Wham, Bam, Family Man
September 4, 2059
Tate was on his way back from his first block of four 12-hour shifts working for Marco, helping Alessio to develop into his own adolescence as an organic personality in a cloned adult body.
He'd heard, of course, that android Luke had been summarily recalled by Marco's company, along with all the other sex androids of that experimental model. Again, NOTHING EVER GOES AS TATE PLANS. So Matt didn't spend four days and three nights at the mercy of Sir Luke as Tate had expected. Yeah, beta testing.
On his way home he called Matt, he'd just been too busy and too tired to speak with Matt earlier in the week, although they'd texted a few times each day. He's still too tired, but the car ride will take a while, may as well catch up with his boyfriend. Matt sounded sad about Luke's recall, and about missing Tate. Matt said tomorrow, after Tate was well rested, and after breakfast, he'd like to have a relationship status chat, because so much had happened recently. Tate agreed, that would be a good idea.
Tate thought about how taking care of a brain-wiped adult body was much more physically demanding than taking care of a baby. Babies don't weigh 180 pounds. When babies make a mess of their breakfast, there's not as much breakfast to make a mess of, and babies cannot throw it as far. Tate heard from others on the team how the worst will be when Alessio has learned to walk, they'll have to keep him securely locked within a special safety wing of the complex for a while. But it was just the first week, Alessio was the equivalent of a one-month-old baby. He'd develop at roughly 4x the rate of a gestational baby, although various development stages would occur either faster or slower than this 4x rate.
OK, Tate's going to nap for the rest of the car ride. See you soon.
-----
This is what seat belts are for, as Tate's car wakes him with a hard slam on its brakes and a loud thump. He hears the car automatically calling 911, and the sound of air bags deflating, having completed their job. WTF.
He's fine, he thinks. He's all in one piece. Not bleeding as far as he can tell. The car is warning him not to exit the vehicle, as there is high-speed traffic nearby, "Your safest place is to remain seated with your seat belts fastened."
But where's his phone? Not sitting next to him anymore. Ugh. He can use the car's phone to call Matt, which he does.
Matt goes into panic mode, having barely lived through a car accident of his own, and says he and Alex are on their way in another car to pick him up, says the local rescue team should get there first.
"I'm fine," Tate assured him. "I might have bruises from where the seat belts grabbed me, but I'm fine."
-----
The car had hit a deer. On their way back, Tate snuggled into Matt's side and they held hands.
Matt was more upset than Tate was, Tate was ready to resume his nap. Tate felt like the car's safety systems had worked, he's OK, he's even more exhausted now. But Matt's been triggered.
Matt suggested, "We should have your memories backed up every three months, just in case."
Tate thought he was too sleepy to make this decision, and replied, "Not everybody is as excited to keep all their memories as you are." But then he thought of Ma, and yeah, maybe he should sign up for memory backups, if Matt is paying the bill. Ma would be devastated if he didn't remember her anymore. But he'd heard the backup process takes all day when you don't have brain implants.
-----
A quick nonsexual shower together at the house, where Tate got to feel Matt's bruised butt, a protein shake bedtime snack, then Tate wanted snuggles instead of foot rubs, so he fell asleep spooning with Matt while Matt continued to fume about what he considered "a close call, you could've died". But he can't forbid Tate from ever leaving the house. He wishes Tate had followed through with getting his vision fixed, the implants would have made it easier to backup his memories regularly.
Cars became steadily safer as AIs took over the driving task -- safer than human drivers ever were. But shit still happens. Human drivers are still legal, though most accidents involve human drivers. And even an AI driver cannot avoid every obstacle while traveling at highway speeds.
A couple days ago, Matt had asked Alex whether they could back up Luke's memories before the company team showed up to retrieve him. He'd worried that the connection he'd made with Luke would be completely erased by the recall fix, or that they'd send back a different unit.
"They already do continuous remote backups," Alex told him.
"But can't we do our own? They might wipe him!"
"They'll probably just upgrade his software, while leaving his save files alone. It depends on what the fix is." Alex had said while unlocking Matt's ankles from the sling. "If they have to change how the save files are organized to fix the problem, then making our own backup won't help."
