it for when he’s had his headphones off for a few minutes, so it won’t seem like they’re trying to approach him too quickly.

“Does it usually get busier here on the weekends?” they ask. It’s a Thursday, so they figure it’s a relevant enough question, and innocuous enough to not raise any ire.

“Don’t talk to me unless it’s important,” Mace replies near-instantly, not bothering to look at them.

Well. Okay then. Maybe they just need to give him a little more time.

Two days later, they try again. Mace is wearing a hooded sweatshirt with a spherical pink creature on it, which a quick image search reveals is the protagonist of a long-running video game series. Personal interests tend to be easy topics of conversation, especially when the interest is being broadcast through clothing or accessory choices. They skim a few articles about the games so they’ll have a better frame of reference for conversation, then casually broach the topic while Mace is switching tasks.

“So, you like the Kirby games?” they ask.

This time, he at least turns to look at them; they gesture, indicating the shirt he’s wearing as an explanation for their question. His eyes narrow.

“You don’t need to know that about me.” He turns back to his work.

They nearly snort at the contrast of Mace’s irritable scowl right above the bright and cheerful visage of Kirby.

——————

“Where does Lizzie get all this stuff, anyway?” Ajax asks on day 11, pulling a motherboard out of a crumbling computer chassis.

Mace, apparently feeling chattier than usual, shrugs without looking at them. “I dunno, dumps and estate sales and shit, and a couple of wholesalers for individual components.” He pauses as he shoots a burst of compressed air into the half-assembled computer in front of him. “People bring stuff in to sell sometimes, too.”

They make a contemplative hum, then venture, “Do you ever get biotech parts?” They hadn’t seen any since they’d been working there, or much of anything that they might be able to use to repair themself on the cheap. Wires and capacitors and voltage regulators, sure, but none of the specialized tech that they needed.

“No,” he says flatly. “We don’t have a license for that.” He glances over at them. “That why you wanted this job?”

“No,” they shoot back, trying not to sound defensive. “I was just curious.”

Mace gives them a look like he can see through their answer, but doesn’t say anything.

It was a long-shot idea anyway, but it was still disappointing. The longer they limped along with their shitty half-functional hardware, the more they felt like they might have been a little too hasty ripping out proprietary components before having suitable backups. Some of the logic controllers and peripheral computing units offloaded a lot more processing from their main CPU than they had initially thought; they hadn’t known how much RAM it took to maintain their balance and move their limbs and process their surroundings all at the same time until they had to manually partition their processor to handle each of the tasks.

Knowing what they know now, they probably could have jailbroken most of those components, but, well. Hindsight is 20/20. Plus it's already a legal gray area, and they’re trying to keep everything above-board as much as they can. So unless they can convince Lizzie to start stocking bot parts, they’re just gonna have to save up to enough to buy the parts they needed and to pay a technician (or someone close enough to a technician) to install them.

At least they’re actually getting paid these days.

———

By day 13, Ajax has determined that Mace doesn’t respond positively when they attempt to make small talk, or inquire about his interests, or even when they offer to help with various tasks (“I can do this better and faster than you”); he just barely tolerates being asked direct questions about the job. However, he also doesn’t seem to receive any satisfaction from criticizing or berating them, despite the fact that he does both of those things quite often.

He’s looking through one of the sets of small plastic drawers that hold tiny components, then turns to them and asks, “Can you read?” His inflection makes it sound almost like a sincere question.

“Yes, I can read,” they reply, keeping their voice perfectly neutral.

“Okay, then can you start acting like it and quit mixing the fucking capacitors together?”

Another thing they’ve learned about him: he has very high standards for the quality of work he does, and expects the same from them. All the machines he works with are tested for functionality, client repairs are done with extreme attention to detail, and parts are sorted and organized according to his very specific system.

That last bit was the source of his most common grievance toward them, which they suppose is fair, since their current error rate is at 9.3%. It’s not that they don’t understand his unnecessarily atomized organizational system, it’s the fact that they can’t tell some of the components apart in the first place. They have their visual acuity turned down to save processing power — something that’s increasingly in short supply for them — which means that more than a few parts are virtually indistinguishable. They can make decent guesses based on the material, identifying the base composition with the sensors in their fingertips, but they’re still working on refining their sorting algorithm to reduce the number of mistakes they make.

“I’ll do my best,” they reply. There’s not much else they can say that won’t just make him more annoyed.

He makes a scoffing noise and turns back to the drawers, plucking capacitors out one by one. “Okay.”

Aside from their sorting abilities, he has also complained about the speed at which they disassemble machines, the loudness of their cooling fans, the fact that they sometimes stand too close to him when borrowing a tool from his desk, and that they are “too damn chipper” with customers.

