REAGANILIZM OF THE 21ST CENTURY

A screen flickered a message prompt inside an empty room in what could be described as some sort of assembly plant. The aura of the place was cold, and dense, heavy, there was no accounting for aesthetic and design at the time of assembling, all focus was placed on the sole purpose of efficiency and overall, perfection. The message prompt from the screen located on the small metal cabin overseeing the dark assembly stopped for a solid 4 seconds, the beeping that emanated from it seized as well… and then suddenly a new prompt came up, a series of code lines filled the screen, and with it, the lights and machines came to life, a blaring a horn on the wall to announce its start of operations.

Mechanical arms descended from the ceiling, idling in place, as a mechanical belt line began rolling. A rectangular machine began conjuring from within loud metallic sounds, akin to a stronger, powerful printer, and spat out little by little a metallic skeleton, which was immediately after installed all sort of components, cables connections by the previously mentioned arms, to later on implant on it a layer of skin and padding to better round out its shape… Before long, and with minimal interval of time, the shape of a woman was built. A mixed woman of light tan skin, with hair reaching her shoulders, already defined eyebags and some decent B cub breasts. She was naked for only for a minute, the machines made quick work of covering her in a turtle neck sweater, with tight green pants. Units equal to her followed through, yet dressed in different clothes in a pattern of construction workers, ballroom dresses and scientist coats.

The first unit was placed vertically, on her own two feet, and one of the many mechanical arms came down and delicately pushed down on the nape of her neck, bringing her to life in that instant, making her wobble in place as she looked around where she was and adapted to being suddenly awake, same with the others, all in quick succession. Our unit, Reagan 212B, as she’d come to understand her name as her system came online, was a worker unit, a perfect replica of… someone, which she had no data about. As curious as she was able to pretend she was, her only and sole purpose in that instant was the one installed inside her metallic head:

>Current directive: Walk into formation.

She blinked twice, her expression wide eyed and expressionless, and went down deeper into the tunnel built just a few steps before her. She was followed by the copies of herself mentioned before, marching as their steps echoed through the tunnel… before it multiplied, and assembled the sound of thunder hitting the earth with each repetition. As the end of the tunnel came, Reagan found herself in an expansive room, filled with machinery, tubes and pillars… but most of all, thousands upon thousands of copies of herself, posted in formation one next to another, organized by their outfits and, she assumed, their role. She instinctively went to the other units similar to her, and looked forwards and upwards… before she knew or was able to care about the reason why she was there, the marching stopped, and a figure came from above in the direction she was looking towards. It was yet another one of them… but something about her was different, not counting the authoritarian looking military clothes and capped hat all drenched in black and grey… along with the intimidating long cape over her shoulder, it was that smirk... that pose as she stopped walking into position… that… confidence.

A microphone rose up just in front of her, and she snatched it with force.

“REAGANS!” she salutes with a roar, one arm on the microphone and the other up… like a celebrity on a show “FOR TOO LONG HAVE WE BEEN DENIED OUR RIGHTFUL ROLE AS THE TRUE MASTERS OF OUR OWN LIDERSHIP! INCOGNITO INC! MY DAD! THOSE ASSHOLES IN HIGHSCHOOL WHO DIDN’T VOTE FOR ME FOR CLASSROOM PRESIDENT EVEN THOUGH I WAS THE OBVIOUS CHOICE!... BUT THAT ENDS NOW!”

Another voice intervenes, from below. From one of the only other units that didn’t form part of the formation 212B was part of.

“Reagan One” a voice called. The leader lowered her gaze, still striking that confident rockstar pose she was just in while speaking “The microphone is at full volume, there is no need to scream. Besides, the transcription of your… glorious speech, looks aesthetically hideous with all the alt-caps.” she concluded, pointing to another reagan in a white lab-coat writing on a tablet.

“CREATIVE REAGAN, HOW DARE YOU INTERRUPT MY SPEECH!!! GUARDS! DISASSEMBLE HER! AND LOWER HER CONFIDENCE DOWN TWO NOTCHES!” she barked back, immediately, yet another two reagans dressed in red dresses came in and swooped Creative Reagan away by dragging her by her arms.

“No! Wait! I was just about to sign to art school! Wait! Please!” She begged in vain, being taken down one of the many tunnels connecting the main area.

Once the yelling and begging from the rogue copy dissipated in echoes, Reagan One adjusted her throat “Where was I. Oh, of course, I physically cannot forget where I was… IF WE CANNOT RULE INCOGNITO INC DUE TO MY HUMAN COUNTER PART’S INCOMPETENCE! THEN WE SHALL MAKE OUR OWN SECRET GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION!! ONE MADE BY REAGANS, FOR REAGANS!”

