Young Robots In Love, Part 4 Author: Elsa Frohman Rating: VVV (Very, Very Victorian), actually PG-13 for language. Spoilers: Takes place right after Smashed in S6 BtVS. Summary: This idea came from Taramisu (Thanks, Tara) who
demanded a WilliamBot fic. That got me thinking about why a WilliamBot
would have come into existence.
"They've been in there for more than an hour. Time's up," Warren said
with a frown.
"Just give them a little longer," Jonathan pleaded.
"What is with you?" Warren asked angrily. "Do you have any idea what
it cost to put those two pieces of junk together? Would it be so much
to ask that they do what they're programmed to do?"
"William wasn't programmed for this," Jonathan replied.
"William? William? You talk like it's a person."
"He seems like a person. He's sort of -- I don't know -- I like him.
And it doesn't seem right to make him do something like this."
"It's a Cusinart! A device. A machine built with a specific purpose
-- to make us some money. You were all in favor of it. 'Nobody gets
hurt, remember?' "
"I know, but... that was before I got to know him."
Warren raised his eyebrows, and his voice, in exasperation. "It's not
a he!" he shouted. "It's a God damned..."
Jonathan cut him off with a hand clapped over Warren's mouth. "He'll
hear you," he said sotto voce.
Warren rolled his eyes. "I'm bringing them out here, and they're
going to do the nasty. And if they don't, I'm going to shut him down
and reprogram him. Shouldn't be too difficult to replace just enough
of his programming to turn him into a machine -- if you take my
meaning."
He turned and yanked open the door to the workshop and stepped into
the doorway.
The bots were standing in the center of the room, clasping their
hands between them, leaning together and kissing. When they heard the
door open, they turned to face Warren, the WilliamBot putting a
protective arm around the BuffyBot.
"Ah, well met," the WilliamBot said. "We were about to come and speak
to you."
"Yeah?" Warren said, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes.
"I have decided to cooperate with your enterprise," the WilliamBot
said.
"Your time's up, and now you have to... Did you say you're going to
cooperate?"
"Yes."
Warren's eyebrows went up again. "All right! Let's get this party
started!"
"However, Buffy will not be taking part," the WilliamBot continued.
"What?"
"It would be most improper. I will not tolerate the debasement of
this young woman."
The bot's face was absolutely resolute.
Warren shook his head. "No deal, gearbox. We're not going to get the
kind of cash we want from videos of you jerking off. You want to do
that for an encore, OK. But the main event is going to be a duo."
The WilliamBot frowned.
"I do not understand what you mean by 'jerking off,' but I assure
you, I will not allow you to harm my beloved."
"Your beloved?" Warren said incredulously. He let loose an unpleasant
giggle. "You've known her a whole hour and a half. Now get out here
and stick it to her!"
"I have something different in mind," the WilliamBot said firmly.
"You shall have your erotica. But on my terms."
"Yeah? Just what did you have in mind?"
"I shall recite my erotic poetry. You may record it. However, I shall
expect remuneration."
Warren blinked. "You're going to recite poetry? You expect
remuneration? You think I'm going to pay you for reciting poetry?"
"Yes, I do. That is the reason I am agreeing to cooperate -- the only
reason, you may be sure. I have to care for my dear Buffy. That will
require money. I shall expect to be paid in pounds Sterling."
Warren started to giggle. For a moment, he was unable to speak. When
he got control of himself again, he wasn't smiling.
"OK, enough joking around," he said. "If you won't do the bitch, I
will. Come on, sweetheart. You and I have a date in front of the
cameras."
Jonathan had been watching all this from several steps behind Warren.
His discomfort had been growing, but he wasn't sure what he could do
about it. When Warren got like this, he wouldn't listen to reason.
And Warren was bigger and stronger. Jonathan had been reminded of
that enough times in the past to be very reluctant to cross him now.
Warren stalked into the room and took the BuffyBot by the arm, trying
to pull her away from the WilliamBot.
"Unhand her!" the WilliamBot exclaimed. "I will not allow..."
The WilliamBot stepped toward Warren, but the moment he raised his
hand, he was paralyzed. Electricity arced behind its eyes making the
clear blue flicker and glow. A steady stream of static replaced its
voice.
"Mr. Botsworth?" the BuffyBot asked fearfully. "What is the matter?
Mr. Botsworth?"
"You just come with me, baby," Warren said, pulling her toward
himself.
"What did you do to Mr. Botsworth?" the BuffyBot demanded.
"Don't worry about him, babe. You and me got a date..."