They consider the possibility that he might just dislike androids, but his particular type of hostility doesn’t have the same overtones as someone who genuinely dislikes bots. It might be that he doesn’t like that they’re a sexbot, but he hasn’t made any indication toward that, either (and there’s always the chance that he doesn’t even know what type of android they are). It's... weird. He treats them like a person, but a person he specifically dislikes.

It’s also possible that he’s just still upset about not being consulted before they were hired, and takes their presence as an infringement on his control over his workplace.

Regardless, there’s nothing they can do about about either of those possibilities. For the time being, it seems like the best course of action is to just… keep their head down, do their work, and let him slowly acclimate to them. If they know anything about humans, it’s that they’ll eventually bond to things that they spend enough time around.

——————

Work Protocol (Ver. 2.3)

1. Assist customers. If no customers,

2. Package and label online orders.

3. Sort and label parts and components.

4. Test salvaged machines;

   1. If machine is functional: query Client Request Log for specific machine requests;

      1. If requested, add to Client Request shelf with client ID note. (LET MACE KNOW if client request is filled)

      2. If no requests, add to finishing queue. (to the BACK of the shelf)

   2. If machine is nonfunctional, determine cost-effectiveness of repair;

      1. If repairable and cost effective, add to repair queue. (add note listing necessary repairs)

      2. If not repairable/cost effective, query Client Request Log for specific machine requests;

         1. If requested, add to Client Request shelf (BOTTOM SHELF) with client ID note. (STILL LET MACE KNOW)

         2. If no requests, add to disassembly queue.

5. Disassemble machines in disassembly queue.

6. Adjust products on shelves in customer-facing areas to maintain orderliness and neatness.

7. Assist with client repair requests [CONDITIONAL: MACE’S AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED]

8. Leave Mace Alone

——————

By day 18, they’re beginning to suspect that Mace doesn’t have an issue with them, necessarily, so much as he just seems to have an Issue, in general. Maybe a couple of issues.

“Goddamn son of a fucking shit,” he rants. He’s pacing back and forth through the workshop, running his hand through his hair reflexively; it makes his already unkempt hair stand up at wild angles on his head. “Who the hell leaves a package at a business and doesn’t at least knock?”

The problem of the day is that an order from a new supplier — one that contained a few moderately expensive parts that they didn’t usually order — was dropped off at the back entrance that morning, and then promptly stolen less than 10 minutes later.

“If we ever find those thieves, I swear to god I’m gonna kill them, I’m not joking.”

“Hey, no actionable threats against—,” Lizzie begins, and Mace interrupts her.

“—Against named or specified persons, I know, I don’t give a fuck,” he says. “And if I ever see that incompetent delivery driver again, I’m gonna run him over with his own stupid fucking truck.”

Lizzie levels a look at him over the rim of her glasses.

“Fine,” he snaps. “SOMEBODY should run him over with his own stupid fucking truck.” He growls wordlessly, then grabs the pack of cigarettes off his desk with unnecessary force. “I’m gonna take a smoke break,” he says, stalking toward the back door.

“You just got here twenty minutes ago,” Lizzie points out.

“I’m gonna take a smoke break,” he repeats, hissing the words through his teeth without looking back. The door slams shut behind him.

Ajax, still standing off to one side of the room where they’d moved to avoid Mace’s enraged pacing, glances at Lizzie.

“So…,” they venture after a few seconds of politely awkward silence, “does he get like that very often?”

Lizzie shrugs. “Not as much as he used to. He’ll be fine once he cools off for a minute. And he’s got a lot more bark than bite,” she replies, leaning against the doorway of her office and taking a sip of coffee. “Mean little shit.” She says it with a note of affection in her voice.

She takes another leisurely sip from her mug, then straightens and sighs. “Well, I guess I’ve gotta go fill out this damn police report. Can you find a list of pawn shops and electronic stores and shit nearby? Anywhere that somebody would be likely to try and sell to? It’d be handy if we could send out an email to let them know to keep an eye out for the parts that got stolen.”

They move to the front of the shop to keep an eye on the register, just in case any early customers come in, then begin their search as Lizzie retreats to her office. They start with a query to a statewide database to pull a list of all registered businesses within 10 miles of the shop, then filter the results to include only businesses that were likely to purchase electronic components. About a third of them have missing or outdated contact info, so they start scouring the internet to compile the email addresses.

A figure comes into view as they work, walking by the windows that face out onto the street. They get ready to pause their processes in case the person comes inside, but then realize that it’s just Mace, walking briskly past the front of the building with a cigarette in his mouth. Hopefully he wasn’t planning on doing anything stupid, like trying to track down the delivery driver.