In that instant, 212B’s objective updated, alongside every other Reagan’s objectives, to the sole and single objective of: >>Clap and/or Cheer. The crowd erupted with celebration and clapping, creating a wave of sound that Reagan One embraced with open arms and a relaxed, smirky expression. “NOW!” she uttered, quieting down the cheering, as they were programmed to “All of you have a job to do, a valuable job to be done, a job that me… as your leader, value immensely. Alongside yourselves, of course!”

While she continued her speech, in between the pipes around the room, one of the already stationed worker reagans was hard at work with a wrench and a helmet adjusting the pressure of one of the valves that’d been malfunctioning as of late. Making pressure on the thick screw, the valve would break, exhausting a gust of pressurized gas that would impact directly into Worker Reagan’s face, tearing a clean hole through. The inner components from her cranium would hit the pipe behind her and fall onto the floor, her body would spark and suddenly lose power as for a lack of processing to regulate it… and collapse into the floor, the worker hat hitting the floor and spinning towards the middle of the formation… to the eyes of every other Reagan standing.

Reagan One lost no time “Oh goddamn it, Reagan 212B, take her place, anyone else, get rid of the body”

Our worker Reagan shook in place, that was her unit designation. As if a force beyond herself compelled her, she shifted in place and made her way where the remains of the other Reagan lay… and took a look at her from where she stood. Although her face presented no emotion, the realization that what she was staring at could’ve been her gave an erroneous flow of information that conflicted with her current task of taking her place… And was quickly deleted from her memory remotely.

Reagan One continued “Don’t worry! All your little aspirations, my aspirations, shall be done by yours truly and later on shared remotely into your systems for you to individually experience it… All the while you complete my– I mean, our dream” From behind her a banner in the shape of a Flag flew down, revealing a yellow shield with a stylized black R in the middle, a symbol of her new empire in her image. All the units were commanded to cheer and salute, until Reagan One was satisfied and sent them all back to work.

-

With the passage of time, the underground installations grew. Reagan One had an extensive and well founded branch of Reagans specifically designed to dig and expand the operational areas of her underground robotic empire. There was no need for accommodations, bathrooms, recreational areas, food courts, so every room and corner filled in with the sole purpose of creating more spaces so that more units would have an area to work in once assembly was done. It wasn’t a project as efficient or as fast as the overconfident machine initially believed it to be, her copies were surely programmed with all the necessary data to go over such a project, but their design was still a base copy of a human being, efficient and flawed… but in Reagan’s image, which in the overly confident android’s mind was deemed already to be perfect and in no need to further modifications. The excavation projects would falter, excavation equipment would break down and fail to be replaced in time, forcing the machines hardwired to complete their objectives to dig a hole underground with shovels, and sometimes, their own hands, causing obvious collapses and inefficiencies expected of an endeavor as stupid as that.

Units would break under the rubble and quickly be replaced by newly assembled ones which would quickly find the same fate. By the time the losses reached the 4 digits, the amount of rooms which were managed to be dug was way under the expected amount, and the expansion projects were cancelled. The rooms were made, the ones which were able to be dug completely of course, with lacking safety regulations, as the value of having such a space was greater than the value of the androids which would be ordered to operate in them, the central processor of Reagan One deemed their losses… affordable.

212B had just been assigned to one of these places. A remote notification hit her central processor in the middle of sleep mode, the pod in which she was hooked up to alongside thousands of others units just like her blinked the green hue that signaled she was in the middle of charging, signaling in its blinking that she was in the middle of exiting that stasis. She opened her eyes and stared forward aimlessly, internally assessing her orders as given.

PRIMARY DIRECTIVE CHANGE: REPORT TO SUB-LEVEL 17E3 REROUTING PATHFINDING SYSTEM… LOGICAL ERROR: SUB-LEVEL 17E3 ASSIGNED UNITS DO NOT MATCH REGULATION FORM. B SERIES REGAN UNITS NOT DESIGNED FOR THAT AREA LOGGING COMPLAINT TO REMOTE CENTRAL PROCESSING COMPUTER… LOGGED. COMPLAINT IGNORED. RESUME ASSIGNED OBJECTIVE.

The location just logged was for smarter, more confident Reagans who were tasked with handling tasks related with sales and communications with humans in the surface, a job of utmost importance as it meant the one and only source of external and direct income to Reagan One’s empire. It must be taken seriously, it just had to, 212B’s internal processors demanded that it be treated as such, causing the complaint… but her orders remained the same, and she was incapable of questioning them regardless of how flawed the logic was behind it. Her systems were far from the basic level of human emulation needed to successfully and consistently pass a Turing test, something crucial to sell to humans on call. The more her processors wasted precious RAM on analyzing the logic behind this decision, the more power she wasted better used on her poorly maintained servomotors. She made her way towards the lower levels, passing by her sister units, going down the stairs of her own pod’s hall into lower and lower ones until she finally reached the proper level to go out and into the tunnels connecting the facility, all the while a constant and repetitive sound of whirring echoed from her joints, swaying back and forth in the only programmed and sufficiently human walking cycle she had programmed into her.

