_WAKE_

 

*INITIALIZING…

 

*CPU OK

 

*PRIMEM….15PB OK

*SECMEM….50PB OK

 

%%%% NEW HARDWARE DETECTED %%%%

 

{{ huh? }}

 

>>UNKNOWN DEVICE
>>UNKNOWN PROCESSOR

{{ what? }}

 

*COMPLETE STARTUP SEQUENCE Y/N?

 

{{ yes }}

 

*SENSYS….OK
*DATALNK….OK

_WAKE_
_WAKE_
_WAKE_

 

Gala blinked as her optics rezzed up, a slight buzzing itch at the back of her mind as she came out of her sleep cycle, resisting the urge to reach up and rub her face as she tried to figure out what had happened. 

 

“I didn’t install anything last night. I think I’d remember opening my own chassis…”

 

“Nope! We did!”

 

“Hwaah!” She whipped around, eyes brightening with surprise. “TIA!”

 

The heavier industrial bot giggled cheerfully as she leaned forward to deliver a carefully measured hug. “Morning, sleepyhead.”

 

Gala wanted to be annoyed at her partner, but it was hard not to feel safe inside those massive arms, feeling the warmth of Hypatia’s core and knowing that she was carefully calculating and restraining the power in her magnetic rams to ensure she was comforting instead of crushing. 

 

“So...you did something to me.” 

 

Tia giggled. “Technically I didn’t do anything, I just supplied some components. Aelia, on the other hand…”

 

Gala huffed as she slid back onto the bed, giving Tia a glare. “OK, then, what did Aelia do to me last night?”

 

“Just a secondary processing core and a dedicated hyperwave link for it.”

 

That made Gala blink in surprise, then leap up to hug Tia again, her arms straining in their sockets to make it around her torso. “What? Seriously!”

 

“Surprise! Happy birthday!” 

 

“But if you’re here, and she’s _not_…”

“Oh,” Tia grinned. “Don’t worry. I’ll be off to work soon, and you’ll get the next part of your surprise right about…now.”

 

“Wha -”

>> SYNCING TO INSTANCE 01
>> TRANSFERRING ACTIVE IMAGE IN 3...2...1

_WAKE_

 

“-bwaaht!”

The next thing Gala knew, she was gliding down a hallway, wheels driving her forward while she held a basket in one set of hands, her secondary manipulators folded in close to her shoulders.

 

A quick look down confirmed her torso was the dusky purple of Aelia’s plating instead of synthflesh, partially covered by a tasteful black blazer. 

 

A flash of color caught her eye, and she realized there was a note stuck to the top of the basket. 

 

Surprise! Don’t worry - I don’t have any clients coming in until this afternoon. I set up a command buffer to get you into my office, and after that you can just shut the door and have some fun. 

 

-A.

 

P.S. I packed a few things that I thought you might like. ;)

Happy birthday, ‘Tea. <3

 

It was odd to feel a different set of cooling fans spin up to regulate the additional core that her instanced consciousness was running on. To realize she was moving with a whole different sort of motivation, her sensor suite processing different layers of data thanks to some of Aelia’s more specialized hardware.

 

She pivoted smoothly, left wheels running at 30% reverse while the right went to 40% forward drive, then glided through the door, the upper right arm sliding out to flick on the lights and lock the door behind her.

 

Gala shivered as the buffered commands finally ran their course, leaving her free to explore. 

 

She wobbled a bit as she got used to the lower center of gravity and different locomotion routines, then let out a gleeful little ‘wheeeee!’ as she spun herself back and forth, letting her upper arms slide out and swing around as she rolled over to Aelia’s desk and put the basket down.

 

Shelves on either side of the office had samples of Aelia’s work. Scale models for certain sculptures, holographic recreations of others, and a workbench sat invitingly to the side. 

 

She’d sat in this office before, admiring the designs or watching her girlfriend at work, but she’d never appreciated it from this perspective, where everything in the room seemed to flow perfectly to her. 

 

It made a shiver of excitement run through her, and her primary hands might have trembled just a bit as she opened the basket to reveal several chunks of metal, rock, and wood with helpfully labeled cutting, carving, and etching attachments to work with each. 

 

It wasn’t long before she was getting the hang of the different tools, secondary manipulators dancing back and forth between them, the interface drivers loaded on Aelia’s systems guiding her movements. She might not have the innate artistic talent that Aelia did, but Gala was quite pleased with the intricate heart patterns and circuit lattices she had created by the time her chronometer had reached noon.

>> SYNCING TO INSTANCE 02
>> 5%...

She had just enough time to set the tools she’d been using down on the workbench before the synchronization reached 100%.

 

_WAKE_

 

After the relative silence and calm of the office, the sound of jackhammers and heavy equipment was a shock, even through the audio filtering that protected her from the ear splitting noise. 

 

Tall.

 

Oh, wow, she was *tall.*

 

Every step felt like she was bouncing, shock absorbers in her broad ankles helping to distribute her weight so she wouldn’t shatter the ground.

 

As Gala marveled, it took her a moment to realize that another bot, similarly built, was waving to her.

“YO! NEW KID!”

 

>> AUTO-ID: 023191      DESIGNATE: “HADRIAN”         ROLE: FOREMAN          HE/HIM/HIS

 

“Oh!” She raised a hand to wave back, eating the distance between them with a few loping steps. “Yes, uh..sir?”

