Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

After a long day of working tirelessly as a cashier for a little cafe, the result of an entrepreneur starting a new business, I stood in front of the door to my apartment. Sighing, I pulled out my keys, unlocked the door, and entered my little abode. I didn't really own that much, a comfy chair and a small table, the microwave being a gift from my mother after having it replaced with a new one, and the bed with the barest essentials to get me through a cold night. Everything else, like the stove and the fridge, came with the apartment. Approaching the latter appliance, I pulled out the leftover meal of last night: Macaroni and Cheese, the only thing I had left going for me until payday.

As it would appear, I was not living a great life, having dropped out of college with all my hopes and dreams down the drain. This made me regret doing so as it left me, a 25-year-old man, with only a few lame job opportunities that paid squat, barely enough to afford a week's worth of food and the rest for rent.  'Oh, how I love living a shit life. Not.'  I thought as I put the Macaroni in the microwave to warm it up. As I waited for my dinner to finish, I pulled out the one thing from my pocket that was a saving grace for my troubled existence... my phone. It was the only thing I had on me that kept me in touch with current events around the world and the internet while also being my direct access to my coping mechanism: memes. I don't believe there's a need to explain why that's a coping mechanism. Checking   the few social media apps I had, finding nothing that intrigued me, I sighed, put away the device, and opened the microwave to receive my cheesy meal.

After eating my meal, I took a shower and lay comfortably on my bed, my mind stuck on what I would buy if I had enough spare money. If I could, I would've purchased merchandise of some of my favorite web series I watch. But, with my lackluster job, I could not and had nothing else as a suitable payment method, leaving me in the dust.  'Oh well, guess I'll wait until I get a better job.'  I thought, drifting into unconsciousness. The last thing I saw before falling asleep was the ceiling fan overhead.

And when I woke up, what met my sight was not that of my bedroom. Staring up into a thundering sky pelting me with rain, I took notice of my surroundings. First, my eyesight was accompanied by a distorted hud as my eyes appeared to now suck bad. Second, I was stuck in a pile of scrapped robots( I think, can't really visually tell if they were ), barely able to move, and finally, from the looks of it, this seemed to be a sizeable collection of discarded machines( again, can't really tell if that's a correct statement ). And I was stuck in it, my upper half uncovered to the outside world, with only one arm free.

I'll give you three guesses on how exactly I reacted? If you guessed that my natural instincts screamed at me to get the fuck out of the pile of robotic corpses, all the while looking like an idiot, then you guessed correctly. For any of you who assumed that I calmly and rationally handled the situation, be my guest and put a hand to your face as I panic and flail wildly out of the sticky situation I found myself in. I gave zero thought to how eerily familiar the arms apart of me or the countless shapes of broken machines surrounding me were as I had other things to worry about. Like freeing myself from the trap I had found myself in.

After several moments, I finally broke free from the nightmare that had trapped me, falling down the hill of discarded robots, with my face landing into the mud ground separating the pile I had been stuck in from other heaps of discarded machines. This... only came at the cost of an arm being torn off and left in the pile behind me. Surprisingly, I didn't feel the pain one would experience from losing an arm, only a slight sting. Using one limb, I pushed myself up, feeling mud clouding my vision as I turned my head to look all around me, scared and confused as to how I ended up here in the first place. Had I died in my sleep and got reincarnated? Was I in a plane of torment? The last thing I remember was falling asleep and waking up here.

Attempting to blink the mud away hadn't worked as I tried to clear my vision, leaving me to use my one good arm to mechanically regain my sight. Sitting down on the muddy ground, refusing to sit on a broken-off head, I hovered my hand over my face, my head feeling heavy for some reason. I would discover the cause as my hand made contact with a hole where my eyes were supposed to be if the other discarded robots were a telltale sign. The mud had gotten stuck inside my head... where it shouldn't be, and then I put everything together at that moment.

