A Small Jolt [Ivan+Allison]

[Ivan Braginsky]

Evenings were generally really calm. Hardly anything happened unless he was working on something or going through his old notebooks. Ivan tended to find evenings a nice time to relax and have some tea, but tonight he had other plans. Tonight he was actually going to revise some of his notes on personality simulation to see if maybe he could work out this bug he found in one of his newer simulation models that made the testing output obsess over a particular word. It was always a different word every time, but the testing output (which was a DOS-style .bat file) would keep putting whatever word the bug caused it to obsess over at the end of every sentence. It didn't seem to be detrimental, it was just kind of annoying. He wouldn't want to attempt to put that into a bot and give them a horribly bizarre verbal tic. Sometimes they already had those, but this was just absurd.

Ivan prepared a cup of tea from the kitchen with the absurd amount of sugar that he tended to take in it when he wasn't adding whole spoonfuls of jam to the mixture. He smiled slightly as he carried it from the kitchen, down the hall to the bookcase that Yong Soo outfitted awhile back to serve as the "secret entrance" to their "secret lair" which was really just the work room they kind of shared. Ivan tended to use the back of the workroom for his studies and kept the vast majority of his notes under lock and key. This wasn't because he didn't trust Yong Soo, it was just because he was paranoid.

Humming to himself, he reached up to pull the false book which was the lever to open the door, ignoring his surroundings.

[Allison Jones]

Allie had spent the day more or less cleaning up the penthouse, since she really had nothing better to do. Besides, it was always good to clean regularly, so there would be no messes or possible germs that could make Ivan sick. She had to do the best she could to take care of her owner, after all. While she had only been living with Ivan and Yong Soo for a month now, she was very attached to them both, though she preferred Ivan’s company to Yong Soo’s. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with the human bot, she just wasn’t entirely comfortable with him always trying out new upgrades on her constantly.

Since the penthouse was finally clean, Allie had decided to watch television, settling on a children’s channel. She was fascinated by the antics of a bunch of teenagers and their food-loving dog and their crime solving skills. However, the bad guys always seemed to sneak up behind them and scare them, which she thought was funny. Maybe she should try that with Ivan or Yong Soo someday.

As if her thoughts had been heard by some deity, Ivan appeared, making his way to the bookshelf that led into the workroom. Grinning, Allie got up from the couch quietly and tiptoed over to Ivan. Once she got close enough, she yelled “BOO!”

[Ivan Braginsky]

Ivan had just yanked on the false book when suddenly a loud sound shocked him out of his own little mental world. He felt himself jolt, jumping with a loud yelp and losing hold of his favorite tea mug. By the time the mug crashed to the floor, he was leaning against the wall opposite the bookshelf, hand clutching over the spot where his heart used to be and panting heavily. A loud, high-frequency beeping echoed in the narrow hallways. His mind raced as he quickly glanced around the hallway, looking but not exactly seeing anything clearly in his fright.

What... what had made that sound? It was too high-pitched and delicate sounding to be Yong Soo. Oh God, what if someone was in the penthouse to kill him?! Someone had found out the truth about D.E.R.P. and his involvement, now they were here to execute justice. Ivan continued panting and the EKG in his chest kept beeping. Maybe he should just let them. He'd deserve it, wouldn't he? For ruining all of those lives with his stupid experiments and his stupid selfish desire to have people around him. That was more than enough. Maybe if he knelt down and held still, they'd make it quick and painless. His knees be damned, he wouldn't be needing them if he wasn't going to be walking again.

He hated that EKG monitor sometimes. It was so annoying. They'd probably kill him just to stop that irritating sound. Ivan's breathing started to even out as he began to accept his fate, the rate of his mechanical heart going back to normal and shutting off the warning beep. Putting one hand on the wall, he started to lower himself to his knees to appease the assassin.

"One secont... I am sorry..." he grumbled, having bent up slightly as he slowly got closer to the ground. However, he chose this moment to see what his assassin looked like. Maybe they were good-looking. That would be nice, he could at least see something pleasant in his last moments.

He didn't expect to see... what he did see.

"Allison?" He blinked, pausing his descent. She was his assassin? What kind of sense did that make? He thought she liked him. Luckily... his mug was sturdily made from his tendency to frequently knock it off the work bench or desk, so it didn't break... Now she wouldn't have a mess to clean up after killing him.