Matt had worried, already, about losing Luke, when Luke probably isn't even sentient, and now he was triggered about losing Tate. Fucking cars!
Tate had intuited that Matt needed somebody who was around all the time, until he truly recovered from the trauma of that botched storage tank back in June, and getting Luke was a good idea for this purpose, but now we know Luke may not be around all the time either.
Yeah, we need a dog, Matt thought. Well, I need a dog. But with Tate they'd qualify for a trained service dog. Maybe two dogs, a service dog and a puppy. He thought about his conversation with Luke, when he'd sorta called Tate a 'sex puppy'. Of course he won't have sex with the dogs! But maybe Matt does need the combination of a sex android and a puppy. A larger family.
Is this what he wants now, needs now, a family? He's got Alex, his "Chief of Security", ex(?) boyfriend, and sort of all-around caretaker. He's got Tate, his default bed partner, boyfriend, and Sir. He'll have Alex or a similar replacement unit. Maybe when Talon gets out of prison he can live here. Matt thinks of Talon as a "he" even though Tate thinks of Talon as "she". How confusing for a kid when his mother switches genders on him. Anyway. Today's kids probably aren't confused by gender fluidity. They've grown up with it: take a pill and in the morning you've got breasts. Or a cock. Or both. Take a different pill next week and switch back, like Alex does a few times per year.
But Matt's got this old-fashioned attachment to masculinity. We'll have to get female dogs, to diversity this place. With frankly feminine names.
He wants a family.
And then he realizes he has a family. Heh, as Luke said, when you're privileged you just change your framework of description to match your desires. Matt whispers to himself, not quite out loud, "Tate's not my sex puppy. Maybe he's not my family either. But I want a family. I think tomorrow, I'll ask him ... if he'll marry me." And then he holds Tate like he'll never let him go, as Tate snores softly into his pillow.
-----
And that's the end of this story cycle, I'm done with NaNoWriMo. Happy Thanksgiving to all my US peeps!
Tate was on his way back from his first block of four 12-hour shifts working for Marco, helping Alessio to develop into his own adolescence as an organic personality in a cloned adult body.
He'd heard, of course, that android Luke had been summarily recalled by Marco's company, along with all the other sex androids of that experimental model. Again, NOTHING EVER GOES AS TATE PLANS. So Matt didn't spend four days and three nights at the mercy of Sir Luke as Tate had expected. Yeah, beta testing.
On his way home he called Matt, he'd just been too busy and too tired to speak with Matt earlier in the week, although they'd texted a few times each day. He's still too tired, but the car ride will take a while, may as well catch up with his boyfriend. Matt sounded sad about Luke's recall, and about missing Tate. Matt said tomorrow, after Tate was well rested, and after breakfast, he'd like to have a relationship status chat, because so much had happened recently. Tate agreed, that would be a good idea.
Tate thought about how taking care of a brain-wiped adult body was much more physically demanding than taking care of a baby. Babies don't weigh 180 pounds. When babies make a mess of their breakfast, there's not as much breakfast to make a mess of, and babies cannot throw it as far. Tate heard from others on the team how the worst will be when Alessio has learned to walk, they'll have to keep him securely locked within a special safety wing of the complex for a while. But it was just the first week, Alessio was the equivalent of a one-month-old baby. He'd develop at roughly 4x the rate of a gestational baby, although various development stages would occur either faster or slower than this 4x rate.
OK, Tate's going to nap for the rest of the car ride. See you soon.
-----
This is what seat belts are for, as Tate's car wakes him with a hard slam on its brakes and a loud thump. He hears the car automatically calling 911, and the sound of air bags deflating, having completed their job. WTF.
He's fine, he thinks. He's all in one piece. Not bleeding as far as he can tell. The car is warning him not to exit the vehicle, as there is high-speed traffic nearby, "Your safest place is to remain seated with your seat belts fastened."
But where's his phone? Not sitting next to him anymore. Ugh. He can use the car's phone to call Matt, which he does.