I was definitely not human... I was a robot. I was a discarded, broken machine with nothing covering me.  'No duh, Sherlock? You lost an arm and didn't feel  excruciating  pain from losing a limb. What next? Will we set out to discover that water is wet?'  I mentally criticized myself. But what kind of robot? I had no clue. My new concern right now was removing the wet dirt from my head. Grasping at clumps of mud trapped within the shell of my head, I got several handfuls out that was enough for me to finally gaze, granting me clear vision. With my vision clear, I discovered that the blindness was only slightly lifted, observing the shapes of what I had assumed earlier were robotic remains. They probably were. As the sight of green blobs just shouted, I was facing what I could guess was a forest. Deciding to leave this scrapyard, I limped into the woodland.

Now, if I had to be honest, walking in this mud with the weight I now had proved to be a struggle as each step would sink my metal feet into the wet dirt. Where I would go, I had no clue. As long as it wasn't that nightmarish and stressful place that was that robot graveyard, the better. Even as I left with my new, artificial nature, I - somehow - felt chills building up my robotic spine, knowing well enough that I would have nightmares of that place for some time.

As I moved through the forest,   I looked over where my arm had once been. It... didn't look like I was losing blood... or was it oil now? But it didn't look as if I was losing anything. Perhaps I ran on nuclear power? But if I wasn't losing anything important, then it didn't matter.

'Where do I go? Where am I going?'  I thought about what I was going to do now. I found myself in a situation that could be considered worse than the one I had been living in before this morning.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

The rain's starting to get on my nerves... or electronics? I hope I can find shelter soon.

Returning to the present moment, it would turn out that I would come across a mansion of some sort.   Would it be rude to break into this manor so I could have shelter? Yes, but I didn't care by this point. Walking into the clearing, the first thing I saw beside the mansion was a tree with... a dead robot   chained to a tree. On one hand, this could be a warning sign to stay away from this place if that was how people here treated their property. On the other, -nonexistent- hand, I didn't have anywhere else to go, and this was, seemingly, the best I could find for now.

Going from bush to bush near the mansion, making sure I was not visible, I eventually came across a backdoor into what appeared to be a library from what I could see from the window peering indoors. Who'd have a backdoor into a library... I wouldn't know. But I was gonna try and see if it was either locked or unlocked cause I was just at the tipping point of going insane with the constant drip from the rain. Walking out from a bush, I tried my best to carefully approach the door, not knowing if I was to cross paths with a maid or butler. Placing my one and only hand on the door handle, I turned it, and the door, surprisingly, opened for me. Why it wasn't locked, I wouldn't know.

Quietly stepping inside, I closed the door and carefully began sneaking around the library. Entering a secluded aisle of bookshelves, no other signs of life, be it artificial or human, could be seen, giving me one sigh of relief, even if I didn't even need to breathe in the first place. With shelter achieved, I decided that I could pull out a book from the shelf to pass the time or something, so once again, I used my one arm to pull out a random book, letting the gods decide what I would read for now.

It would turn out that the gods would want me to read Green Eggs and Ham. How the gods thought it'd be ironic to force me into selecting a children's book will be a mystery for all eternity. Turning around with a children's book, I would come face-to-face with a small robot in a maid outfit, eyes yellow and looking up at me with curiosity.

It was at this moment that I realized many things. This robot looked awfully familiar to a worker drone, thanks to her being close enough to not look like blobs of varying color palettes of green and brown. Which meant I was also a worker drone, a broken one.

Another thing was that she had a white wig of hair on her head. Whoever gave a robot hair probably held the robot close to their heart, however weird it may feel.

And she looked awfully like a certain   Cyn  from the same show I recognized her design. Which would mean I was in the fictional universe I called my new favorite. This could only mean bad things.

"Wide Smile, Green Eggs, and Ham is my favorite book." the robot said, giving me that soulless stare. "Puppy dog eyes, wide smile, please read it for me, unidentified individual?" she asked, what with her face plate showing a puppy instead of eyes. As she stared at me, my thought process was divided into three voices, one quieter than the rest.

