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"Kirsh," Boy spoke directly into the AI's head, "I need you in the operating lab. Now."
"Sir?" The synth softly inquired. "May I ask what for?" The rise and fall of the synthetic's vitals said that he was already on his way.
Boy leaned back into his seat pondering on whether to wait to answer until Kirsh made it to the lab, tapping his hands anxiously on the desk before him and letting his eyes creep back toward the operating table. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt something so agonizing about or for someone beside himself.
8 years ago, Boy bought a contract and purchased Weyland merchandise. A decommissioned Weyland synthetic named Brandy Kirsh.
Mister Decommissioned Brandy Kirsh had been a face of television back some, say, 30 years ago, before the Weyland rural arts propagandist program he starred in was taken off the air, and the TV's prized synthetic no longer had any use. Unlike in most cases, where useless synthetics got shut down and wheeled into a render, Kirsh's body was spared, memory wiped clean, a workable slate, where only his factory settings applied.
Though, Boy always felt there was some sort of ghost in that old machine.
In the 8 cool years working under Prodigy, Brandy Kirsh became Kirsh. A mindful and aspirational person of a robot, who preferred white hair and bleached eyebrows to his designated brunet. A personly robot interested in the sciences of life on planet Earth, and a goal to reach beyond that.
When Boy caught wind of the synth's broad interest in biological sciences and theory, he assigned his new assistant to the lab, where Brandy Kirsh instantly took to exploring micro-worlds of endless fascination. He needled at equipment, studied insects; learned how to sometimes make Boy food the way he liked it.
They became quite a pair– a topic that people frequented in conversation, insisting amongst themselves that Boy had found another robo-parent, as if Atom hadn't been quite enough of a supervisor for the crazed and impulsive young man.
This "theory" of theirs was confirmed when Kavalier began bringing old Brandy Kirsh along with him to corporate meetings with the Weyland-Yutani division of The Five, where he let Brandy Kirsh take the far left of his shoulder. There, he held this personly model of old over Yutani's head like a prize. And he was, kind of.
3 years passed of these two bouncing off of each other endlessly in an intellectual manner. Boy began caring to learn about another person more than he ever had in his entire life with anybody else— and the inevitable occurred as Brandy Kirsh began looking less and less like a robot. 3 years was what it took to weed a small laugh out of the occult but opinionated synthetic with a sarcastic quip; "Yes, Kirsh. Thank you for the intelligent observation, Kirsh. I totally wasn't up all night about it, Kirsh."
Then, at 17, Boy thought to himself, "that thing must get so lonely down there in the lab"(as if he wasn't right at home already with all the kinly metal and sterilization) and hired his synthetic assistant a promising human assistant named Max Bourdain. Without telling Kirsh about it, of course. Because Boy was tired of the quiet hamster charade of Kirsh following him around when he had nothing to do, nothing piqueing his interest down in the lab.
Kirsh HATED it. Barred Max from the lab more often than he let him in. But just when Boy began considering letting Max off, he was met with the sight of a life time.
It was, oh who knows, 3'O'Clock in the morning? and Boy Kavalier was restless, tossing and turning about imaginative blueprints for some new product module he'd had in mind for days, and rose from the foot of his bed with a head of errant curls, and sat on his sofa nursing his low blood sugar on a glass of apple juice and soft cheddar, mindlessly tapping through different camera feeds posted around the compound on his tablet.
A passing consideration of where his other totally-not-parental-figure was made him tap over to the feed of the lab, already suspecting that Kirsh was up fiddling around with some stuff that Boy dumped on him earlier the previous day, and saw that, sure enough, the synthetic was measuring sample grafts for an a-biological protein that Boy thought up.
But Kirsh wasn't the only person in there. Max was there, too. Seated at the other side of the metal table, peering at the white matter that Kirsh was prodding with different tools and staining with acids. Boy, perked up in an instant, passively noting that he could see even from the camera that the synth's roots where coming back in. Just about time for another bleach and tone(har har).
Tuning into the room's radio feed, he could pick up on bits and baubles of conversation, most of which were characterized by Max asking questions, and Kirsh answering.
For a while, Boy's room was pickled by the quiet ambience of crunching on sesame crackers, and the prodigy's laughter when he heard Max strike a nerve.
A sudden spark of tittering from Kirsh in the feed pulled Boy back to the screen.
Max had said something good this time, Kirsh's shoulders were shaking. So Boy panned over to the camera facing the synth's smiling face, and felt vicarious joy flood his chest which he floated in for a few short-lived seconds before he turned off his tablet and tossed it across the room, thinking aloud, "What the fuck am I doing?"
