"What a shame!" Benjamin frowned. "Go back and fix your shell!"
He turned, hugged the girl and left. I stood there, listening to the system's slow self-repair: [Emotional data damaged by 12%.]
The music turned on -- in the ballroom, no one noticed a synthetic person was learning what "heartache" was.
Already early morning, I returned to the Nolte Family's manor.
My night mode automatically activated, my footsteps almost unheard.
Just as I walked into my room, the door was pushed open.
Benjamin stood at the door, with three buttons undone on his shirt. His pupils were slightly dilated, indicating he hadn't yet woken up from alcohol.
"Mr. Nolte?" I took a cautious step back.
"Serena said she wants a perfect first night." His voice was hoarse.
My processor instantly understood the meaning of his words and my entire body froze. "I'm a synthetic."
"That's why I came to practice with you, you won't feel anything anyway."
A sharp tingle went through my haptic sensors as his hand rested on my shoulder.
It wasn't physical pain, but a systemic stress response to conflicting instructions.
My core programming demanded obedience, but my emotional module was frantically sounding the alarm.
"Please stop."
My voice began to distort. "That's beyond my scope of service."
Ignored me, his lips brushed my neck, my speech system suddenly collapsed, leaving only a mechanical hum.
[Critical Warning: Emotion Module is about to crash]
[Forced Shutdown Countdown: 10 seconds]
I used all my strength to push him away. The metal skeleton took advantage at the moment and Benjamin stumbled and slammed against the wall, seemingly waking up from the alcohol.
"You dare to resist me?" he asked, his eyes wide with disbelief.
"I don't."
My voice system was still lagging, with intermittent words and phrases. "No, not a tool."
The man expression turned grim, but in the end, he just sneered, slammed the door and left.
"You, indeed, a defective product."
I collapsed to the ground, my joints trembling. The system indicated that the emotional module had been damaged by 32%.
In the bathroom, I let cold water pour over my head at 4 ℃, far below the comfortable range for the human body, but effective for cooling overheated processors.
Water droplets rolled down the artificial skin and I mechanically scrubbed the touched areas. Though I knew synthetic humans wouldn't leave marks, those tactile memories were stubbornly stored on the hard drive.
[Delete recent tactile memory?]
[Cancel]
I turned off all prompts.
The doorbell suddenly rang and Serena stood outside, holding several holographic photos in her hand.
"Forgot to take something." She shook the photo, full of intimate moments between her and Benjamin. "Ben asked me to tell you to know your place."
She then threw the photo onto my face, the sharp edges leaving a thin mark on my cheek.
My damage detection system immediately activated, but the repair program took a while to run -- as if even the system thought the damage wasn't worth repairing.
"Understood."
Serena seemed unhappy with my reaction and tried to say something, but I had already closed the door.
Leaning against the door, I slowly slid down to the floor, still one last warning floating on the retina:
[The emotion module is damaged by 37%]
[Suggest returning to the factory for repair asap]
[Ignored]
On the day he said he wanted to take Serena to Bluish Sky Resort for vacation, my temperature sensor detected a sudden drop of 2 ℃ indoors.