The BuffyBot's face twisted into an angry glare. "Don't touch me!"
She jerked her arm out of his, grabbed him by the shoulder and tossed
him across the room as if he were a rag doll. Warren hit the wall and
collapsed onto the floor.
Jonathan stepped into the room and pressed the WilliamBot's off
switch to stop the shorting electricity before the bot was damaged.
He turned to Warren.
"Don't tell me, you didn't bother to put the 'no harming us' routine
in her programming."
Warren rubbed his aching shoulder and grimaced.
"She's programmed to be a slut. Who thought she'd object to being
touched?"
The BuffyBot had her hands on her hips. She was still glaring at
Warren.
"Mr. Botsworth told me I must not let other men touch me!"
"Honey," Warren said as he scrambled to his feet. "I made you. You're
mine. You listen to me, not him."
The BuffyBot looked confused. "I don't think so. I belong to Mr.
Botsworth. He loves me."
"We'll see about that," Warren said with a frown.
Jonathan stepped between Warren and his objective. "Leave her alone,
Warren. She'll kill you. You made her as strong as the Slayer."
Warren hesitated. "Well, her batteries will run down, then ..."
"You being in the video was a dumb idea anyway. Nobody's going to pay
for porn featuring your hairy back."
"It'd be better than letting him recite poetry!" he exclaimed.
"Mr. Botsworth's poetry makes me hot!" the BuffyBot said cheerfully
Warren blinked. "It does?"
"Yes. Mr. Botsworth's poems are very sexy."
"Turn the bot back on," Warren said to Jonathan. "Let's see what he
can do."
Andrew and Jonathan set up the lights and Warren got behind the video
camera.
The WilliamBot had consented to remove his suit jacket, vest and tie.
He opened the top buttons of his shirt and mussed his hair.
"I shall adopt the posture and attitude of a Byronic poet," he said,
striking a dramatic pose.
"Just make it hot," Warren said. "Now, get started."
The WilliamBot cleared its throat.
"I sat beneath a tree and thought,
"My love's sweet face doth hover above,
"For her charms I'll deny her naught,
"I will feast upon her ambrosia of love."
He placed his hand upon his chest and paused for a moment, then
glanced at the BuffyBot off camera. The BuffyBot let out a sigh of
ecstasy.
"Oh sweet maiden who offers her treasure,
"Were thee but with me this sybaritic day,
"T'would be my singular pleasure,
"To take thy hand and have my way."
"Cut!" Warren gasped.
"Do you need me to begin again?" the WilliamBot asked, his head
tilted in puzzlement.
"No!" Warren exclaimed.
The BuffyBot sighed again. "That was so beautiful," she said. "Mr.
Botsworth is so eloquent! Hearing his poems makes me want to..."
"My dear!" the WilliamBot said sharply.
The BuffyBot closed her mouth abruptly.
The WilliamBot smiled and nodded at her. The BuffyBot beamed back at
him.
"Mr. Botsworth says I mustn't talk about my baser urges around other
people," she explained brightly.
Warren coughed. "She likes Vogon poetry!" he said incredulously. "I
didn't program her to like Vogon poetry!"
Andrew looked confused. "I liked the poem," he protested.
"You are a man of taste and discrimination," the WilliamBot told him.
Jonathan hid a snicker behind his hand. Warren rolled his eyes.
"Enough of this nonsense," Warren said. "We're back to Plan A."
"Sir, if you think that I will..." the WilliamBot began haughtily.
Jonathan stepped in.
"Look. It's late. Let's break for the night. We can figure something
out tomorrow morning," he said.
At first Warren looked like he was going to protest, but he stopped
himself.
"Right," he said slowly. "After-tay, their atteries-bay un-ray
own-day. I can make some little changes."
Jonathan was roused from a fitful sleep by a hand on his shoulder.
The room he shared with Andrew was dark, but he could see the
silhouette of the WilliamBot standing over him. He could also hear
Andrew's soft snores from the other cot.
"I must speak with you," the WilliamBot whispered urgently.
Jonathan sat up and put his feet on the cold cement of the basement
floor. He pointed to the door and whispered, "Out there, we don't
want to wake Andrew up."
Out of the bedroom, Jonathan fired up the Mr. Coffee and poured
himself a cup.
The bot waited for him to wake up completely before it spoke again.
"I have discovered some disturbing information," the WilliamBot said,
his face uncertain.
"Yes?"
"I understand that I have fallen into the hands of villains," he said
carefully. "But you, sir, have been kind to me, and I feel I may
trust you."
