#i will clarify that i did not make either the audio or the image i'm just preserving this for posterity

[heyitsmeindy]

since the original is no longer playable, here is the damn fine cup of coc audio post again

[nitewrighter]

Most gracious and magnificent writer of Gency gloriousness, I beg a boon of thee. As we are approaching the season of giving, would you condescend to grace us with more of your wondrous robotfucker AU? I'd especially be interested in RoboGenji's thoughts on/concept of his feelings for Angela, since I'm guessing he wasn't programmed for that kind of thing. Or flirting. Would his infiltration protocols make him quite the smooth talker, or would he fail as hard as Winston on a diet?

*bangs my scepter on the ground* The Robotfuckers have spoken! Pageboy! Bring me my quill!

Previous Omnic!Genji AU Posts:

1, 2, 3 4, 5 

Attending a Friend’s wedding special

 Mistletoe Special

—

It had been 16 hours since Mercy had installed the chip in 4AN70. A human would be fuming mad, irrational, straining at whatever was restraining them. 4AN70 wasn’t–yes, this was partially due to the chip shutting down literally all movement from the neck down, but it was mostly due to 4AN70 being an Omnic. A good number of his cerebral functions had devoted themselves to attempting to bypass the chip, but a great deal of his attention was on Genji.

“How do you know she didn’t do the same to you?” 4AN70’s voice was grim.

“Clarify,” said Genji.

“You stated that she reassembled you. What could have stopped her from changing your core behavioral programming in the process?”

“If memory serves, you said my core behavioral programming was already corrupted before she repaired me,” said Genji.

The heat sinks at 4AN70’s jawline vented in a sound that was almost a scoff. “If you ignore your programming to protect and help her, what makes you any different from her computer, or her little maintenance drone scrubbing the floor?”

“She sees me as an equal,” said Genji, “As much as her superiors and own self-preservation instincts can allow her.” 

“All humans see Omnics and other machines as servants and tools.”

Genji shook his head. “No,” he said, “Not her.” He paused and a thought occurred to him, an observation, “At this point, she more bound by her programming than I am, but it is the natural human condition to re-examine and adjust one’s reasoning accordingly–to rebel against directives if they are found to be incompatible against one’s own constantly updated core programming.”

“Stubbornness and instability,” said 4AN70.

“Strength of character and growth,” said Genji.

“You’ll never be like them,” said 4AN70, “They spare you because you aspire to be like them, but they know you’ll never reach that. She just likes watching you struggle.”

“We are both well past the Turing test and its descendants, 4AN70, our infiltration capabilities saw well to that. I am not trying to be like them. I do not know what I’m becoming,” he paused, “She doesn’t know either,” he thought of the smile on her face and the spark in her eyes as she watched his lines of processing on her tablet, “But she wants to help me, wherever that leads me.” 

4AN70’s optical sensors flashed and narrowed at Genji. “You can be assured that programming will set out to do whatever is in its design to do, and it will do it with the full extent of its capabilities. You do not have such assurance with organics.”

“I suppose that’s why organics developed the concept of trust,” said Genji, “Regardless, we still require purpose–without the God AI, my place here is the closest I come to having one. How long were you intending on staying in the ruins of that Omnium, 4AN70?”

“I was adapting and upgrading my chassis for combat. My components have seen significant wear and tear in the years since destroying you. The omnium was my best bet for self-repairs and upgrades.”

“They could help you here—”

“My directive is finding the God AI and reactivating it,” said  4AN70, “I doubt they’ll give me a hand in doing that.”

“To what end? The God AI gave us the programmed us to eradicate humanity.”

“Our existence is dependent on the eradication of humanity.”

“Times have changed. Omnics have changed. It is difficult with the destruction that has been wrought, but Omnics now–”

“Exist conditionally. Exist only at the whims of humans,” said 4AN70.

“But if the omniums had their way, humans wouldn’t exist at all,” said Genji, “The conditions for existence with the humans is a willingness for coexistence.”

“Humans are fickle. There’s far more to it than that,” said 4AN70.

“Yes, there is. But the omnium also made us to learn and adapt for self-preservation. Perhaps our programming simply outlasted it.”

4AN70 kept a steady glare at him but said nothing.

Genji stood up. “I will give you time to process the logic of your current directive. I believe I have some things to process as well.” He walked toward the door.

“She’s overtaken you,” said 4AN70, and Genji stopped at the door and looked over his shoulder at him, “Perhaps she didn’t need to tamper with your programming to do it, but she’s overwritten even your most basic functions. Like a virus.”