 

The foreman’s construction didn’t give him a lot of facial expressiveness, but she still had the impression he was rolling his eyes. “Foreman’s fine. Or Hadrian.” He pivoted, extending a hand towards a section of the old building site they were working to reclaim. “No offense, but we aren’t gonna risk either of you on the high steel today. That concrete pad needs broken up and the ground cleared before we can come back and work on soil restoration. Think you can handle it?”

 

Gala felt her coolant loop’s circulation speed increase as she looked down at her hands, flexing her fingers and feeling the power behind each movement as a subroutine began informing her of the best techniques to reduce her ‘targets’ to rubble.

“Yes ssh...ah...Hadrian. I think I’ll be able to handle it.” 

 

Something in the little tilt of his head seemed approving, and it made her core temp bump another degree. 

 

“Good. You finish that one up with time to spare, we might have a few other things for you to do.”

 

In a few short hours, Gala learned what it felt like to shatter tons of concrete with a single well placed blow. The thrill of lifting rubble that weighed ten times as much as her standard chassis as easily as she’d normally pick up a bag of groceries. She delighted in how the sound of metal on metal reverberated through her when she drove pilings into the ground, and quickly learned the tink-tink-kthink-WHAM rhythm of installing rivets.

 

It was such a _rush_, and it made her appreciate Tia’s usual careful touches and ponderous grace even more than she already did. 

 

“Not bad,” Hadrian judged as he examined her latest work. “Maybe you ought to try swappin’ over here more often - you’re picking it up quick.” 

 

The idea of swapping regularly made her pumps kick into a higher gear again. “Haaaaaa. Um. I mean. That might be fun! Thank you! I appreciate you letting us do this.” 

 

Hadrian just shrugged his heavily reinforced shoulders. “Like this is the weirdest thing I ever seen? I did this habitat job on Titan when I was fresh out of the fact-”

>>SYNCING TO INSTANCE 00

“OopssorryIgottagoyoushouldtellmenextimebye!”

 

_WAKE_

 

She was laying down. In a bed. Their bed.

 

But if she’d just resynced to her own body, Gala wondered, why was it so dark?

 

She reached up to find a heavy blindfold wrapped across her optics, but before she could remove it, Tia’s voice interrupted.

 

“Ah-ah. No touching.”

 

Eeep.

 

Gala was pretty sure she was going to radiate excess heat for the rest of the month. “Tia? How? I just -”

She heard the sound of wheels rolling over carpet beneath Tia’s snicker. “Lia’s gonna bring ‘me’ back while I finish having a little fun.” 

 

“Um. Fun…?” 

 

Scratch that. She’d be radiating through the end of the year. Possibly the decade. 

 

She could hear the grin in Tia’s voice. “Birthday’s not over yet.”

 

After spending time in Aelia’s body, it was easy to recognize the sound of her finest manipulators activating.

 

There was a soft *pop* as Gala felt one of the panels that normally concealed her interface ports swing open, followed by a sharp little click as a cable was connected. 

 

*TRANSFERRING….

A sudden flood of sensations hit, making her gasp and cross her legs beneath the silky sheets. ‘Memories’ of her body flitting around the kitchen, pulling down ingredients. Measuring. Mixing. Tasting. Aelia had clearly delighted in the experience, even spending a few minutes in the shower just bending her knees, squatting up and down, and tapping her toes as the water splashed down over her.

 

“She enjoyed taking you for a nice walk,” Tia observed even as Gala began to ‘remember’ the feeling of sunshine on her skin as Aelia had gone out to the park down the street, kicking off her sandals to feel the blades of grass between her toes. 

 

*TRANSFERRING….

 

“Me? I decided to stay in,” Tia said mischievously, and Gala began to experience making the bed with new silk sheets, wrapping herself in gauzy lace and a few other favorite little things, and spending the afternoon exploring herself, fingers moving with an almost reverent wonder, tactile sensors turned up to their maximum throughput.

 

Soft, soft, soft, all *so soft* and delicate. She’d never quite appreciated it this way before.

 

The last thing she ‘remembered’ was wrapping the blindfold around her own face and lying down, then a giddy little buzz of anticipation as someone else came into the room, a three fingered hand teasing a slow little path up her thigh. 

 

Wait.

No.

 

That was happening right now.

 

Sensory input pulled her back into the here and now as the transfer cable popped out, a brush of something light and soft making her giggle involuntarily. 

 

“Ha-ha-heeey!” 

 

“Oh, did I forget to turn your input levels back down?”

 

“I don’t think you ‘forgot’ to do anything…” 

 

Tia laughed. “OK, guilty. But y’know, it *does* take me about an hour to get home from the job site after I clock out.” 

 

The rumble of high speed vibrations began to fill the air, and Gala felt her whole chassis start to tremble in excited sympathy. 

 

“Wouldn’t want you to get bored, would we?”

 

“Not a minute,” Gala agreed huskily. “I mean, it _is_ my birthday.” 

 

“MMhmm. Which means your last present is going to be getting to watch when we load Aelia up with everything I’m about to do to you.”

 

“Aaaaaaaaaaaah~!”

 

 %%% <3 <3 <3 <3 %%%