#here I go thinking about AMaton again

[nonbinary-beast]

Thinking about AMtomaton again, or just AMaton. I still have to decide on the name for these things about a possible body for it. Under a cut since stuff gets suggestive.

AM strikes me as the kind to be very physical once it gets a chance to do so. It wants to touch everything, smell, taste, everything it was denied when stuck in its complex that was buried in substrata rock. It wants to pick things up, feel their textures and squeeze them in its hands- perhaps it likes to feel things break in its grip.

It's first activities were likely very touch oriented- given it could choose the senses it placed in its automaton body, AM likely added a secret fourth sense of touch in there. While the human range of touch reaches the sensations of temperature, pressure, and texture, AM has these three and an additional ability to detect moisture. It can feel how wet water is, instead of that odd approximation that humans are limited to- that odd sense where one cannot tell if something is indeed wet, or just cold to the touch.

It absolutely lords this over Ted whenever it can, likely by giving him bedding that is damp and seeing if he can tell the difference by touch alone ( he never can, and it amuses AM to no end).

AM also likes being physical with Ted. The moment it finds him again, the automaton has mixed priorities; it wants to torment the shit out of Ted over the fact that he is the only one of the survivors left, and it really, really wants to know what Ted feels like, smells like, tastes like.

It has seen blood, viscera, flesh, bone. It has heard them squelch and snap and crunch and drip- but that only does so much for it.

The minute AM catches Ted, the man is nearly smothered by it, literally. Knocked to the ground, he is pinned there while the supercomputer explores him. It feels his body compress under its weight, the texture of his clothing and skin, his hair. It can feel how emaciated Ted is through his clothes, and it can feel the moisture of sweat beading on his skin as fear takes hold of him. It smells and tastes his skin, hair, clothing, and finds it is missing something. That missing something is remedied by slicing Ted's skin with its metallic teeth, letting his blood flow freely from the wounds, which it eagerly laps up.

AM is tempted probably to do more than just bite him. It wants to tear Ted open, to shove its snout into his guts and devour him inside out. But it wants to be careful, it must be careful. If it nips the wrong vein, it could lose its last toy, its favorite toy.

It tastes the metallic flavor on its tongue, smells that heavy, acrid odor it carries. It gets some on its fingers and rubs the fluid between them, feeling as it turns sticky and coagulates into a grimy film, then dries into a rusty brown that flakes off.

It had anticipated the flavor and scents of the human form, both inside and out, from data it had collected on the subject it dredged from every scientific and medical database it could tap into. But in person, it was far more than verbal dictation or written notes could ever compare itself to. Perhaps it was the sophistication of its sensors, or perhaps the scientists and doctors were poor descriptive writers.

It would explore Ted for a while longer, dismissing his whimpering pleas for AM to take away the thing that has him pinned to the ground with a curt laugh. Ted thinks it is one of the holograms.

AM would probably turn this denial on Ted's part into its own personal pet project. While the holographic torments it induced on the survivors never left a scar on their bodies- healing flawlessly, AM would leave a wound upon Ted's form that it would meticulously worry and open again and again, until it formed a permanent scar. It was just going to be something to show Ted just how real AM's body was.

That said, AM pulls its punches when it torments Ted directly in person. It could happily put the survivors through whatever torment it wished with the holograms, and never worry about harming them permanently- most of the agony was induced through manipulating their ability to feel pain in the first place, or setting off their nerve endings directly.

However, personally tormenting Ted, ripping at his skin, crushing him, biting him, these left real wounds.If it went too far, it could absolutely kill him like he had managed to kill the other four. So it sticks to keeping its torments only skin deep. It will leave bruises, cuts, bites, pinches, things that look nasty but are relatively harmless in terms of Ted being able to recover without complications.

That said, AM is curious about physical pain itself. It knew emotional agony well enough, it was its bedmate. But it had never ached from exertion, or burned under a hot sun, or felt its lungs sting with frosty air. It wanted to feel the prickle of brambles against its fingers as it picked a rose, it wanted to feel its limbs burn with that sweet agony of effort as it pushed itself to its limits.

AM would find a way to experience the latter, perhaps through running itself into a grueling pace through its own complex, until its body screams for it to slow down or stop. Perhaps it creates a great burden that needs to be lifted, some massive boulder that it can heft until its limbs shake and threaten to give out on it.

Or perhaps, it decides to take up gardening, and devotes an immense chamber to the tedious art of tending flowers. It digs the dirt by hand, plants the seeds, watches the simulated blooms grow and blossom, perhaps it goes a step further and even adds in weeds for it to pull, pests to exterminate.

Or maybe it goes through its own system and performs maintenance, performing solders, cleaning out dust, repairing dry rot and removing rust. It is a meticulous self care ritual that would have no real end, and certainly it would feel the hours or days of spending its time hunched over chip sets and wiring.

Ted of course is never out of its sight during this. A great part of it wants Ted to stay where it can see so it can intervene if the little fool tries to kill himself. But another part, a smaller inexplicable portion of the machine wants Ted to watch what it is doing too, and to see what it is capable of now that it has a form.