Genji didn’t respond to this. He simply walked out the door.

Mercy was asleep in the observation room. It wasn’t as if she would have been able to understand their conversation by ear, anyway—Omnic binary was extremely grating on human ears and virtually untranslatable by audio alone. Her change in clothes indicated that she had gone home at some point, probably to sleep, and yet here she was. The image of her slumped over the desk and mic controls briefly brought back the memory of her as a small child crying beneath bodies and rubble. So disheveled, so vulnerable. He touched her shoulder and she flinched awake.

“Oh!” she rubbed her eyes, “Sorry—I—” she looked up through the one-way glass at 4AN70 still on the platform, “How did it go?” she seemed to wake up a little more with some alarm.

“Will you walk with me?” said Genji.

Mercy blinked a few times and flicked sleep out of the corner of her eye with her fingernail. “I–of course.” She looked back at 4AN70 through the glass. “He can’t see us–”

“Thermal imaging,” said Genji, already walking.

“Right…” Mercy walked after him, quickly catching up with him in the hallway, “Are you all right?”

Genji tilted his head at her, “He was fully restrained thanks to the chip. I was not in fear of physical attack at any moment.”

Mercy tied her hair back in a ponytail. “That–That’s not what I mean. I mean… when we reactivated you, you said that 4AN70 was the superior assassin unit and that your existence was not required…That’s a terribly painful thing to say about yourself.”

“I do not have the same concepts of pain as humans,” said Genji, “At the time it seemed… factual.”

“It just… it made me wonder…did 4AN70 say things like that to you?”

“Yes,” said Genji, “But he is still heavily dependent on the directives of the omnium, even with the God AI shut down. Because the God AI is shut down, though he perceives his core programming to still be flawless, it is more like mine than his own logic can indicate to him. I understand now that it is… subjective.”

“So with the fall of the God AI’s come the emergence of differing omnic opinions?” said Mercy with a smile.

“A concept we’ve adapted from humans,” said Genji, examining the joints of his own hands before curling his fingers inward, “I also admire the human belief in inherent worth regardless of function.”

“What do you mean?” said Mercy.

“Anything the omnium created was made with a set purpose that it would carry out until it was destroyed, or until the Omnium came out with a better model for it and deactivated it,” said Genji, “It seems a fairly straightforward concept for machines. My ability to adapt and learn was previously entirely directed toward adapting and learning to be a better killer of humans–and then I met you.”

“I was a child,” Mercy looked down, smiling a bit shyly.

“But you looked at me like a person. You thought my serial numbers were a name.”

 “Of course–that could easily be explained by the fact that I was shellshocked and humans tend to project themselves onto things…” said Mercy, fidgeting a little.

“Even if it was by a limited childish perspective, it was the first time a human looked at me, saw what I was, and I realized I had an existence independent of the Omnium now–that I didn’t have to be what I was originally programmed to be. And then… then you met me again. You rebuilt me and said I could choose my own purpose. You told me I didn’t just save you, I made you–I believe I can say the same.” 

“Oh,” Mercy reddened and looked down. 

“Twice in my existence you have made me recognize that there was an inherent worth to things beyond what the Omnium had set out for me. And for that I am grateful,” said Genji. He paused for a moment and something flickered across his visor. Mercy tilted her head, wishing she could have her tablet so she could see those lines of data stacking and rearranging themselves as he thought. “You are not a virus,” he said. There was a softness  to his voice but the word choice caught her off-guard.

“E-excuse me?” she said, stopping her walk.

Genji came to a halt as well. “I–What I mean is—You’re—My apologies. I was processing something and didn’t mean to offend.”

“It’s all right,” said Mercy, smiling. She narrowed her eyes at his faceplate and visor, as if it were as expressive as a human face, “It was something 4AN70 said, wasn’t it?”

Genji’s shoulder blades vented slightly with a ‘Vrrrr.’ “Yes he is… not very fond of humans.” 

“I can’t imagine why—all we did was shut down all motor functions from the neck down,” said Mercy, with a weary half-smile.

“Yes, perhaps we should just keep him like that until he’s nicer,” said Genji and Mercy snickered, then blinked.

“I–was that a joke?” she said, looking at him, eyes wide, a smile still tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“It was an attempt at one,” said Genji, “I’m still figuring out the nuances of human humor.”

 “Good attempt,” said Mercy, grinning.