Zev kept working. "You know, if you want me to, I can work at night, too, and then this will all get done much faster." He remarked, legs stretched out and sticking out from under the console as he worked. His left wrist clicked again, and he slapped it gently, then kept working.
She shook her head, messing with the wiring again and sliding back under the panel, “I won’t force you to, unless you really want to. I won’t turn down the help.” If he worked at night, it would go faster, but she didn’t want to work him like a robot that couldn’t think or do anything. It just felt wrong.
He raised an eyebrow slightly. "It makes the most sense for me to, considering I do not need to sleep, eat, drink, breathe, use the bathroom, and a myriad of other things that you yourself need." He replied, still working. "Therefore, i can work for days on end without a break, as I do not need to."
“Still, if you don’t want to, don’t.” She shrugged and glanced over at him, realizing just how many things humans did need to do just to stay alive. It really did make sense for him to. Thesa shook her head and turned back to her work, now determined to help as much as she could during the day if he was going to work all night, “If you do work all night, you know I’m going to make you stop and take a break every so often, take care of your wrist or whatever needs fixing on yourself.”
He shrugged. "My wrist works fine until it doesn't, and it's simple enough to fix. Otherwise, I am in surprisingly good condition, for thirty years without checkups and repairs." He said. "Also, I really don't need to take a break. It is illogical for me to, as my joints work the same regardless of how long I have remained stationary."
She wrinkled her nose and rolled her eyes, “Still, I’m gonna make you take at least two breaks daily, one in the morning and one at night.” Before he worked tonight, she made a note to herself to show him where she kept all her tools if he needed them. The last thing she wanted was to be woken up to show him where something was.
He nodded. "Alright. That's your choice." He replied. "I don't need it." He was still working steadily. Not fast, but definitely not slow either. He closed up the panel, and moved over to the next one quietly, and pulled it open, then continued to work with the precise movements of the machine that he was.
“It doesn’t have to be a long break, just a little bit of time to go check whatever or learn about more of what’s happened in the last thirty years.” She glanced over at him and sealed up her panel as well, amazed at the progress they were making. While Zev’s work was steady and quicker than hers, Thesa was still doing her best. She knew this ship like the back of her hand, and she knew which repairs were most urgent and which ones could wait, meaning she moved from controls to controls faster than him.
Zev shrugged slightly. "I have already caught up on the major points of the last thirty years." He replied. "The only thing I will check for is a reply message from Alexi." He kept working. He didn't know the ship well, but he had the knowledge any Repairman Android would, of the wiring. As long as Thesa hadn't done something completely over the top and strange, he could keep working.
She nodded, “I don’t expect him to be getting back immediately, from what I’ve heard, when he occasionally answers messages, it takes several days or weeks.” The ship didn’t have any crazy changes to it or anything, mostly because she copied what the internal working looked like from papers she borrowed. They weren’t a spot on replica, but it was easy to see they looked similar.
"I put a special code in it." He replied. "He gave me a set of codes a long time ago, and told me if we were ever separated, to send him a message with the heading as that code. He'll reply." He kept working steadily, not looking at her.
“That makes sense,” She said with a nod, slightly surprised that Alexi had thought of coded for his android to keep in touch if needed. Thesa glanced over at him briefly before getting back to work, counting in her head how much they had left to do. The thought of going to get the food from Zev’s ship popped into her head and she reminded herself to go get it when she took a break. She would never turn down free meals in space.
Zev nodded, and kept working. He gave it to me because I…am different. He could lose one hundred of the others and not care but I…am the only one of my kind. He kept working, not saying anything.
Over the next hour or two, Thesa worked hard and quiet. Her back and shoulders soon got tired though from laying on uneven surfaces and pulling at wires, helping her decide to take a break at around what noon would’ve been on her one planet. She rested back against a console and rolled her neck, pulling off her gloves, “How are you doing over there Zev?”
Zev looked at her. "It is going well. Are you taking a break?" He asked, glancing over at her for a moment, then continuing to work at rhe same pace he had been the whole time. His wiring was neat and organized, each wire exactly where it was supposed to be.
“Yeah, I am.” She rolled her shoulders and sighed, “I’m definitely not an android, I gotta stop and complain about my aches and pains every few hours.” Thesa cracked a smile at her last comment, glancing over at Zev. Her fingers drummed against her leg and she looked up at the ceiling, ignoring Stabby as the robot whirred in and whirred back outZ
Zev chuckled. "Were you an Android, I would be worried. You look far too real to be one of us." There was an almost unconscious division in his words: android vs human, machine vs life. Not in a threatening sort of way, but in a way that seemed to automatically place androids below humans. Which was, of course, merely following the programming in every android.
She smiled and shrugged, “I think I could pass as one of you guys in every way besides the way you guys don’t have nervous energy to burn off by fidgeting.” Besides the basic human needs she had, Thesa thought she could pass as one of the newer models, one like Zev. As long as no one looked to close at how much detail was in her eyes or her chest rising and falling with breathing, she would be fine.
He shook his head. "No. All models but me look the same, and do not look anything like you. Plus, why would you want to pass as an Android? It is not like there is anything different that we are allowed to do that you aren't. It is, in fact, the other way around. You have freedoms that an android does not."
(Sry it’s short, I’m out shopping with friends. I promise my next response will be longer)
“What are we allowed that you aren’t?” She asked, slightly confused, “The only differences that come to mind are restaurants, and and hospital or dentist. But that’s because we need to take care of our fragile bodies.”
(its alright, i understand!)
Zev blinked at her. "Perhaps it only applies to me. Other androids do not have thinking and decision making capacity." He was silent for a moment. "We cannot vote; we do not have that right. We cannot make decisions over our own bodies and minds. If you decided, right now, that you wanted to take me into your bed and have your way, i am not allowed to do anything to stop you, and if I did, it would be seen as a terrible glitch in my programming, and i would either be scrapped or memory wiped. I have no choice in anything; if my owner or creator, in this case both are the same, decides that they want me to do something, my programming ensures that i must and will do it, irregardless of what i might want."
(bump)
(Oof, sry, I thought I responded, I must not have tho)
“Oh..” She nodded, trailing off as she thought of just how much an android wasn’t allowed to do. It didn’t surprise her that their options were limited, most Androids couldn’t think for themselves or make their own choices. Thesa shook her head as she thought of how it would feel to not have control over her mind or body, no voice when it came to what she was forced to do, someone owning her and being able to control her every move. It sounded terrible.
(its fine!)
Zev nodded, and kept working. It was obvious that he must have thought about that a lot, debating over the reasons for it. And he had. He had debated it back and forth with himself for nearly three years, and had discovered no solution. If all androids were like him, then of course the fair and obvious thing would be to give them the same rights as humans. But rights could not be given to all of them simply because of him; that made no sense. It was like giving voting rights to monkeys simply because one happened to be intelligent.
She thought for a few minutes and shook her head, getting to her feet and stretching out her sore muscles, “In going to go grab that food from your ship, mind telling me where it is? Or showing me?” What he had said started making her think, coming up with pointless ideas and theories to satisfy her curiosity on the subject. It even made her think of the war, and how big of a part he androids played. The fighting could be so much more violent if android owners simpler told their androids to fight, to destroy, along with the bots specially made for such tasks.