'Run away!'  the quiet voice said, perhaps the reasonable one out of the rest. Maybe if the other two weren't as loud, I would have run for my free will.

'Punt the child. Do it; punt the abomination into the stratosphere. Punt them. Dew it. Punt them!'  shouted the loudest, starting to chant the most stupid idea I ever had right next to dropping out of college. Attempting to punt Cyn in my current state would be seemingly possible, plus that's without account of her absolute solver nature. She probably knows how to hide a body anyway, so it's best not to make an attempt on her life this early on.

'Let's just entertain the child. Perhaps it will leave us be afterward.'  said the one voice fighting back against the stupid, irrational, intrusive voice. After listening to all these voices, I decided to entertain the Cyn. Maybe if I read her the book, she could tell me where I could best hide while staying out of the rain.

Before, I inevitably ran away to escape a specific public event that she would go Skynet/Glados all over the place. Not fucking risking becoming a puppet afterward.  'Perhaps hijack a starship and crash on an uninhabited world. That way, no one can bother me.'  I thought, crafting a plan to get out of dodge.

Returning to reality, I looked Cyn in the eyes with my broken ones, "Sure, why not," I said, almost showing fear.

Sitting down with an eldritch abomination joining me on the floor, I flipped open the book to one page, starting to read to the little Cthulu disguised as a cute little robot. As I tried to read the words from page to page, Cyn would occasionally make a statement regarding her physical actions or what happened in the book. It was... almost cute, if I had to be honest. Almost, Cyn would be murdering people, and no matter how rich these folks were, I wouldn't stop judging her actions.

She could've resorted to reporting to child protective services or blaming the Elliots for white-collar crime, gaining the attention of future IRS. Killing a bunch of rich folks doesn't precisely serve her case.

As we were about to finish reading, footsteps caught me off guard as a new voice entered the scene. "Cyn, time to go into the... basement..." a young girl said. Turning to face her, the sight of a (even more than the current moment for me, I guess) distorted girl, the appearance of a human changed out for a dark black coating, standing in the middle of the aisle. "Oh... and who are you?" the girl asked, her white eyes looking into my soul. She began to approach Cyn and me, though her attention was on me more than Cyn.

"I..." I paused, thinking about it; is it -to be honest- a bright idea to share my human name? Probably not. I better lie and say I can't remember what with the current broken status I was in. "I don't know my name," I said, tilting my head. My best guess was that this was a young Tessa if the strange blob that could be a bowtie was enough evidence. Someone who wouldn't callously harm her robotic friends.

The girl looked over to Cyn, who stared back with the same soulless stare she had done with me. "Cyn, where did he come from?" Tessa asked, suspicious of Cyn. I don't know if she was wary of Cyn for letting me in or reactivating a dead worker drone, which I wouldn't blame her for assuming.

"The unlocked back door," I said, using the book to point at the mud trail I had left. In hindsight, I probably should've ensured I made zero tracks before coming indoors. "Cyn here had nothing to do with me coming inside," I said before looking back to my current state of disrepair once more. "... Any chance I could receive repairs?" I asked, putting the book down and placing my hand on the place my other had once been. "In return, I could work as a servant... or something? As long as it's not customer service, I'm fine with anything." I said, placing my foot down on what I was unwilling to do.

The girl made a humming sound before once more looking back at Cyn. "I could work something out... but Cyn, basement for the night, got it," Tessa said, giving an order to the other broken worker drone. "As for you, I need to deactivate you for a short while to fix you... are you fine with that?" She asked, showing signs of sympathy.

"That's fine by me. Don't really care if you do in the first place anyway." I said, and like that, I found a new place to work and stay.

Chapter Text

The first thing that came to my senses of hearing was the sound of thunder and rain, the sound of tools being used, and the voice of an Australian girl. It almost sounded like the Aussie Girl was working on something... wait, why did I care? Unless she was doing something tangentially related to me, it didn't bother me. Then, my mind paused as the tsunami of memories hit my reawakening consciousness, reminding me of my current predicament. Yes, that supposed nightmare of me waking up as a robot in the worst place imaginable was real, and yes, I did, in fact, meet the eldritch robot-child that was Cyn.