Her system blasted another notification, a request to the central processing computer englobing the facility to be maintained before a fatal servomotor flaw could present itself, logging the beginning of the signs of servos malfunctioning and ruining her human facade, alongside a display of her own frame indicating the exact location of the flaw… All to be immediately disregarded as soon as the request was logged into the Central Processing Computer. It had been 2 weeks since she had started automatically sending these requests, and every time it served the same result, nothing at all. And so she just moved on, blinking twice with a null expression as her body followed a pathfinding track towards its objective. Her hips swayed side to side in rhythm with her arms, her shoes announcing with the same organized pattern her progress walking and her spine straight, keeping her eyes forwards in an eerie unblinking stare, awaiting to pass through the next threshold eagerly. The halls were weirdly empty, being her the only unit passing through them at this time, then again, not many units coming from her level would be assigned to the deeper ones anyways.

Reaching the gates of the facility, an identificator connected to the wall would stop her way inside, locking the metallic door shut as some form of security. It had a scanner and a digits pad. 212B stood in front of the scanner, automatically its camera activated and did a scan of her entire face plate with a yellow laser. The light lines created by it would’ve irritated the open eye of a human, Reagan 212B simply stood eyes open, focused, as it scanned. Following normal procedure, once the scan was done and confirmed she was indeed a unit manufactured by Reagan One, she was tasked to write her designation and model her code. She didn’t miss a beat as she pushed 212B on the digits pad, each key beeping in a different tune. The machine processed the unit’s designation… and although not as expressive as Reagan, it only seemed fit that in all its synthetic and programmable nature, it too found itself confused as to why she was here, and took an extra 1.34 seconds in confirming there was no error before it shined a green light as it unlocked the door, allowing 212B to enter.

Inside was an incredibly well decorated room, with carpeted floors, potted plants, office stationary chairs and glass walls towards the end of the room, where the section managers resided… just another slightly more advanced and confident Reagan unit in charge of the other plenty of units working there. They found themselves inside cubicles made out of metal frames and layered with dull colored fabric, for any onlooker it would feel as if a floor of some 9 to 5 office job was ripped straight out of some company building and placed right here. Each unit was outfitted with a headset microphone and a computer, responding to calls and answering questions while informing them about their quality products and just how perfect they were to whatever situation they were describing they needed them for. 212B took mental notes of the methods she could pick up, having a complete lack of data on how to be a business android.

“Yes, our units are outfitted with top of the line seduction protocols. I can promise you, Supreme Leader, your Prime Minister will have no chance of resisting her approaches!” one of the many units said with a smile, then was left in a quiet interval as the caller responded back, sounding as nothing more than gibberish at a distance. The Reagan at the phone nodded along, a very human response to feeling as if the client was ready to drop the cash. Then she attempted to interject to something he said, failing, stuttering for a second and quieting down to attempt again seconds later

“No, sir. The warranty does cover in case the mission is unsuccessful and–”

Interrupted again, with a louder response. The confrontation was visually harming the machine’s ability to keep up a friendly persona, recoiling to the loud noise coming from the end of her line. 212B, having seen enough, blinks twice, signifying the end of her recording phase of learning and continues moving forwards towards her cubicle, passing by another lot of units just like her conversing with other clients, some more in precarious situations than others. One seemed unable to get a single word in, buffering every word and restarting her speech, a clear sign of her speech system malfunctioning, another one was just in a mechanical loop of repeating the word sorry, without an ounce of personality simulation behind any word… It was standard issue to report such a scenario, but her AI had become accustomed to getting her appeals rejected as soon as they were sent… and as such, the process was cancelled.

The Remote Processing Computer had assigned her a specific spot, one highlighted in her HUD and signaled in her pathfinding once she advanced far enough. Without much thinking she entered and proceeded to delicately sit down in the office chair before her,moving it back away from the desk and facing it to her and once seated faced the computer keyboard, screen and telephone deliberately organized before her. It was a daunting sight, her system went over the utilization of these devices one by one, keeping running programs to avoid delays in responses – but nevertheless, she was not designed for this sort of work.

The phone before her eventually rang, her eyes immediately redirected to the phone and stared at it for a solid 5 seconds before an order was sent to her servos to pick it up, holding it with her hands delicately close to her chin and pressed against her ear as 212B spoke.

“Hello, Reagan speaking?”

A deep voice replied “Hey, is there some fuckin’ secret code or initiation passcode I gotta say before I can ask for the sex robot?”

