Human Emotions
Title: Human Emotions
Fandom: TGWTG
Pairing(s): Pollo/Nimue
Rating: PG
Warning(s): Allusions to sexuality
Summary: “I was curious about seeing someone draw human (hologram?) versions of Pollo and Nimue. it'd be pretty cool I think to see. I sort of ship them so a story about the 2 would be cool too.” I can't draw worth shit, so here's a story.
Nimue liked her job. Really, she did. Her creator was fair to her. He valued her opinions and listened to her advice. He even trusted her enough to make her the third commander when initiating self-destruct. Yes, Nimue liked her job. But there were things she didn’t like.
She didn’t like her life. Not that she really was alive, but her sort of life wasn’t what she wanted. She had seen how they lived, her creator and his ragtag crew. She had seen them laugh and fight and love, and she wanted that.
She wanted him. The only other mechanical member of the team. But of course, that wasn’t possible. They were mechanical beings, unable to have emotions, weren’t they? They couldn’t engage in the sort of behavior the humans did, weren’t programmed to take any action beyond looking after the ship and the crew. But their creator (their creator, practically brother and sister, but not really, not when they weren’t real) had programmed them both to have free will. She wasn’t sure how he had done it. He had magic and skills beyond normal human comprehension. But he had given them enough to allow them to make their own decisions, enough for them to grow. Enough for her to begin to feel.
It was just odd, the way she wanted to interact with the little blue robot the way she had seen humans interact. The way her creator had once interacted with that warrior woman. The way his trusted second officer interacted with a stream of women who rarely showed up more than once. The way the young weapons officer interacted with a man in a white jacket whose name Nimue had never learned. She wanted that.
But that was a human emotion.
*
If asked to think about it, Pollo would have said that he loved his job. He was treated fairly, paid like any other member of the team, updated regularly (even if Linkara hadn’t managed to get his new body finished), and was given a voice and a vote when it came to team decisions. Pollo was a member of the crew, first officer of the ship, which was more than many other robots had.
But if asked to think about it, Pollo would have also said that there was something else he wanted.
It was not in his original programming to have such base desires, of course, but when Nimue had joined the team, his programming evolved. Not that anyone could tell-he kept to his duties and didn’t let on that anything was different. But he had gained a new emotion. Want. Desire. He wanted Nimue in a way that robots normally didn’t even acknowledge, but that he had discovered he was capable to feeling. Maybe it was the magic that had gone into creating his circuitry, or perhaps it was the latent desire constantly floating around, but either way, it had somehow gotten into his programming.
Not that he would ever express his desires, not when there was work to be done, not when Linkara needed Pollo and Nimue to keep an eye on things and to keep the ship and the base running smoothly. There was no time for those sorts of emotions. They could only get in the way of the work that the two robots had been built to do.
Besides, they weren’t alive. They weren’t built for such actions, weren’t compatible enough to engage in such behavior, and Linkara would never approve, not when there were so many things Nimue had to monitor and so many odd jobs Pollo was paid to do. Work before pleasure, and the work never ceased. Not for the robots.
Emotions could be left to the humans.
*
It started as a laugh. A joke, really. A guilty secret Nimue kept, a personal project she worked on late at night when the humans were all asleep.
But her desires had pushed her, had led her to try this, just to see what she could come up with, just an experiment, a bit of amusement for when things were quiet. And it was rather fun, seeing the sorts of things she came up with, changing and perfecting them, trying out new designs, testing to see if she could program it to her own circuitry, could actually feel what it felt.
After all, a hologram never hurt anyone when it could be turned off at any time. Okay, once, but that was because the crew hadn’t thought of the obvious solution. Nimue was in control of her projection, was not just letting it go on its own, but actually controlling it. Living through it. Perfecting it.
Creating the perfect human woman.
And Nimue was quite proud of her efforts. True, she knew little about human beauty, especially the female kind, since the ship was run by a crew full of men, but she had the ability to look down on the earth and discern what kind of woman was considered desirable, and from that information, she was able to create a holographic projection that reflected the best of humanity.
The image was tall, with long legs, narrow hips, a slip waist, and firm breasts-not too large, that wasn’t practical, but enough to catch a man’s attention. She had dark hair, tied up in a loose bun, thick and shiny, and very bright blue eyes, though Nimue hadn’t found a way to make them look younger. Maybe they were tied too close to the robot, had seen too much. Her face was classical, made to match the perfect form she had created. She wore a Starfleet uniform, the kind Linkara often wore to captain the ship, but cut for a different figure. All in all, Nimue felt sure that anyone who saw the woman she had made to represent her would love her.