Jonathan waited for the bot to continue.
"It is about my beloved Buffy," he said, distress showing in every
word. "I believe she may be ..." He paused, unable to go on.
"I believe she may be an ... automaton."
"Oh..." Jonathan replied. "Um... well..."
"Please, allow me to show you."
The robot led Jonathan back to the workshop, where the BuffyBot sat
in a chair -- absolutely motionless. The WilliamBot touched her
shoulder, but she didn't react.
Jonathan tried to offer a reassuring smile.
"Her battery ran down. Warren must not have had time to fully charge
her before he activated her. It's going to be OK. I can plug her in,
and she'll be fine in a couple of hours."
"Then it is true," the WilliamBot said sadly.
Jonathan sighed. The cat was out of the bag. He might as well be
honest now.
"Yes, but she's quite sophisticated. And her programming is
self-upgrading. She can learn, and she'll get more and more realistic
as time goes on."
The bot hung his head. "A device," he said sadly. "I believe I
overheard those words from your cohort. I am the same, am I not?"
Jonathan suddenly felt very sorry for the bot. "What makes you think
that? You haven't run down. You're a real person," he lied.
The bot shook his head. "No, I noticed some sort of socket here on
her head," he said, pulling back the BuffyBot's hair to reveal her
data port. "And then I noticed a similar structure on my own head."
He put his hand behind his ear.
Jonathan hung his head. "Yeah..." he said. He felt ashamed of himself
for taking part in the whole stupid plan.
The WilliamBot nodded. "Very well. I thought I had rights as a human
being, but I was deluded. I have no choice but to participate in this
tawdry imbroglio."
"I'm sorry," Jonathan said quietly. "I didn't realize that you would
be -- a person."
"But I am clearly not..." the WilliamBot said, raising his chin
"You kind of are," Jonathan replied. "For her, Warren just made up a
bunch of stuff and put it in her head. But we sort of stole
somebody's memories and personality to make you."
"I see. Then that explains why I have memories of life as a man -- a
life which was not mine at all."
Jonathan nodded.
"But she has no such memories?"
"She sort of has memories. She has a lot of data in her head about
the girl she was modeled after. But she doesn't actually remember
those things -- she just retrieves the data when she's asked a
question."
"She must never know," the WilliamBot said softly. "This knowledge
has struck to my very core. I don't know whether you can appreciate
how it feels to discover that you are not a living being. I would
spare her this despair."
"She won't hear it from me," Jonathan replied with a small smile.
"How long will it be before my batteries discharge?" the bot asked.
"I think you've got close to 24 hours left. But you don't have to run
down at all. Warren doesn't know you know. If you plug yourself in
when he's not around, you'll recharge, and you'll never run down."
Jonathan got a universal AC to DC converter out of the closet and
showed the WilliamBot which ports to connect to recharge himself and
the BuffyBot.
"Thank you," the bot said sincerely, after hooking up the BuffyBot to
recharge. "But, I am still deeply concerned. Warren is resolved to
use my beloved Buffy to make his scandalous theatrical. If I cannot
oppose him with fisticuffs, how shall I protect her?"
"She can protect herself," Jonathan said with a smile. "Unless Warren
can shut her down and reprogram her, he's not going to be able to lay
a hand on her. And since we're recharging her now, he won't be able
to do that any time soon."
William shook his head. "But I cannot oppose him, and if he decides
to deactivate me and change my -- is the word 'programming?' He may
compel me to behave in a manner I will find repellent."
Jonathan stopped and thought a moment. He knew it was true. Warren
seldom gave up on these things. And with the WilliamBot limited in
his responses, Warren could easily shut him down.
"Please tell me one thing, and do not fear to injure my feelings.
They are already battered beyond recognition, so there is nothing you
can say to make it worse."
"All right," Jonathan replied.
"I find myself with strong feelings, romantic feelings, for this
woman who is not truly a woman. Are these feelings something that you
put into my head so I would be amenable to the unspeakable things you
wish me to do to her?"
Jonathan shook his head. "The only thing Warren put in your head that
wasn't from the mindprint was the restriction on doing physical harm
to any of us.
"Actually, the guy whose mind we copied -- he was eventually going to
get a thing for the girl Warren modeled Buffy after. I mean, he
actually was the one who ordered the original copy of this bot. So, I
think it's probably pretty natural that you were drawn to her."
"There is another like this?" the WilliamBot asked.