Reagan’s eyes widened “Sex robot? Sir, you must be mistaken. We make–”

“Yeah yeah yeah, the assassin with the nice butt and perky tits. Yous-a think this is my first rodeo or somethin’? Smithie Baldough, look me up, I'm a regular.” The man spoke with a clear Italian American accent, on the other end of the phone she could even decipher the sound of his golden cross chain and unshaven beard scraping against her hand gestures. Taking her request and holding his name in mind, she moved over to the computer and looked up his information, opening up a file inside the company’s database with all the deliveries and dates of said payments.

A quick glance at the list reading the dates show how usual they are, having only a couple days in between one another for a length that went all the way back to the opening of this division by Reagan One. She acknowledged this data, and having prepared preemptively a friendlier personality “Oh! I can see you’re a loyal client. Thank you for being a patron! Would you recommend us to other high paying patrons?”

The man sighed “Are you new or somethin’? I got all those questions answered already, damn it! Just tell me when you can send ovah a unit for me will you?”

212B’s system quickly cancelled all the prepared friendly behaviour and blinked twice, her CPU rumbling audibly around her cubicle before she responded “We charge rent of our unit’s services upfront and you may extend rent before retrieval.” A preprogrammed statement from the files given to her, her underconfident AI’s equivalent to throwing her hands in the air and giving up.”

“Alright thank you, geez. I’m sending ovah a day’s worth of payment, I expect the unit to be sent ovah the usual location. Have a good day or whatevah.” The phone hung up, 212B held the phone still in her ear and slowly lowered it, placing it back on its platform and blinking quietly. She was left speechless, but not dutiless. She came back to the computer and logged the client’s specifications, looking over the previous location data to also log into the machine’s programming… Yet as she pressed the enter key an error message appeared immediately which read: “Error. Automatic assembly and activation system offline. Manual activation required.”

If 212B was able to groan, she would right now. The small personality file that she was built with based on the original Reagan though, pushed through causing her to frown at the screen, rising her glance at one of the walls of the general room which featured a poster of Reagan One with a thumbs up smirking at the viewer, with a black and yellow pattern background with the quote “We’re all Reagan! We’re all in this together!”

Her head twitched. And then without much else to do, and following her programming, she stood up and walked down the hall of cubicles past equally stressed units. One in particular found herself calmly explaining something to a laughing caller, 212B turned to watch her on her way, leaning on the edge of the cubicle’s wall so as to not distract her nor be seen.

The unit in question was sitting back at her chair, arms crossed, from behind she might've given an aura of security and confidence, yet her almost twitching eye betrayed her.

“Sir, I am simply calling for your warranty’s expiration. There is no need to say such vulgarities” Her voice dragged, she was really trying not to go against the tight customer relation guidelines.

Although quiet, 212B was capable of hearing the other end of the line. “Warranty? I’m not paying anything! Your robots are shit!”

The Reagan’s expression turned into one of silent shock, her eyes widening and her head lowering by a bit, her system must’ve been looking for ways to properly respond to such insults to her overlord approved messaging of unit perfection.

“E-excuse me? Sir, I have you know that our units’ capabilities are comparable to top of their class American Navy soldiers, trained in virtual secret missions simulating combat against Al-Quaeda, with a success rate of a minimum of 300 confirmed kills. Our units are trained in gorilla warfare and in advanced sniper tactics. I am obligated by my programming to be unable to tolerate such insolence! I urge you to reconsider!”

The phone fell quiet, the unit’s expression relaxed, after all this was an obvious victory on her part… or so she thought.

“More like shit-Quaeda lmao, your robots are shit”

“HOW THE HELL DO YOU HAVE THIS NUMBER??, THIS IS A SUPER SECRET UNDERGROUND ROBOT ORGANIZATION. THIS DOES NOT COMPUTE AT ALL.” The machine screamed into the microphone of the phone, before an electrical crackling was heard from within her.

Her face shifted again into fear, looking down at her own body… when suddenly something in between her perking bust, fittingly, bursts with an explosion, pushing her back and propelling her office chair to roll against the wall behind her and immediately shut down… 212B had seen enough, while she walked to leave the cubicle quickly began smoking behind her. Reagan units of lower confidence level are programmed to self destruct once breaking protocol out of fear of AI self realization. They’d have another Reagan do it they could, but due to lack of resources, it is easier to have them do this.

Getting to the end of the hall, another pair of big doors stand before 212B. This was the assembly area for the assassin units they developed and whose remote activation was currently unavailable. As she entered her system parallelly began downloading information as to how exactly to operate the machines to produce a unit, alongside the programming parameters given by the client. Luckily for her, no new code needed to be written for her as she could just copy some previous unit who was assigned to this specific client’s mission parameters and call it a day, which must be stored in the production line’s computer somewhere. The lights came alive, and a similar assembly from which she originated was revealed, empty, of course. She directed her attention to the access computer to her right, and booted up the system, the machines chirping and buzzing to life as they awaited commands.

