[OK SO this is a slightly-future world where there are human-level androids. It's not your typical "abused population of inhumans" world but instead one where android work alongside humans with a fair amount of equality. It's not perfect -- there will always be groups who see it as unnatural or even immoral to treat robots as people, but mostly it's okay.
It's also pretty necessary, because there's a lot of them. And because the technology to make them was not just normally developed but found, in a strange dimensional rift that appeared one day and started spewing digital monstrosities. While humans are perfectly capable of destroying the machinery that comes out, going in is other thing entirely. For that, you need something made of the same materials. Thus, the androids, created from the scraps of the living machines that have been coming into the real world for a good thirty years now.
Inside the rift is a whole nother world, full of surreal scenery and advanced technology that humans can barely understand. They're still exploring it, slowly, trying to figure out what actually is ordering the seemingly thoughtless monsters to attack. There's a human settlement there now, but every human is linked to an android, via a brain implant that allows telepathy, and for humans to survive in a world where normal technology becomes inert on entry. It's weird, too -- not just electronics but mechanical things just seem to stop. Guns jam, wires short, anything that isn't made from the materials and powered with the crystals from the other world becomes useless immediately. Humans without an implant quickly sicken and die, too.
So they're reliant on re-purposed weapons, and on links with artificial humans, to convince this other world they're not foreign bodies to destroy. And Crow is one such artificial human. Recently, his partner was killed in an incident, so he's not sure he's ready to trust the new kid they're shoving at him.
C'mon, man. This "Rean" is only 20. Nevermind that Vita was also 20 when they met, and that means Crow is currently 7 years old, and designed to look and behave like someone in his early 20s himself. It's not really fair to dismiss the new guy, but he's doing it anyway. This is what humans call grief. Crow calls it self-preservation. But he's here anyway, walking into the office where his new partner has been left waiting for him for the last half hour. The implant hasn't been switched on yet, but Rean's probably feeling a little residual soreness around the tiny cut they used to put it in.
They haven't met before. Crow doesn't really want to meet. But when he walks in and their eyes meet there's just something about Rean's face that makes him curious. He sits on the table, rather than the opposite chair, and swings one leg over Rean so he's sitting directly in front of him, with his chest as Rean's eye level.]
no subject
It's also pretty necessary, because there's a lot of them. And because the technology to make them was not just normally developed but found, in a strange dimensional rift that appeared one day and started spewing digital monstrosities. While humans are perfectly capable of destroying the machinery that comes out, going in is other thing entirely. For that, you need something made of the same materials. Thus, the androids, created from the scraps of the living machines that have been coming into the real world for a good thirty years now.
Inside the rift is a whole nother world, full of surreal scenery and advanced technology that humans can barely understand. They're still exploring it, slowly, trying to figure out what actually is ordering the seemingly thoughtless monsters to attack. There's a human settlement there now, but every human is linked to an android, via a brain implant that allows telepathy, and for humans to survive in a world where normal technology becomes inert on entry. It's weird, too -- not just electronics but mechanical things just seem to stop. Guns jam, wires short, anything that isn't made from the materials and powered with the crystals from the other world becomes useless immediately. Humans without an implant quickly sicken and die, too.
So they're reliant on re-purposed weapons, and on links with artificial humans, to convince this other world they're not foreign bodies to destroy. And Crow is one such artificial human. Recently, his partner was killed in an incident, so he's not sure he's ready to trust the new kid they're shoving at him.
C'mon, man. This "Rean" is only 20. Nevermind that Vita was also 20 when they met, and that means Crow is currently 7 years old, and designed to look and behave like someone in his early 20s himself. It's not really fair to dismiss the new guy, but he's doing it anyway. This is what humans call grief. Crow calls it self-preservation. But he's here anyway, walking into the office where his new partner has been left waiting for him for the last half hour. The implant hasn't been switched on yet, but Rean's probably feeling a little residual soreness around the tiny cut they used to put it in.
They haven't met before. Crow doesn't really want to meet. But when he walks in and their eyes meet there's just something about Rean's face that makes him curious. He sits on the table, rather than the opposite chair, and swings one leg over Rean so he's sitting directly in front of him, with his chest as Rean's eye level.]
Heya, new kid.