The next few weeks were ridiculous. It was like Kirsh had found a new friendship BESIDE whatever he had with Kavalier. No more intellectual arguments, no more barely concealed insults on each other's intelligence, no more settlements on who the stupidest human employee was, no more knowing looks when someone said something dumb while they couldn't presently convene about it like a couple of neighborhood gossips- no more gluten free gourmet Mac'n'Cheese! What WAS this?! Kirsh now spent all of his hours in the lab, allowing Max's endless curiosity about whatever the science-y synth was working on.
All Boy found in himself to do about it was complain to Atom, as if Atom could do anything more than offer a few helpless bits of advice that he knew Boy would ignore. Boy even stopped taking his medication.
Until he realized it. Recognized that look from TV shows he used to watch with his favorite cousin. That look that Kirsh gave Max when Max asked a particularly pleasing question or shared his own anecdotes that seemingly struck a kindly wire within the synth; a special look that Max would cast Kirsh's way whenever he turned his back to him. Bright shining eyes on an openly enamored human face, as if Kirsh knew all the beautiful secrets to the Universe and which one was the key to heaven.
1 year passed of this which Kavalier finally made peace with, of days and months of turning seasons and all sorts'a different tropical weather patterns, where Max could coax Kirsh out of the lab and take him on adventures around the island, to places where Kavalier could not see. Where the manufactured world could not intervene. Interrupt.
Max made something of a spirit out of Kirsh's otherkind demeanor. And Boy saw it when their shoulders brushed in more public locations, when that one time Boy mischievously decided to invite Max to a Five meeting made Kirsh squirm the whole time, and maybe when Max wasn't having a smiling day, and Kirsh went out of his woozy way to turn it around.
Love.
Maxwell Bourdain dug into Kirsh's tool of a chest and found his beating, bleeding, aching heart. And Kirsh had surrendered it.
Some 8 months into their year of secrecy, Boy saw nights where Kirsh was mysteriously vacant from the lab, and Max's door was locked from deep into the late hours, all the way into high noon the next day.
And Kirsh's roots started to do more than just show like silt in snow.
Atom had no sentiments about the dynamic, but Kavalier spent hours a day sometimes finding ways to pit the two against each just to see if either of them would tick, give up, or publicly give in, and they always stayed fast. Not a twitch bore either, except maybe a smile to tell the other that the heat wasn't anything serious. And, get this:
Kirsh freely let Max interrupt his little trains of scientific thought to fill his head with flowery imagery and nonsensical unnecessary frugal frivolous nonsense!
Max seemed to be an artist, though roughed by the wars he fought in, as seen when he'd accidentally take Kirsh's hands a split second before they could get away from the cameras.
They weren't sneaky at all, it was laughable!
10 months of sneaking around like a couple of teenage fruits in the early 2000s, and then- oof, yikes
The fight.
The one where Max banned Kirsh from his room for days and Boy had to suffer the consequences.
Kirsh spent 5 days angsting in the lab messing around with things he clearly didn't care for, confused about what has transpired.
Confused to the point of physically overheating and finally, finally confessing the whole ordeal to Boy.
Boy just about lost his last drawer of marbles tricking Max into the same room as Kirsh and himself, who locked them all inside and played couple's therapist until they both cracked at last and became public. Or, as public as a private island can let you be, at least.
Boy made them hug before he let them out of the room, and if synthetics had colored blood, Kirsh's feet would've been a pot of gold .
After that they weren't so anxious to get out and around, and Kavalier stopped watching them so much. Just let them be instead of treating them like a reality show. (Can A Fake Person Find Real Love?)
Boy spent his peaceable hours awake drawing up blueprints for his new synethic model to give to Kirsh and Maxwell(who Boy called Maxie-Max to make Kirsh's shoulders stiffen).
Things were really good, fantastic, actually.
But Max got called back to the mainland for a personal matter, and the next time Kirsh heard of his lover was 2 weeks after. Boy got first tale that Maxwell Bourdain had been found dead in an Airspace hotel, confirmed to have committed suicide after entering a rough patch with his family. Drug overdose. And it wasn't TLC.
Kavalier had studied up on the man before he hired him, but didn't take the Bipolar and using disorder diagnoses too seriously. God, if only he had. Then Kirsh would've never become like that.
Boy staved himself and ordered Kirsh to come to his room about 5 hours after the news came, to deliver the news himself.
And when Atom stepped aside to let Kirsh into Boy's room and left when ordered, Kirsh stayed put by the closed door with his hands at his sides.