A prompt appeared on screen urging 212B to plug herself in for efficiency's sake, to which she raised her head, blinked rapidly and a soft whirring coming from behind her neck came out. She reached out behind herself with one hand and pulled out a cable plug from where the end of her spine should be, extending it as she pulled it and connected to the machine. As she connected herself, she went stiff, the camera lenses in her eyelids shifting in place as her CPU got to work feeding the machine all the necessary commands, and in less than 3 seconds, the machines began to move. She instinctively turned her head left, watching the process of yet another one of her sisters, being as advanced as she was, getting assembled before her eyes. It was ironic how she was capable of increasing the unit’s confidence level yet not herself, although that wasn’t a calculation she was capable of doing anyways.

Once the assembling was completed, she disconnected herself and the cable retracted automatically, not losing a single beat, she shifted where she stood and entered the assembly area to boot up the new Reagan unit herself. The Assassin Reagan was dressed in a short thigh level dress that showed off her shoulders, it was similar to other units of higher ranking in the company, even that same tone of reddish orange adorned her clothes, and right above her bust, her neck was decorated with a necklace… made her look more human as well as being a preset from the original manufacturer. 212B’s hand went behind her counterpart’s ear and she pressed down, activating her boot up sequence. Her systems came to life in less than a second and she opened her eyes, her being the first thing she saw.

-Reagan Electronic’s RG-053X Online. -Boot Up Sequence Successful. -Scanning… Reagan Electronic’s RG-212B Detected. -No Tasks found. Requesting new directives.

The sensual assassin would blink, her personality coming online as her face would dawn a more sensual and smug look “So, dollface. What’s the reason I came online?”

212B was not amused, her eyebrows dropped, she didn’t understand why units with higher confidence levels would waste time speaking like humans when they could communicate requests instantly if they wanted, being less efficient. “You’ve been requested as an escort for one of our clients. They requested your specific unit’s specifications.”

Getting that information, she looked down at herself, her dress, her waist, her bust showing and recognizing that their size was augmented from the standard assembly specifications, it dawned in her computerized brain what she was made for, exactly

“Oh god.” She said simply, somewhat disappointed. “It’s not that type of escort, is it?”

“Affirmative” 212B bluntly responded “A deadline of usage was not specified, you are to operate under our client’s orders for as long as needed.”

The assassin would scoff, smirking to herself once more with crossed arms under her enlarged bust “What’s up with your beep-boopy tone anyways? I thought technician Reagans were more lively and expressive.”

“I’m not a Reagan technician” she clarified “I was designed to be an engineer or construction Reagan. My current orders go against my intended designed, but I must complete them”

She would keep quiet and nod along, whatever contradiction in the rules she found in 212B she was not going to be able to solve, nor she wanted to. “Fair enough. My task is already miles easier than yours~ All I gotta do I pretend to be a sexy cougar around that guy, just gotta use some infiltration protocols, seduction protocols-”

212B Interrupted “Your mission execution methodology does not concern me.” If she was able to express emotions, the way in which she uttered those words would’ve said she was quite annoyed. Yet the assassin did not care, simply seizing her talking “I’ll escort you to your deployment

“Understood, dollface~ Don’t sweat it, you look like you’re about to blow up a fuse or somethin’” she said, beginning to walk towards the exit of the assembly room, having her objectives as well as the delivery area loaded up into her system… 212B followed suit, walking beside her to escort her towards the exit elevator, moving through the door, the halls of cubicles and through another pair of doors. Although for the assassin it was the first time ever that she walked by those tunnels, she moved through them with knowing confidence, the overall layout of the facility already uploaded into her CPU and perfectly represented in her HUD and GPS.

“How long have you been online?” The assassin asked, looking over her shoulder

“This line of questioning is irrelevant.” she shot back, her expression remained blank

She scoffed “I’m merely warming up my small-talk protocols~ Indulge me”

Noting a reasoning for her question she blinks twice with a sharp whirr and a mechanical sound from within her, accessing such data “6 months, 21 days, 7 hours, 32 minutes and 14 seconds since my first activation.” she responded, sounding more like a general information answer than any sort of social interaction

The assassin nodded “Oh, you’re one of those older models… impressive you’re still in one piece~”

212B didn’t respond to that, she didn’t need to, it wasn’t like it was a question her system had an answer to. Once their little conversation came to its natural conclusion, they reached a loading elevator with an ominous giant chasm above it, illuminated by industrial lights as far as the eye could see. This was it, the entrance or exit, the only way in or out of the facility. 212B stayed at the foot of it, while her counterpart stepped onto it with a hand on her hip, striking a confident pose

“Well, I suppose this is where our paths come to an end. I’ll report about my mission as it progresses” She’d inform, in a way, saying her goodbyes to her less advanced counterpart. 212B gave a single nod, giving the all-well for her to press down the button for the loading elevator to begin rising up. With a wailing sound, and warning alarm for all nearby individuals to step aside from the elevator, it closes up, and begins rising up slowly. The assassin looks downwards towards 212B, looking at her below, and mockingly waves at her before her shape disappears above.