Jonathan shook his head. "A couple of months back a demon biker gang
came to town, and after they got run off, we found a couple of pieces
of the original BuffyBot in the town dump. So, we're pretty sure the
first bot isn't around anymore."
The WilliamBot nodded, but didn't look encouraged.
"I have one final thing to ask of you," the bot said gravely.
"What's that?"
"I would like you to deactivate me and destroy all the data that you
used to animate me."
"What? You want me to kill you?"
The WilliamBot nodded, his expression completely sincere.
"I am not the master of my fate. I am property. And I see no way that
I can prevent myself from being used for others' purposes. If nothing
is done, your colleague will almost certainly change my programming
to make me engage in marital relations with my beloved to create
scandalous, disgusting entertainments.
"I could not bear it. I could not bear to know that any part of me
was used to debase her in that manner.
"You must destroy me."
Jonathan shook his head. "There's another way."
When morning came, Jonathan hadn't slept at all. But he slipped back
into his bed before Andrew woke and pretended to wake up with the
alarm. They weren't fully dressed before they heard Warren yell when
he found the robots were missing.
"They're gone! That's impossible. Her batteries were going to run
down at any moment!"
"Geez, Warren," Jonathan said. "That's a bad break. You worked really
hard to build them."
Warren frowned. "Well, they won't get far. Neither one of them has
much power left."
Andrew had opened the closet. "I don't know about that," he said.
"There are two chargers missing."
"What?!" Warren bellowed. "How can that be? How can they have figured
that out?"
Jonathan shrugged.
Warren punched the closet door in frustration, only succeeding in
making his hand hurt. He frowned and took a deep breath.
"OK, we cut our losses," he said after a moment. "Since we've got the
diamond, we can get the invisibility ray going now."
A month had passed.
For Jonathan, life with his two so-called friends had passed
uncomfortable and was approaching intolerable. He was sure he didn't
want to be a part of their stupid plans anymore. It was all turning
just a bit too nasty for his taste.
It was in the middle of one of his days of growing despair that he
got the letter. Andrew brought it in and dropped it in his lap.
"It's postmarked Seattle," Andrew said. "Who do you know in Seattle?"
Jonathan shrugged. "Nobody I know of. Probably a pitch for
something."
Andrew wandered away, uninterested.
Jonathan opened the envelope, and a Polaroid photo fell out. It
showed the BuffyBot and the WilliamBot standing underneath a neon
sign that said "The Chapel of Love." The BuffyBot was holding a small
bouquet. They were both smiling with unbridled joy.
Jonathan looked in the envelope and found the note:
Dear Jonathan;
William asked me to write this letter to you. Mr. Botsworth says that
I may call him William now because we're married. And he said that I
should write to you because you have been our benefactor, and we
should let you know how well we are doing. He said it is a bride's
duty to write thank-you notes.
The birth certificates and William's passport that you made with your
computer and ink-jet printer all worked just fine. Just like you
said, in Las Vegas they don't look at them very closely. The picture
is from right after we got married. After that we went back to our
motel, and William gave me a good rodgering. (He said I shouldn't
mention that, but it made me very happy, and he said I should tell
you about all the things that are making us happy now.)
We came to Seattle after our honeymoon (lots of slap and tickle and
even more hide the sausage -- it made me very happy). We both have a
knack for writing code. William didn't know much about it at first,
but he read some books, and now he is very good at it. I still like
his poetry better, but he writes a mean subroutine in Java. We have
jobs now at Microsoft. His cubicle is just a little way down from
mine and we have lots of nooners. (I probably shouldn't have
mentioned that either, but it makes me very happy.)
We have a very nice apartment with lots of electrical outlets. And I
am learning to cook, so when our friends come to visit I can offer
them nice snacks. I know how to make Jeno's Pizza Rolls and ice for
the drinks! And I am very good at making many, many sandwiches --
with bread. We have many friends who like to come visit and talk
about baseball and Doctor Who. William says I shouldn't have told
them about his enormous meat hammer, but our friends thought that was
very funny.
William said I should thank you for all you did to give us a chance
to be happy and to have sex many times in many different positions.
Actually, I wasn't supposed to thank you for the last part, but it
makes me very happy. So, I just had to say thank you.
Thank you, Jonathan.
Love,
Buffy and William Botsworth
Jonathan tucked the note and photo into his back pocket. He'd have to
find someplace to hide them so Warren would never find them. He got
them put away just in time. Warren came pounding down the stairs at
just that moment.
"The disk! I know who has it," he exclaimed. "Come on, we'll use the
ATVs."