Matt goes into panic mode, having barely lived through a car accident of his own, and says he and Alex are on their way in another car to pick him up, says the local rescue team should get there first.
"I'm fine," Tate assured him. "I might have bruises from where the seat belts grabbed me, but I'm fine."
-----
The car had hit a deer. On their way back, Tate snuggled into Matt's side and they held hands.
Matt was more upset than Tate was, Tate was ready to resume his nap. Tate felt like the car's safety systems had worked, he's OK, he's even more exhausted now. But Matt's been triggered.
Matt suggested, "We should have your memories backed up every three months, just in case."
Tate thought he was too sleepy to make this decision, and replied, "Not everybody is as excited to keep all their memories as you are." But then he thought of Ma, and yeah, maybe he should sign up for memory backups, if Matt is paying the bill. Ma would be devastated if he didn't remember her anymore. But he'd heard the backup process takes all day when you don't have brain implants.
-----
A quick nonsexual shower together at the house, where Tate got to feel Matt's bruised butt, a protein shake bedtime snack, then Tate wanted snuggles instead of foot rubs, so he fell asleep spooning with Matt while Matt continued to fume about what he considered "a close call, you could've died". But he can't forbid Tate from ever leaving the house. He wishes Tate had followed through with getting his vision fixed, the implants would have made it easier to backup his memories regularly.
Cars became steadily safer as AIs took over the driving task -- safer than human drivers ever were. But shit still happens. Human drivers are still legal, though most accidents involve human drivers. And even an AI driver cannot avoid every obstacle while traveling at highway speeds.
A couple days ago, Matt had asked Alex whether they could back up Luke's memories before the company team showed up to retrieve him. He'd worried that the connection he'd made with Luke would be completely erased by the recall fix, or that they'd send back a different unit.
"They already do continuous remote backups," Alex told him.
"But can't we do our own? They might wipe him!"
"They'll probably just upgrade his software, while leaving his save files alone. It depends on what the fix is." Alex had said while unlocking Matt's ankles from the sling. "If they have to change how the save files are organized to fix the problem, then making our own backup won't help."
Matt had worried, already, about losing Luke, when Luke probably isn't even sentient, and now he was triggered about losing Tate. Fucking cars!
Tate had intuited that Matt needed somebody who was around all the time, until he truly recovered from the trauma of that botched storage tank back in June, and getting Luke was a good idea for this purpose, but now we know Luke may not be around all the time either.
Yeah, we need a dog, Matt thought. Well, I need a dog. But with Tate they'd qualify for a trained service dog. Maybe two dogs, a service dog and a puppy. He thought about his conversation with Luke, when he'd sorta called Tate a 'sex puppy'. Of course he won't have sex with the dogs! But maybe Matt does need the combination of a sex android and a puppy. A larger family.
Is this what he wants now, needs now, a family? He's got Alex, his "Chief of Security", ex(?) boyfriend, and sort of all-around caretaker. He's got Tate, his default bed partner, boyfriend, and Sir. He'll have Alex or a similar replacement unit. Maybe when Talon gets out of prison he can live here. Matt thinks of Talon as a "he" even though Tate thinks of Talon as "she". How confusing for a kid when his mother switches genders on him. Anyway. Today's kids probably aren't confused by gender fluidity. They've grown up with it: take a pill and in the morning you've got breasts. Or a cock. Or both. Take a different pill next week and switch back, like Alex does a few times per year.
But Matt's got this old-fashioned attachment to masculinity. We'll have to get female dogs, to diversity this place. With frankly feminine names.
He wants a family.
And then he realizes he has a family. Heh, as Luke said, when you're privileged you just change your framework of description to match your desires. Matt whispers to himself, not quite out loud, "Tate's not my sex puppy. Maybe he's not my family either. But I want a family. I think tomorrow, I'll ask him ... if he'll marry me." And then he holds Tate like he'll never let him go, as Tate snores softly into his pillow.
-----
And that's the end of this story cycle, I'm done with NaNoWriMo. Happy Thanksgiving to all my US peeps!