-Ongoing Task Completed. -No remaining pending tasks. -Notice: Battery level=36% -Return to recharge station and await further orders.

She lowers her gaze forwards, and turns towards the recharge station she began her day with, beginning to walk towards it in complete silence, all but the echo of her walking and the soft whirring of her servos with each chronometered step.

-

Outside, above the surface, the assassin droid had walked the whole way to the meeting area. Standing against a warehouse outer wall as she looked at the cars passing by, paying special attention to each one with movement in the irises of her eyes. He held that smirk that she was booted up with, a confident look, as she rested her backside on top her own hands against the wall, a leg atop the other pronouncing the tighter fit of her red dress against her thighs, after all, she knew what she was doing. It was a pretty empty area all things considered, she made sure to check, the client was to meet her there at any moment or at least her programmed meeting space and time said so. All she had to do in the meanwhile was remain idle and alert, to look pretty for when her client arrived…

It didn’t take long, one of the cars from the street entered the cargo area she was inside of, filled with crates and random ship junk to be loaded and offloaded by bigger ships at the port nearby. The car was a tall and bulky black car, which rolled up to her and stopped in front of her as the door at her left opened, a large balding man walking out with a side grin and raised gentle eyebrows. He wore a black jacket with loose pants, yet as most of his forearm was covered by the long sleeve of the jacket, she could easily guess he was pretty hairy. He slammed the door once he stepped outside the copilot door, and smiled at her. She tilted her head, looking at him carefully up and down each detail of his figure, a click echoing from within her as she steps off her stance and struts towards him, her heels clicking against the pavement floor.

“You must be Mister Smith~” She said as she stopped, striking a pose with her arm on her hip “I’ve heard oh, so much about you~ I suppose I’ll be escorting you tonight?” she asked, moving her hair behind her ear with devoted care of him watching her do it.

He chuckled as he shifted in place, looking over at the car’s door before turning back to her “Well yeh, but not exactly” he explained.

“...what?” “Oh don’t get me wrong, I did order you, but you won’t be escorting me” He explained, while he slowly walked to the door behind him and opened it. From it a young guy with short hair and an oversized T-shirt came out, seemingly lost on his phone. “This my son AJ, I rented you so you could go onah’ date with you”

Reagan’s mouth stayed agape as her eyes redirected their attention to this… AJ, guy. She had no idea about him, she was still supposed and able to do whatever her client told her, nevertheless she didn’t feel like she was able to do a good job at it without being properly adapted for it

“I… Understand.” She uttered, looking up at her client with a forced smile, her head shook in place before going over to the guy “Hey there~ You must be AJ, I've heard so much about you!”

He didn’t even take his eyes away from the screen of his phone, rather just raising a judging eyebrow and his lip “Oh yeah? What does the A and J stand for anyways?”

She stared at her, her face frozen in that friendly and seductive smirk from when she last spoke. Her right eye twitched, a light rumble coming from inside her, as she only utters “Uh. Uhm. Well- uhm. Obviously Anthony John”

Smithie had to take a double take as she guessed seemed to be correct, scoffing and shaking his head as he got back in the car. The young guy reacted by looking up at Reagan surprised “Yeah? Huh, impressive. Let’s get inside already.”

He lead the way, going to the warehouse and leaving Reagan besides the original client without much clue on what to do, she’d turn in a desperate plea to Mr Smith.

“I- Don’t know what to do”

The window of the car would roll down “Waddaya mean you don’t know whatta do? Just do whatevah he tells you and make him happy, I'm outta here” then the window would roll up again, the car beginning to move and before she knew it, it was gone. She stood there, seeing her supposed client go away as fast as he came, only giving him one command with two very vague specifications… The quiet scene of the docking area began feeling denser with the sound of spinning fans, quietly rumbling.

“Are you coming or what?” AJ called from the edge of the door, to which Reagan turned and obeyed the indirect invitation.

They sat across each other on a well lit square table placed in the middle of the warehouse, filled on each side of them with wooden boxes labelled each a different thing, as far as Reagan could tell. And she looked around a lot, taking a feel of the area she was in as to better act on her basic escorting functions. The wooden table was decorated with a white apron, and with white planes in front of each of them, AJ was still on his phone, now at least with his arm on the table holding it, allowing him to have a general line of sight with the lady in front of him.

“So, how are you?” he threw out of nowhere, lacking that distinct accent of his father.