And I was now a butler for the Elliots, oh how wonderful. I'm no longer a cashier for a small cafe. I no longer had to deal with Karens and getting chewed out by my manager for arguing with the customers that would come by, most of whom were Karens, who visited the small-time cafe. In hindsight, I was not best suited to customer service-related jobs now that I think back on it. Now, instead of being a cashier, I was a butler... for two rich people plus their spawn, the parents treating their worker drones as mere property they show no care for, resorting to breaking them for slight insults. I think that made me a slave now... again, I believe. The only saving grace in a realm created by the unspeakable mind of Liam Vickers, the spawn of the two rich folks, could be the only thing to give me my second life a possibility.

As of now, everything but my hearing was deactivated, coding filling my vision and all other normal senses I had as a human gone. Like taste, for example.  'I'm so going to miss eating tacos I could afford.'  I thought, reminiscing on the memory of eating tacos. All I was left with as a worker drone was touch, hearing, sight, and a new sense that was hard to describe, probably thanks to being a robot now. This sense felt like I was in an ocean of information, with the information being a collection of coding, memories, and other assorted details. I felt as though I was floating through it.

As my mind drifted, I couldn't help but overhear Tessa saying something, only distorted thanks to her Australian accent. Something about where something goes? I had no clue; Tessa had a strong accent, apparently.

Turning my attention to other things to avoid a spiraling staircase into depression, I decided to look into my coding. Mainly to not get bored and to see my serial designation to address myself to everyone else.  'Hmmm... let's see. Serial designation... M and another assorted coding lingo. Huh, that's like... one letter before N.'  I mentally noted, finally having something go by without using my human name.  'Anything else I can find? Like any memories from the robot that used this body before it, you know, captured my essence into its coding.' I thought, digging further into the data storage. The good news was that it had all my memories from my previous life. Everything that made me who I am was where it belonged, even if half of them were... depressing. However, I don't know whether or not to be concerned that there's a folder specifically labeled: 'The Bin of Collected Historical Knowledge.'

The bad news was that there was nothing from this robot's life, so I was left with nothing. Oh, I guess... I should've expected that to be the case. 

A string of code passed my vision, barely catching my attention before I was pulled back into the real world. In front of me were the likes of Tessa James Elliot, her human shape clearer than before. Her appearance was still that of a shadow person, but at least now she resembled a human. "Ah, there we go! Got ya all fixed up!" Tessa said, swiping what I could only guess was sweat off her forehead. I looked at the one arm that had kept me going and peered over to my new limb, testing the fingers of both hands to feel them out. "Let's have a second try at introductions now that's out of the way. I'm Tessa, and you are?" Tessa said, sounding fanciful and energetic, holding her hand out for me to shake it.

"Well, nice to meet you, Madam Tessa. According to my systems, it says that I am Serial Designation: M, give or take the extra symbols adding onto that." I said, shaking it loosely. As we shook hands, Tessa looked confused as she tilted her head sideways in response. Once the handshake was over, Tessa began to put a hand on her chin as she rested her elbow on her other arm.

"Could you repeat that? Did you say M or N?" Tessa asked, her eyes giving me a questioning look. Perhaps she heard me say it incorrectly.

"I said M, as in moo," I said, mimicking the sound of a farm animal. This earned a small chuckle from the young woman.

"Oh, okay. I asked because I already had a robot named N, so I was confused there for a second. Speaking of, perhaps I should introduce you to N when I get the chance... or you'll meet him as you get on with your duties." She said before turning around and opening a closet full of... suits? Looking down at myself, I finally realized that my robotic body was unclothed, which would be in the way of any repairs that would be done. "Alright, once you get dressed, J will be outside to give instructions and guide you around the manor. So now, if you'll excuse me, I've got stupid homework to finish." Tessa rapidly spoke before thrusting a suit, pants, and a tie into my metal arms and rushing out of the room before I could say anything, groaning on her way out. As I viewed the clothes in my arms, my brain... processor tried to process what Tessa said. Something... something... stupid homework?

