Platonic Newt and Herm, 20 or 21
20 - Android
LISTEN I LEGIT HAVE AN ANDRIOD NEWT AU FLOATING AROUND SO AHHHH
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"Can you feel that?"
"Nope."
"Fascinating." Hermann murmurs, holding the tiny test prod against the positronic brain. It's humming in response to him, but apparently absolutely painless to the Android.
Who in their right mind would build a robot without pain receptors? Not that it's exactly the same as when a human feels pain, but there should definitely be some kind of automatic response system to allow the robot to understand it is being tampered with.
"Whatcha doing? Are you done yet?" N3WT asks.
Hermann grimaces and digs the prod in deeper, trying to get some sort of reaction.
"Hermann, buddy?"
"It's Dr. Gottlieb!" Hermann snaps, yanking the prod away. He scowls at the panel, and then snaps it closed, sealing N3WT's head closed once more. "We need to fix that, first of all. I assume that your pain receptors have merely lapsed, or that they put in some other notification system to alert you to..."
"Nope, nothing. Check this out." N3WT spins the chair around to face Hermann, holds up both hands, and then uses one to unclick the other.
"Don't-!" Hermann tries, but it's too late.
"Cool, huh?"
"Of all the unethical, ridiculous-"
"No, man, it's awesome. I can do it with both hands, but, uh, obviously not at the same time, because I need a hand to do it, and-" There's a fizzing sound from his dethatched hand.
"Put it back on before you break something."
Obediently, the android puts his hand back on.
Hermann drags a face over his hand and sighs. This thing is just one problem after another.
"I'll do my best to check your coding for any indication of malfunctioning code, Newt, but if I can't find anything, I'll need to contact the PPADC that-"
"What's that?"
"It's the Pan-Pacific Android Defense Corps, meant to keep things like you from existing." Hermann snaps, irritated at yet another interruption.
Only after several seconds of silence does Hermann realize what he's said. He winces, but before he can amend it, the android says, voice somehow both hesitant and blustering at the same time, "Yeah, well, I'd rather be a glitched, flawed, walking talking malfunction then a loser lame-o human like you."
"That's not what I meant, Newton!" Hermann snaps. "Someone made you so that you can't tell if you're being hurt! Do you have any idea what that means? Someone could be hurting you, damaging you, irreparably, and you might not even notice because you don't have anything to tell you! You wouldn't notice if you have water damage, if you have missing parts, if you're being changed- Someone made you explicitly so they could use you regardless of how it hurt, damaged, or endangered you!"
There's a click and a whir, N3WT's head buzzing away, and Hermann thinks he might finally have gotten the gravity of the situation into it's head.
"Newton, huh?"
"What?"
"You called me Newton. Cuz, like, Newt's the diminutive form of Newton, so of course the leap from Newt to Newton isn't far, and Isaac Newton was a genius, like me, so-"
"That's your take away?!"
"Well...I've dealt with not having pain receptors my entire life, but I've never had a real name before." The android spins his chair in a circle, then stops himself with his feet. "Anyways, who wants to feel pain? I've seen humans in pain before and it looks like it sucks, so you can count me out. Count Newton out."
Hermann manages a soft scoff before he turns away. But the gravity stays with him, at least, twisting and turning his gut as he begins to look into the copy-code he made.
He has a feeling he will, indeed, be going to Pentecost.
