frankenstein complex ⇢ q.k | ✔

twenty-one

You woke up first in the morning. From where your head rested on your pillow, you could see Kun's own sleeping form in the bottom bunk of the other bed. Yesterday had been a bittersweet time: he told you about the book he was reading, you shared what you'd learned about the latest subject you'd been perusing, you gave him his injections, and the two of you had been unable to leave each other. Until it was time to go to sleep, and then Kun wordlessly got under the sheets on the other side of the room.

Slipping out of your cabin, you started down the halls of the ship. You had no particular destination in mind, thinking that maybe you'd go to the observation deck before eventually meandering over to the kitchen for mess, but more-so wanting to stretch your legs and let your mind ruminate. Your positronic mind. Even that thought alone was something you were still turning over.

As you passed by the robotics lab, however, you weren't expecting to see light coming from under the door. Stopping, you gently turned the handle and pushed it open, finding it unlocked. Yangyang—or who you assumed to be Yangyang, as their face was completely covered by a welding mask—was at one of the workstations, welding something together as sparks flew up around his hands, and you squinted, covering your eyes against the brightness.

"Hey, Yangyang," you announced your presence.

He perked up towards the sound of your voice, and waved his hand that was holding the robot piece in it. "Oh, hey, Y/N."

"Are you busy?"

"Does it look like I am?" He gestured to the materials in front of him.

You looked over the countertops that seemed more cluttered than normal, welding tools that he was actively using, and robot part that was still in his hand. "I mean, yeah, kind of."

"Nah, come in." He waved you in, setting his tools and project down as you stepped further in. Still aware of how early it was in the morning, you shut the door behind you. The roboticist took his welding mask off, putting that aside and mussing his hair up with his fingers. "I really am sorry about the other day, by the way. Giving you an order."

"Oh, that's not why I'm here."

"I didn't think it was, but I still wanted to apologize. I needed to do it, but it was still a shitty thing. So I'm sorry. I'd do it again, to save your life, but I'll apologize after every time."

You tilted your head curiously. "Then what's the point of apologizing?"

"Because you deserve one," he said sincerely, firmly.

"Well, thanks. For saving me, and apologizing, I guess."

"So, what do you need?" He changed his tone, throwing on a bright smile.

You took a deep breath, pulling up another stool to sit across the counter from him. "Do you think I can love?"

"From a robotics standpoint, I don't know enough about how you're constructed to be able to say much about what you can do." He leaned back in his chair, putting his feet up on the tabletop, lacing his fingers together over his stomach. "But that doesn't matter. Ever since humans invented the idea of love, we've been debating about if it's real, what it is, trying to study it, sell it, whatever."

"Sounds like you don't think it's real."

"Sure it is. As real as any abstract, undefinable concept is," he shrugged. "Humans like to think they're special. It was only in recent human history that we even learned that we weren't the only intelligent species in the universe. And even then, there were some people who said that surely what sets us apart from them is that humans are the only species capable of love. And when we finally got translators proficient enough and could talk to them and we found out that they had the concept of love too, then it became that humans are the only ones capable of real love. Whatever that is."

"The other species might've been thinking that about humans, too."

"True." He tapped his thumbs together thoughtfully, then continued, "My old roboethics prof, he used to say something: There's no true metalman."

"What does it mean?" You asked curiously.

"It's a play on 'no true Scotsman,' which is a logical fallacy. The fallacy itself is kind of irrelevant. But it means there's no such thing as a pure robot, free of human influence. That no matter how hard a roboticist may try, they'll unintentionally leave some trace of themselves in whatever they create. There is always some human choice to be made at some point in the process. Some cases are more obvious than others, like early robots that had more limited built-in vocabularies talking like their creators, or a roboticist making seemingly arbitrary aesthetic decisions for a robot's head features then his buddy walks in and jokes that it kind of looks like the first guy's ex-wife."

You blinked. "Did that really happen?"

"It's an 'everyone knows a guy who worked with a guy who...' kind of thing," he explained. "Anyway, my point is that I don't think it's so hard to imagine that a species so obsessed with love might, intentionally or not, make something that loves too."

You pulled your bottom lip in between your teeth, thinking about the difference in Kun from before and after you went into repair stasis. "Is that what you told Kun?"

"What?" Yangyang's confusion seemed genuine.

"I don't know, I figured he would've talked to you about it," you mumbled, looking down at your hands.

"No, he hasn't." After a moment, he added, "For what it's worth, I think if he was to be taking my word about if you can love over yours... that wouldn't be a great sign?"

You let out a choked laugh. "What does it mean that I'm asking you that then?"

"You're someone who knew so little about yourself in the first place and now feels like you've had all that turned on its head. You're doing what you've always done: Asking questions. I think that's perfectly fair."

"You don't think I've completely lost what little sense of self I had?"

"I think you might feel like that—I can't read your mind—but this doesn't make the Y/N we got to know on Aegeum a figment of our imagination. You weren't pretending to be our friend."

"You don't think that was the First Law?"

"The flying knife and the ceiling, definitely First Law behavior," he conceded. "But I've met some rude, unhelpful robots before, trust me."

"When did you know?" You asked. "That I wasn't completely human?"

"I suspected something from when they found you untouched with no memories. I thought you were an android with a busted memory core. But then you bled."

"I thought androids didn't exist."

"They don't, but it's the best I could come up with. No way was I expecting that they had actually developed a functioning humanoid before the first android."

"Maybe they did but they didn't survive."

"Oh, you see, now that's sad," Yangyang clicked his tongue and shook his head. "Don't make me think about that."

"Sorry," you chuckled a little, then went to change the topic. "So what were you working on?"

As Yangyang began explaining the personal project he had been tinkering with when you walked in, you let your seemingly ever-present problems fade into the background, eagerly listening to his enthusiastic words.