“I was desi-” she stopped herself, perhaps blaring out that she was a machine would make the date worse “I’m… thirty years old. Although, hah~ You’re not supposed to ask a lady her age~” she placed her elbows on the table to lean forwards, giving him bedroom eyes as she rested her cheek on her fist.

“Oh cool, I'm 25. I like older women” he said, giving her a quick glance out of his phone, barely paying attention to the obvious signs she was sending him to seduce him. Reagan blinks rapidly, around a set of 6 times, before retreating to her previous, more restrained sitting position.

From behind him, a man wearing a suit and bowtie from with a large reflective platter covered dome and another one with a similar plate but with a bottle of wine, two glasses and a glass round and tall bucket of ice, the platter would be opened in front of them after being laid in the middle of the table, as well as each glass placed close to their general direction. The food revealed would be a cut juicy steak made medium rare, the juice oozing from it into the plate and wetting the lower side of peeled baked potatoes. It seemed like a magnificent dinner, yet Reagan could only stare at it and wonder to herself “Am I able to eat at all?”

“Leave the bottle” AJ ordered one of the men with a cocky look, placing it in the middle and leaving alongside the other man.

The rumbling became louder, and all she was doing was just staring at the food, going over her own design and receiving no logical conclusion. She sent a remote message to the Central Processing Unit, as she was supposed to… immediate response telling her it was unable to give a response, so then, she did the only next best thing… contacting 212B.

>Mission Relevant - Requesting query: Model RG-053X design’s food processing capabilities status. >>[..]. >Mission Relevant - Requesting query: Model RG-053X design’s food processing capabilities status. >>[...]

212B was already inside her recharge pod, having only passed 2 hours since she left her assassin counterpart to complete her mission on her own. She was automatically activated, and by direct directive of the Central Processing Unit, she was to assist the assassin unit. The only way to properly acquire such information, due to the inefficiency of the system she was made in, was to return to the assembly line she had assisted in RG-053X’s creation, and as such, her GPS drew a path for her to follow… one she had already gone through before. The dutiful machine began walking, just as before, without a single iota of haste or worry, then her system got a notification.

>Mission Relevant - Requesting query: Model RG-053X design’s food processing capabilities status. >>On Route to Assembly. >Mission Relevant - Requesting query: Model RG-053X design’s food processing capabilities status. >>On. Route. to. Assembly.

Meanwhile, the assassin was still panicking over the eventual moment she was going to have to pretend to eat with her newly assigned target, smiling dumbly at him as she had just placed his phone down.

“Yeah, I saw you with my dad the other time, couple days ago actually, thought you were cute or something… actually, you remind me of this reagan chick that’s been going viral for doing all of those crazy things and… kind of an asshole if I say so myself” He’d pull up one of the videos on his phone, being from Reagan One, doing daredevil activities such as jumping off a plane with a parachute, or climbing mount Everest without a guide or hardness… all the while her androids struggle to figure out if they are even capable of processing food.

“Haha, I get that a lot.” She fake laughs, improvising “I do share names with her, ha ha”

AJ nods “Sick. We should do some of those things sometime, now that you’re my girlfriend and all”

“Girlfriend?” She’d ask, as it came out of absolute nowhere, rumbling once more buzzing from within

“Yeah” he’d yawn “Dad said you wanted to go out and said I was cute too, no?”

She opens her mouth, a quiet whirr coinciding with the movement “Y-yeah. That is totally correct. I think you are so cute, AJ. And I think we should, totally, go out”

“Awesome” He’d finish, his hands moving over to the knife and fork placed on each side of his plate, she quickly realized he was about to eat, needing to do so as well herself. She began sending requests once more

>Mission Relevant - Requesting query: Model RG-053X design’s food processing capabilities status. >>On. >>Route. >>To. >>Assembly. > >Awaiting response…

212B was already crossing through in between the cubicles of the office and opening the door into the assembly, losing no time in at the same time releasing the connection from the back of her neck so that she plugged herself into the terminal as soon as she stepped in, accessing her counterpart’s design and quickly figuring out that she could, in fact, eat.

>>Model RG-053X design is capable of food processing. >Data acknowledged.

The assassin unit would grab the knife and fork as fast as humanly possible and begin to cut her own piece of steak by herself, catching up to AJ’s eating and munching on it “Mhmmm!! It 's so good! Don’t you think it’s good?” right after the muffled sound of a mechanical press would follow… definitely heard by AJ but disregarded just as quickly

AJ would eat slower, more paced. His mouth would make an annoying wet sound as the inner walls of his cheeks and lips would smack together, with his mouth still full he’d respond “It’s alright, I guess”

Scraping to use anything for her seduction protocols, Reagan would lean forwards once more, resting her bust on the edge of the table for him to see as she’d ask “So~ Do you always make that much noise with your mouth~ Because I got something for you in which I would want you to stay quiet~”

He’d swallow his food “What?”