[Allison Jones]

While Allie had been expecting Ivan to jump and get surprised, she hadn’t expected the reaction she got. A loud beeping pierced the air and she covered her ears, trying to block out the sound from being picked up by her hearing sensors. As she kept her hands clamped over her ears, she watched with wide eyes as Ivan knelt down in front of her, taking his time due to his bad knees. What was he doing? Why was he getting down on the floor? Was he going to pick up his mug? She could do that for him, once the awful beeping stopped! He didn’t need to strain himself!

When the beeping finally stopped, Allie pulled her hands away from her ears and stared down at Ivan in shock. Why was he apologizing and looking at her like that? Concern for her owner pushed aside any other thoughts and she grabbed Ivan’s upper arms and helped him back up to his feet. “You shouldn’t be kneeling down like that, Mister Ivan! Not with your bad knees! You’ll make them worse and getting cybernetic knees will probably be a really painful surgery! So you have to take care of yourself!” She babbled as she looked him over, making sure that he was alright. The strange beeping had seemed to come from Ivan himself and she frowned at that. What if it was a bomb? Ivan was in danger then!

Not waiting for a response from her owner, she grabbed the bottom of his big sweater and yanked it upwards, looking for the bomb that was strapped to her owner’s chest. What she found instead was a mechanical heart with an EKG meter attached. So that was where the beeping had come from… Ivan’s heart rate had increased because she had surprised him. While it didn’t explain his strange reaction to her scaring him, it did explain the beeping.

“Mister Ivan doesn’t have a bomb on him… that’s good!”

[Ivan Braginsky]

A string of illogical syllables escaped his mouth as Allison pulled him to his feet. Sometimes he forgot that she could probably carry him like a sack of potatoes if she wanted to. Still though, now she was babbling at him about him kneeling down on the ground.

Fine, if she wanted him to be standing when she killed him, he'd stand. He just didn't want to make a loud thumping noise when he hit the floor post-mortem, but apparently she was alright with that. Then again... wait, why would she be talking about knee surgery for him if she was going to off him for whatever reason? Oh... maybe... Well, now Ivan certainly felt foolish. Allison wouldn't kill him. She liked him and worried about his health- WHOA. Where her hands going?!

More unconnected phonemes fell out of his throat as his sweater was pulled up by his... overly concerned bot. His arms flailed helplessly for a second before he managed to shove the knit fabric back down. "Allison?!" His voice was dripping in absolute surprise as an indignant red color flooded his face. No, he didn't have a bomb. It was just the EKG that was designed to warn him if his heart was beating at a potentially abnormal rate. Ivan wasn't going to suddenly blow up. That'd be silly.

He sighed, smiling once again like normal once he was properly covered again. "Is just Ivan at home, Allison~" he corrected gently. He'd told her before that it was "Ivan" at home, and in public either "Ivan Nikolayevich" or "Mr. Braginsky", but it seemed she was still getting used to that.

[Allison Jones]

Allie frowned when the sweater as yanked out of her hands and tugged back down, but at least she had determined that no, Ivan did not have a bomb strapped to him and that he had just been very surprised by her. Although his face had turned bright red, which confused her, since blushing was supposed to be a sign of embarrassment, right? Why was Ivan embarrassed about her checking to make sure there was no bomb on his chest? That was a silly thing to be embarrassed about!

“Right! Just Ivan! Sorry, I keep forgetting!” She grinned brightly at Ivan as she spoke, before remembering that the mug of tea had fallen to the floor. “Oh no, I’ll clean up your tea and make you some more, okay? I’m really sorry that I startled you so much! I was just pretending to be like the monsters on Scooby Doo…” A bit of an embarrassed blush crept onto her face as she realized how childish that must sound. Mumbling another apology, she quickly ran off to get some paper towels to soak up the tea.

When she returned, she set about cleaning up the tea, hoping that Ivan wouldn’t get mad at her for trying out something she had seen on television. She couldn’t help that she learned everything about human interaction from that, since Ivan rarely spent time with other humans.

[Ivan Braginsky]

Ivan wasn't upset with her. She'd merely been trying to make sure he was okay. Right. It was just part of her programming, something he should have realized sooner... especially since he designed that programming himself. However, the whole "stripping your owner to make sure they aren't going to explode" seemed to be a weird byproduct of the programming that he had not foreseen. At least she meant well. As long as she didn't do that in public, it wouldn't be a big issue. She also didn't seem to be phased by suddenly learning that her master had no literal heart to speak of.