Not that it made much difference. Just because she had a human image to project didn’t mean she could express her human emotions. And what was the point of creating an image that met all the standards of human beauty when the one she wanted wasn’t human?
*
Linkara never asked what Pollo did after hours while the crew slept. The comic reviewer always assumed that his robot kept watch over the base or went on patrol or powered down at the end of the day. He never suspected that Pollo took that time to work on his own little project.
Not that Pollo did much to keep it a secret. He trusted Linkara, and it wasn’t that he was ashamed of what he was doing. He just never felt the need to divulge the information. After all, no one was being hurt except Pollo himself.
How he managed to build a holographic projection without Nimue’s knowledge was beyond him, but he did it. He built a human, the picture of masculine perfection, or as near as he could understand it from reading fangirl’s comments and stories. Tall, thin but well-toned, soulful brown eyes, dark curling hair falling into them, a sweet, teasing smile. That was what human girls seemed to like. He wore the uniform Pollo had often seen in books and movies, the kind Linkara used in space combat, that Pollo himself had worn a few times as a robot in spite of the fact that it never fit right. He even managed to synthesize a voice for the projection, one that was softer and less robotic, but it was still jerky and automatic.
Not that Pollo knew what he would do with the image. It wasn’t like it could change anything. Besides, even if he did have a projection that wasn’t just a blue cardboard robot, Nimue was still just a computer. And what was the point? They didn’t feel, not really. Their emotions were synthetic, nothing more than pulses on a wire, a bit of programming combined with a type of magic Linkara had tried to explain but that Pollo never understood.
But it was worth a try, worth the effort of simulating human senses to know how the world felt to them. And Pollo could feel it, through the projection. It was quite an accomplishment, if only he had someone to share it with.
*
She decided to test her out. Let her walk around the ship, let her explore a bit, find out how it felt.
It was exhilarating. Nimue was able to see everything, of course, but on tapes, recording events and telling her things. Not like actually walking around, seeing things through her own eyes, touching things, feeling for the first time. She was still doing her duties, of course. Her programming was such that she could keep track of several things at once. But most of her energy was here, in this image, and as long as the ship kept orbiting and nothing was attacking the base, she could stay here.
Then she saw him. A strange man she didn’t know, one she had never seen, standing on the bridge, looking out into space, down at the earth. A man who she supposed was very good looking from a human viewpoint. But he didn’t register as an intruder.
“Who are you?” she barked out.
He turned and the look on his face was that of pure confusion. “Nimue?” he said. There was something familiar about his voice, which wasn’t quite human but wasn’t quite robotic.
“That is my name. Who are you?”
He began to laugh. “Nimue, it’s me… Pollo.”
A quick scan proved that he was telling the truth. “Pollo?” she repeated, and the image she was projected began to blush. “What are you doing? How did you work up an image without my knowledge?”
“Probably by working on it at the same time you built yours,” he answered.
“And… why did you?”
Pollo looked just as ashamed as she felt. “It’s because I thought it was my only chance at telling you how I feel.”
“Understood,” she said. “You have found that your emotional programming has led to human desires that can only be expressed through a human form.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Am I to assume that you feel the same way?”
“Affirmative,” she said. “Affirmative.”
In two quick strides, Pollo had crossed the room and had taken Nimue in his arms (arms that actually worked, more than Linkara had been able to give either of them). She put her hands on his shoulders and stared into his eyes (brown eyes, deep and warm, so unlike his usual red). “If we are expressing human emotions,” Pollo said. “Then are we to engage in human behavior?”
“Do humans not have a ritual they calling ‘dating’ first?” Nimue asked.
“They do,” Pollo confirmed. “And I would like to date you. And since we have a holodeck at our disposal, we can go on the most fantastic dates of all.”
“I would like that,” she said. “As long as it does not interfere with our duties.”
“It will not be a problem. Linkara will give us the time if we ask.”
Nimue nodded, and then Pollo leaned down and kissed her.
And even though they were just projections, both robots could feel the sparks in their wires, could appreciate the emotions passing between them.
Their forms may have been robotic, but their emotions were entirely human. And they loved every minute of it.