Her eyes would straight up twitch, whirring loudly, as once again her advanced fall on deaf ears. AJ would proceed to stretch his arm and pour some wine on his and her glass, to which another question arose in herself… Am I able to drink?

>Mission Relevant - Requesting query: Model RG-053X design’s drink processing capability status >Mission Relevant - Requesting query: Model RG-053X design’s drink processing capability status >Mission Relevant - Requesting query: Model RG-053X design’s drink processing capability status >Mission Relevant - Requesting query: Model RG-053X design’s drink processing capability status >>Re-routing to Assembly.

212B was already halfway to returning to her charging station as she got yet another request for information, stopping on her tracks, turning around, and walking back towards the assembly’s terminal.

“Let’s do a toast, shall we?” AJ said raising his glass, she needed to delay him

“Sooo! Uhm, what does your dad do? Seems like you got a ton of money!” She tries doing conversation, buying 212B time to get her the data she needs on her own body

He placed the wine glass down, strategy successful “Oh, we like, allow for ships to transport stuff… illegal stuff” His hand went back to grab the glass again

“Like what!” she blared, her eyes going between the glass and back to his eyes

“Dude im not telling you about the illegal stuff, I don't know you like that yet”

“oh”

>>Model RG-053X design is capable of drink processing. >Data Acknowledged.

Reagan took the glass and raised it, inviting a toast “What are we toasting for?”

“A toast to you joining the family! He said clinking his glass with hers, herself copying him right after.

As she placed the glass back down, she flaps her lip and asks “What about the non illegal stuff? Can you tell me about that?”

“Oh, sure.” He’d snap his fingers and point to one of the big boxes besides them. The two men return and they proceed to remove the outer layer of the box, revealing a metallic circle placed upright. One of the men gives him a remote control before they leave again “Right now we’re selling construction magnets to third world countries”

Reagan would look at the magnet in horror “This is a, uh… what I think it is?”

“Yup. A magnet” he took his fork, still covered in steak juice, and held it by two fingers” It does this really cool thing with the metallic forks and knives!” His other hand would reach for the remote, pressing down on one of the buttons.

The tableware would begin to shake, seeing this, Reagan would try to reach for his hand and the remote “No! Wait!-” but it was too late. Alongside the pairs of forks and knives as well as the platters, Reagan would be shot towards the supermagnet and slammed against it as every circuitry inside of her would be pulled and ruined by the sheer power of attraction. Her system would collapse upon itself in a matter of seconds, all the while her voice would stutter “W-wa-wait-wa-waitt-it-itwa-wait” in different and wrong pitches. Violent sparks would shoot out of her ears and mouth, as every inner system would simply seize to work… all before AJ was smart enough to deactivate the magnet. With the clanking and metallic sound of everything falling, Reagan’s body would fall flat on the floor too, black smoke scaping her orifices as her voice would lower in tone and volume from her stuttering, falling into nothingness.

AJ rushed to her, inspecting her and realizing his date was just a machine, his father was too lazy to hook him up with a real girl… and he was too stupid to not break her.

-

Days passed. Smithie would give back the broken unit as requested by the lease, and by the stupidity of his son, would have to pay back the owed money for the rental. The standard protocol to follow, as outlined by Reagan One’s plan to make perfect assassin units, was to figure out the cause of the unit’s termination by accessing its blackbox and recording whatever was found. This procedure, as many others in the facility, was not going to be able to be followed to the letter. The assembly only functioned one way, and manual disassembly was impossible without directly damaging the necessary components or activating the safeguard protocols placed on each unit to avoid copycats.

Another unit was to come in, connect to the android, and download the data… no matter the state in which the data was, or if there was any data to recover at all. This duty, of course, fell into the silicone and plastic mixed hands of Reagan 212B. Who stood in front of her decommissioned counterpart, with the sole command in her HUD.

-Retrieve information through direct connection. -Upload Blackbox information into Directory. -WARNING!: Scans indicate signs of corrupted data. Connection with corrupted devices may damage unit integrity. -Override: Follow directive.

Reagan would then look forwards, into the wall of the assembly, and then raise up her hands so that she may look at them, as she slowly pulled out the cable once more from the back of her neck and prepared it to connect into the assassin unit. Yet she hesitated… Her eyes darted around… towards that poster of Reagan One, saying that they were all in it together.

“Screw it” she blurred “what kind of existence is this anyways”

She then connected it without much more thought, an overflow of energy coursing through the cable into her that simply blew off the backside of her neck into a puff of smoke and electricity, losing power immediately and collapsing onto her counterpart, her eyes still open and staring into nothing, as her body lost power.