She hadn't meant to scare him so badly, apparently either, she was just being playful. That was... kind of cute, despite the horrible shock she'd given him. At least now he knew that his adrenal glands were still working and he was therefore capable of producing adrenaline in a fight or flight scenario. Hopefully though, she would... stop trying to imitate the things she saw on television. He was still... very much alive and there were no assassins trying to wreak righteous justice upon his sin-ridden soul, just happy Allisons who wanted to play with their master.

By the time she had returned to help him clean up the spilled tea, which was indeed a regretful side-effect of her games, he'd already bent over and grabbed his trusty mug. Standing back up wasn't so bad because he hadn't used his knees. His back wasn't nearly so sore and stiff as his knees tended to be. "Not be worryink, Солнышко... not upset with you. I know you dit not scare me on purpose~" He hummed a bit, "Was there anythink you were needink?"

[Allison Jones]

Allie still felt bad for having given her owner such a shock. She would remember from now on not to sneak up on Ivan, because she didn’t like the beeping the EKG meter made and she felt awful for scaring her owner. A frown formed on her face as she tried to figure out why exactly Ivan had started to kneel and why he had apologized to her. It didn’t make any sense. She continued to frown in thought as she cleaned up the tea. Once that was done, she threw the towels away in a nearby trashcan and glanced over at Ivan.

“I… wanted to spend time together, but you probably have work to do,” she said with a sigh, knowing that Ivan’s work usually distracted him from many other things, like eating and sleeping. “But, before you go work, um, why did you apologize and try to kneel after I scared you? Is that how all humans react to fear?”

[Ivan Braginsky]

Ivan tilted his head to the side at the question. Well, he didn't have to work on that personality simulator bug right now if she really wanted his attention. He supposed that was okay. He smiled at her and reached out, putting his hand on her shoulder. "If you wantet to spent time together, we can do that~" he hummed, "What woult you like to do?" He was awful at figuring out activities to do together, considering he was best at sitting by himself and losing himself in his work.

He'd already started putting his bizarre reaction to being startled out of his mind, but she brought it back to the forefront, apparently curious as to what the hell he was doing. "Oh, I thought you were assassin sent to erase me for my sins~" he said, all too cheerfully. Surely other people had similar processes when they thought they were about to removed from the existence. "I was goink to make it easier ant less messy for you." Common courtesy and all that. Anyone else would have obviously done the same for their attacker.

[Allison Jones]

A small thrill of happiness ran through her as Ivan put his hand on her shoulder and she smiled brightly at him. Ivan hardly touched anyone whenever they did see other humans and he seemed not to enjoy physical contact very much, so whenever he did put his arm around her or something similar, Allie always felt extremely happy. She was also happy that he wanted to spend time with her and she was about to drag him over to the television so they could watch movies when she heard his answer to her question.

Ivan had thought she was going to kill him? Startled, she stared at him, wondering why he thought she would ever do that. But she supposed that it was a human thing, so she didn’t ask too much about it right now. Instead, she wrapped her arms around Ivan and hugged him gently. “I would never kill you, Ivan! I am programmed to never hurt my owner and even if I could, I would never hurt you.”

[Ivan Braginsky]

Ivan paused when she said that. He looked at her curiously, hand still on her shoulder. For once, the smile was gone, but not because he was unhappy. He was... thinking... processing and trying to formulate how to actually respond to that. If a human had said they would never hurt him, he'd be genuinely surprised. He was getting weaker, he wasn't in the best health... He was expendable and the moment anyone found out what he'd done in the names of both research and selfishness, he wouldn't last long. It would be fair and Ivan knew he had it coming. However, it was his bot that said that she would never hurt him. Of course, it should have been expected; it was in her programming and he should not have expected anything else. It was a meaningless response... wasn't it?

"Sometimes... thinks happen, Солнышко," he said, smile creeping back to his face, "thinks that you may not expect." Hopefully she'd just take his word for it. Sometimes there could be glitches on code results, errors in the code itself, algorithms may produce loopholes due to glitches... Sometimes circuits could short out or something could be faulty. There was no real way to anticipate everything, no matter how much he'd tried to. That's what the fail-safe codes were for and Ivan hoped he never had to use them.

Yet, there were more pleasant things to do and think about. Ivan hummed for a second as he tried to nudge Allison back towards the living room. "Do not worry yourself with it, Солнышко~ Is best that way~" The less she knew, the better.

[Allison Jones]

Allie looked back at her owner as Ivan gently pushed her toward the living room and she frowned, stomping her foot. “No, Ivan! I don’t care if you think I’m just a machine who can glitch and forget things by just erasing them! I am never going to hurt you! Even if something happens to me, I would rather do a system wipe than hurt you.” She felt her face turn red at her sudden admission and she looked away from Ivan, hurrying into the living room.