Sighing, I placed the clothes on the table and got down from where I sat.  'Let's review what I need to do to get off-world?'  I thought, grabbing the pants to put them on. Seeing as how I would live within Elliot Manor for quite some time, it offered an opportunity to complete one of many steps by the time I would leave Earth. Before or by the time the Gala begins, hijack a method of transportation, like a car, and drive it to the nearest spaceship equivalent of an airport. Then, either hijack or become a stowaway onboard a spaceship, its destination not vital, as long as it isn't Earth or a human colony, I was fine. Grabbing the white button-up shirt, I put it on, got to the buttons, and placed them where they belonged.  'In the meantime, I shouldn't get too attached to the folks around here... not entirely sure what their reactions would be to me running away like a coward from Cyn and her concept of celebrating an event. Hell! I don't even know if they'll hold a grudge against me for leaving in the first place.' I thought, a similar sense of a shiver going down my back as the thought of one of the soon-to-be murder drones may unleash anger upon me.

But knowing my shitty luck, I'd probably have someone pissed off at me if not all of them. Well, except for N, he'd have no memories of me if I ever did meet him again, so he'd just kill me without thinking about it... well, until he gets his memories back, and when he does, he's more than likely to forgive me. And if I did meet N again, it would probably not be the best time of my life as I ended up on another planet I didn't want to be on. However, that would all depend on me becoming friends(or relatively close in terms of relationships) with the three stooges and Tessa. But figuring out which world I'd go to after leaving Earth was an entirely different affair to getting off of it. After I had my shirt all buttoned up, I moved on to the suit jacket and tie that was a part of my new uniform. 'I will need a fake name afterward, but figuring that out can wait.' I thought as I stared at the tie in my hand after getting the suit's jacket on. Having mentally laid out the blueprints for my plan to escape the Earth, having been finished, my headspace was left with only one thought.

'Now, how do I put on a tie?'  I thought, only ever being used to wearing bowties on special occasions. Messing around with it for a few seconds, my processor finally figured out how to apply it. And by figuring it out, I mean that I resorted to looking if I had an internet connection, which I did, and looked up instructions on how to put on a tie. After getting dressed, I walked to the door and opened it. Standing right beside the door, before my eyes- or was it optics now?- was a worker drone in a maid outfit, and on top of her head was hair styled with pigtails hanging to the back of her head. The worker turned to face me as I left Tessa's small workshop. Going by her hair and her eyes narrowing in my direction, I was safe to assume that this was none other than J, aka Corporate slave/bootlicker.

"What was taking you so long, lazy bot? We have a job to do!" the worker complained, crossing her arms and gritting her teeth. "Corporate will have our heads if we're spotted doing something other than our assigned duties," J complained before guiding me to where we were going.

"My apologies; I was trying to figure out how to put on a tie," I admitted, rolling my digital optics. Walking alongside the drone, I took ample opportunity to take in my surroundings now that my vision had improved significantly... although things were, obviously, somewhat blurry. Stuff far away was blurry, but stuff up close, I see perfectly. In other words, I now have the robot equivalent of short-sightedness, and I  may need glasses. Well, at least that was better than having a hole in the middle of my face because then I don't have to worry about crows making a nest inside it. I looked over at my coworker and spoke up out of curiosity. "So, what exactly are our duties today?" I asked, trying to break the silence as we walked on.

"Simple, we are to clean up the mess corporate wants cleaned, with said mess located at the bar," J said, sounding almost as if she was reading something aloud for me to hear. Then I remembered that we were robots and that we could do that at the same time as walking to our jobs. I proceeded to mentally facepalm at my failure to recognize such simplicity.