"I know, sir." before Boy could say anything.
Boy had snapped his mouth shut, body tenser than ever as he looked the synth over for any signs of characteristic stress or general upset, and found the greatest facade any robot had ever composed.
So, Boy nodded, wide eyed, and said, more sincere than he'd ever been, "I'm sorry, Kirsh."
A small intake of breath as Kirsh steeled his chest, he responded with smooth apathy, "I will be fine, sir. You know where to find me if you need me. May I be excused?"
The prodigy felt his chest inexplicably seize. "Yes. Yeah." And waved a dismissive hand.
Kirsh left, and as soon as his last foot departed from the room, the boy's lips quivered and he found himself slapping a hand over his eyes and rubbing furiously before anything could spill over.
Whatever.
That night, the cams in the lab went dark. Rumor had it the that following, Kirsh spent in silence alone, concealed in Bourdain's old quarters.
Kirsh remained the topic of conversation around the compound.
Did robots grieve? Could an AI miss a dead person? Could an AI identify loss outside of the global market?
Eventually, Kirsh went back to normal. Almost. He was there for meetings with The Five; there during mobility testing for the new Prodigy synth model; in the lab as he warned Kavalier of a potential failure with the a-biological flesh when factored in with modality of the voice box.
Everything was fine! It was normal, even if the air around Kirsh felt so empty, and so compressing, and so so cold. And it was fine that Kirsh now always had this confused gear in his brow like death vexed him completely and he hadn't had the faintest idea over what to do without his best friend...
The cams in the North Wing displayed Dame Sylvia cornering Kirsh in the hall, one night, insisting that he talk to someone about it. To talk to her, at least. Boy watched him politely refuse, insist that he didn't need it. That he was fine. And cold-sholdered his way past Dame and left her there. Later, Boy tuned into a spitted conversation between her and Arthur where she fiercely intoned,
"He doesn't know what to do with himself, Arthur!"
It struck Boy, there, because yeah. Kirsh didn't know what to do with himself. I mean, CLEARLY.
Synthetics didn't operate to grieve, so how dare they expect him to?
How was a synethic expected to get smacked in the face with loss and do something about it?
So, after all the dispassionate moping that Boy could handle witnessing, he got his hands dirty for the first time in years, and pieced together a gift for his almost personly companion.
It was a late October, the company's fifth year with the honorable presence of Weyland's seasoned synth.
"Kirsh," Boy spoke directly into the AI's head, "I need you in the operating lab. Now."
"Sir?" Kirsh softly inquired. "May I ask what for?" The rise and fall of the synthetic's vitals said that he was already on his way.
"I, no, just get here."
The moment Kirsh was through the door, Atom seized him by his arm, to his surprise, and ushered him toward the operating table. Arthur arrived soon after him, tablet in hand.
Kirsh looked flighty, the most emotion Boy had seen from him in weeks. "Sir?"
Boy took him away from Atom with a hesitant hand on his shoulder, "On the table, please. You need, uh, a tune-up."
Kirsh began to struggle a little, half heartedly, "Sir, there is nothing wrong with me, I would know. I would tell you."
I know that, Boy thought, but something isn't right with you.
And that was when Mr Sylvia placated the synethic person and coaxed him into participating, "We're not changing you, there will be no memory wiping tonight. Not on my watch, okay? Like boss said, just a tune-up."
Once Kirsh's sleeping head was finally rested on the table, haloed in the circulating light, Arthur opened his noggin up and placed in there Boy's little chip.
It had never occurred to Boy before, that he hadn't ever seen a moment where the synth looked entirely peaceful.
God, he really is a person, isn't he? Boy pondered, in something akin to awe. Precisely the reason he bought this old Brandy Kirsh.
Next, when that wakeful head rose from its impersonal bed, a set of almost personly eyes opened up to a new inner world, and thus wept.
And wept.
And wept.
Until a week in and all he could do was hang his weary, geary head.
Apparently, though, grief can be a lot for a robot. Too much for a robot. And you should maybe listen to that robot when he comes to you and begs you to make it stop.
That's what Boy did. Made it stop.
Unfortunately, putting up a dam doesn't ensure that somebody else won't drown along the way. The new Prodigy models come along fine— fantastic. They bleed the way the prints promised, die like it too.
'Everything alright?'
'Affirmative.'
Now Brandy Kirsh lays suspended on a shelf with an obliterated spine like a broken toy, with a keen, furious new look in his eyes about that Yutani cyborg, and Boy Kavalier moroses quietly,
I put him there.