Sitting down on the couch, Allie grabbed a pillow and buried her face in it, shocked at what she had just said. She was just supposed to be a machine but… but she truly did care for Ivan and did not want to see him get hurt by anyone. But that was just her programming, right? She was simply programmed to feel protective of her owner, so Ivan would probably think nothing of her outburst. After all, a machine didn’t have feelings.

[Ivan Braginsky]

Did... Allison just talk back to him? Ivan stared at her somewhat dumbfounded, the expression suddenly having forced his typical smile out of place to make way. No, no, no, no, bots don't talk back, especially not to their owners. Wait, this had to be a glitch of some kind. There was no logical way she was talking back to him, that just made no sense. It wasn't in bot programming. Didn't they alter her personality to make her more docile and obedient, to just accept what she was told? That was the protocol! That was the mandate he'd set for the process of cyberization that specialized bots who performed the operation were supposed to follow! This had to be an error of some kind... it just had to be.

Or... maybe... bots were... No, no. Ivan had to stop that train of thought right there. There was no way they could be more human than he'd programmed them to be. He'd designed them to only mimic humans. Maybe she'd picked up this behavior from some television show... or something. Ivan sighed and sat down next to her on the couch. She.. really was upset that he thought that... She was having.. genuine emotion? No, that couldn't be. Bots didn't have feelings, did they? They could only simulate emotion. But... here Allison was, all kinds of upset because of him.

"Солнышко," he said, keeping his voice down, "I... am sorry..." That felt weird, apologizing to what he'd created to be nothing more than a lively machine. Yong Soo was the exception, having not had his personality altered in anyway. He very much had a human mind and heart still, it just now ran on circuits instead of neurons. Allison was different. She was supposed to have had her humanity stripped completely away, yet... Ivan sighed and put his arm around her shoulders to pull her into a comforting hug. How was one supposed to comfort someone that wasn't supposed to have feelings? He was never really good at... comforting people, but... he'd try. For some reason, it kind of hurt to see her upset.

[Allison Jones]

Allie noted the slightly shocked look on Ivan’s face at her outburst, which made her feel worse. She wasn’t supposed to have done that… Because she was just a bot who lived for Ivan’s needs and wants and she was fine with that. She just felt so much more than what she thought she was supposed to. Bots were becoming being programmed to be more human, so maybe that was what was causing the problem. Her AI must be glitching with the over-complicated emotions that humans held.

But even with a quick system check, Allie could find nothing wrong with her programming, which confused her even more. Especially once she had sat down on the couch and hid her face in a pillow, only to realize that the pillow was getting wet. Was she crying? Why was she crying over something like this? She kept her face hidden when Ivan pulled her into a hug but she let go of the pillow with one arm and clung to him tightly.

“I-It’s not your f-fault, Ivan,” she mumbled into the pillow, her body shaking as she tried to control her tears.

[Ivan Braginsky]

Ivan was certainly... confused when she latched onto him. He really shouldn't have been surprised since she's always been really attached to him. What did surprise him was the tears that seemed to be on the pillow she hid her face in. Bots of her model could cry... with this saline solution that was used to lubricate the eyes, which periodically had to be refilled, but at the same time... he felt like... maybe he'd done his work too well. Were the bots becoming too human? He felt a small throb of guilt in his chest, reminding him of his sin of creating these abominations. Apparently not today, but one day... he'd pay for it.

"Солнышко," he said, keeping his voice down as he hugged her tightly, which was... weird in and of itself. He wasn't too terribly keen on physical contact with other people, but she was a bot so that was different, right? She was just a machine? He'd hug Yong Soo, and considered Yong Soo a person, but Yong Soo was family. Allison was... a bot, but now... she was practically family at though. Maybe that was why it seemed okay to hug her and attempt to comfort her. Granted, he was still the worst at that type of thing.

"Please do not be upset..." If Allison was... legitimately feeling sadness or pain, outside of her programming and therefore real emotions that she shouldn't be able to feel, Ivan would feel terrible for causing her that anguish. Right now wasn't the time to panic over the possibility of bots being more human than he planned for them to be, Ivan would have a panic attack about it in his workroom later. Right now was when he needed to try and help a friend... a family member, even if he really had no idea what to do.

They weren't just... machines anymore were they? That thought bound to haunt him.