Once, we walked into a very familiar room that would one day be hosted by Cyn, asking N to attend a specific gala; I could tell that this was our stop. And I could tell what mess we were meant to clean up just by looking at the broken wine bottles and the corpse of a worker drone that was probably killed by the parents for breaking an aged wine bottle that dated back from the eighteen-hundreds or something. If I had to be completely honest, I had not expected to deal with Mr and Miss Elliot's robot-killing behavior on my first day here... but I probably should not have kept my expectations that high.

"So, who's going to clean up what?" I asked my coworker, who was a bit paralyzed at the sight of one of her coworkers. My question seemed to knock J out of her paralyzed stare, who shook her head.

"Well, seeing as how you're new here, I'll handle the body, and you clean up the glass and the stains left from the wine," J said before sighing and pointing to a closet to my left. "In the closet, you should find the necessary cleaning supplies to clean up the mess. I'll be back to check up on you after I dispose of the body." She said before walking to the deceased butler, grabbing an arm or two before lifting it with a surprising amount of strength for a worker drone. 'Did I miss something when it came to understanding the inner workings of murder drones? Like a Q&A? I mean, Glitchx was going to happen in several weeks or so before all this happened to me... maybe something like that would've been touched upon?' I thought, puzzled by this new piece of information.

As J made her leave, I was once again... all alone. Sighing to myself, I walked over to the closet and opened it. Doing so revealed all sorts of things, like spray cleaners, a vacuum, a broom, boxes that I assumed to be baking soda, a smiling Cyn resting on a chair, and a mo- wait; why is Cyn in here? Sitting in the barely lit and claustrophobic environment, with dust particles gently and slowly falling around the small room, was the eldritch horror disguising itself as a small robot child. Ignoring the chills crawling up the back of my robotic body, I went and grabbed some spray cleaners, a broom, and a towel and hugged the cleaning supplies close to my chest as I gripped the broom in my right hand. With all that out of the way, I looked at Cyn with a raised digital eyebrow.

"Why exactly are you hiding in the closet?" I asked, trying to figure out what Cyn was playing at here. She looked like she was planning something I didn't want to be a part of. So far, this was my second run-in with her, which was too much for my comfort.

"Giggle, you found me. This game of hide and seek was fun." Cyn said with a toothy smile that bore a resemblance to the future disassembly drones. She got up and slowly followed me as I moved on with my job.

Once I returned to the crime scene, I loosened the burdens in my arms by placing them on or next to the counter, leaving a towel in my hand. First, I had to soak up the spilled wine that had formed into a small puddle before I thought of sweeping up the shattered glass. Kneeling on the floor, I ignored the Cyn sitting on the counter where my cleaning supplies rested. As I was cleaning up the mess, the manor would become more active, with other worker drones walking through the room that Cyn and I occupied to get to other rooms for the day.

Once I got most of the liquid that wasn't ingrained into the carpeted floor, I moved to grab the broom to sweep the glass into the dustpan attached to the broom. As I acquired the broom, I unintentionally made eye contact with Cyn, who had a tiny smile and seemingly gazed into my soul as she rested the side of her head on one of her hands.

'Note: get used to Cyn's soulless stare.'  I thought before returning to sweeping up the glass. Why she was staring at me like that, I have no idea.

"Longingly stare; would you like me to help you?" Cyn said, with her tone sounding emotionless, making me pause.  'Why did she say that? That sounds so wrong coming from her.'  I thought before shaking my head. Sweeping the glass into a pile, I decided to answer her little question.

"No thanks, I got it," I responded with a hint of hesitation.  'Wouldn't be my first rodeo,'  I thought as I swept. Once all the glass shards were in a pile, I picked up the dustpan and gently guided the collection into it. With that, I put aside the broom, walked to a nearby trashcan, and dumped the dustpan into it. Now was the part of removing any chance of a stain developing on the carpet with the help of spray cleaners.

This boring atmosphere would be my life for a while, wouldn't it?