1.24 minutes later, Mace walks by the window again, passing by in the same direction — too short to be a walk around the block, so he must be pacing around the building.

Ajax finally locates the last address and sends the email from the official work account, attaching photos of all the parts that were stolen along with the original order confirmation from the supplier. While they wait for Lizzie to finish the police report, Mace passes by three more times, each subsequent lap taking slightly longer.

Almost exactly 14 minutes after he left, Mace comes back inside just as Ajax is crossing the threshold back into the workshop. He still seems agitated, but his heart rate has slowed substantially, and his body language and expression are much closer to his baseline level of annoyance than the fuming outrage from earlier.

“I sent emails to all the pawn shops, thrift stores, resellers, scrappers, and electronic stores within a 10 mile radius letting them know what was stolen,” Ajax offers, unprompted. There’s a little network ping letting them know that Lizzie just sent the police report, too.

“Good,” Mace says. “Hopefully we can get some of our shit back. I’m sick of having this stupid project on my desk, and now its gonna take another week at least, all because some half-cocked delivery driver—,” he cuts himself off with a frustrated noise. “Whatever. Let me know if you hear anything back.”

(It only takes 2 hours before a shop from 3.4 miles away sends them back an image of the stolen parts, still in the box they’d been packaged in.

‘Got your stuff — told the guy I was taking it to the back to let our appraiser take a look then kicked him out lol. Come pick up whenever.’

They watch Mace read the notification on his phone, then — without saying anything — he stands, grabs Lizzie’s car keys from the hook on the wall, and walks out the back door to pick up the box.)

——————

On day 24, they have their first irate customer.

They usually don’t mind working the register. Most of the people who come in are harmless, and are generally divided into two groups — ones who are interested in the retro consoles and refurbished tech, and ones who are there for individual, specific parts. This man is neither, and Ajax clocks his demeanor as aggressive from the moment he steps through the door.

It’s fine. This is another thing they’re capable of dealing with. They know how to placate angry humans, how to keep themself small and nonthreatening, how to project a disposition of apologetic submission. They take in the facts, between his expletives and insults (he claims he was sold a faulty part, though it sounds like he just bought the wrong thing; he’s angry about the time he wasted trying to get it to work, and angry at the shop for selling him something that wasn’t functional.) It’s straightforward, something they know how to handle.

They use the right scripts, apologize, offer to refund him or replace the part for free — they aren’t sure if they’re actually allowed to offer refunds for something like this, but they can afford to cover it from their paycheck, if they need to.

They’re just starting to make a little headway when Mace suddenly appears from the back room; he shoves past them to lean across the counter and says, “No, actually, you’re not getting a refund. Leave, now.”

The man is taken aback. “Excuse me?”

God, they were handling it and now he’s riling the guy back up. They suppress a grimace and shift slightly further away.

Mace raises his voice, because apparently deescalation isn’t in his vocabulary. “I said leave, now.” He points toward the door. “Get the fuck out of my store before I call the cops on you for threatening an employee.”

Ajax blinks — he hadn’t threatened them, had he? They quickly review the past fifteen seconds of conversation, and… huh, they suppose “I oughta take you apart for scraps if you can’t do any better than that,” could be considered a kind of threat. It wasn't particularly likely to happen, so they hadn't even logged it in the moment.

The man’s face has turned an interesting shade of bright red, his expression an even mixture of fury and embarrassment. He’s evidently too stunned by the treatment to come up with a decent retort, so he just turns on his heel and storms toward the door.

“You can be sure I’ll never be coming back here again,” he throws over his shoulder.

“GOOD,” Mace shouts after him.

He glares until the door swings shut behind the man, then turns his sharp gaze onto Ajax. They brace for some kind of reprimand or lecture, but he just says, “Don’t let them treat you like that.”

He stalks back to his workstation, and Ajax stares after him long after the curtain to the back room falls shut behind him. They don’t quite know what to think.

They don’t have a chance to go to the back until later; when they do, Mace has his headphones on, so they don’t bother him. It’s not until they’re closing up shop for the day that Ajax says, “Thank you for your help earlier.” They try not to put too much emphasis on it.

Mace glances at them, expression inscrutable. “Whatever. Like I said, don’t let them treat you like that. If they suck, we don’t want them to come back. Lizzie’s got a zero tolerance policy for assholes.”

“Except you?” they say impulsively, then freeze, realizing what just came out of their mouth. They wait for his reaction, watching out of the corner of their eye.

But he just gives a surprised huff of amusement, and a reluctant little smile tugs at the corners of his mouth — the first one they’ve managed to get out of him.

“Yeah, except me."