“Two minutes, twenty-five seconds.”
“Rowan, I will seriously punch you if you spout our ticking clock at me one more time.”
Rowan snorted, ceasing the drumming of his fingers on his desk. His and Raina’s stations weren’t running right now and wouldn’t start again until after their inspection, scheduled to happen in… two minutes, ten seconds now.
“Director Andreas is never late,” he said, leaning back in his chair to glance at Raina behind him, who sat in hers with her knees pulled up and feet on the seat while she fussed with her phone.
Raina, like all of their siblings, had naturally ginger hair, but while Rowan kept his short, and Riley preferred a pixie cut, Raina wore hers long. She twisted it into a bun while at work, though it was rare that they needed to halt assembly like this or even truly get their hands dirty.
Rowan liked getting his hands dirty and hated being idle, which was why he had been impatiently tapping his fingers beside his tablet with the data that proved the work he had been doing, well,worked.
He and Raina oversaw different production parts but were stationed together because of the sequence of assembly—andbecause Raina had requested it when Rowan first got the job so she could keep an eye on him. She denied that part, but he knew it was true. She was the eldest and couldn’t help being overprotective. She programmed predictive models for behavior, which Rowan thought was far more interesting than what he did, but he also knew the importance of a failsafe to keep bots running.
Much of the production cycle was bots making bots, almost entirely automated, but a human element being part of the process was one of Andreas Tech's long-standing promises to its customers.
And thankgod, because otherwise, Rowan and Raina would both be out of a job.
“If you need distraction?Work,” Raina said.
“On what?” Rowan complained. “I’ve done everything I can until our systems are running again. Besides, I have too much on my mind. Are you certain—”
“I will also punch you if you ask me one more time whether I think a full panel removal will let you replace your bot’s fried parts. It’ll be fine. Or you could just let insurance replace it like a normal person.”
Rowan spun in his chair to directly face his sister, mostly so he could properly glare at her before she once again said something like—
“But you could never do that to perfect, boyfriend-bot Milo, now could you?”
That. “Raina—”
“Do you know why the factory setting defaults to them calling us Master?”
Rowan stiffened, especially since she had spewed that at him without looking up from her phone. “So people don't get attached,” he droned. “Your point?”
“Younamedyours.”
“Everyone names their bots! And Milo is just the model’s acronym spoken without dots, like Riley’s Pal.”
“Pal isn’t even remotely the same thing. It doesn’t look human, for one. And normalhumannames are also what get people attached. Even if you basically named yours Spot.” Raina snorted, sock-clad feet on display as she wiggled her toes, since her shoes remained on the floor. She was the poster child for spectrum-style sitting. And acting. Andbeing.
“What are you so focused on over there anyway?” Rowan asked.
Raina’s eyes slid up from her phone screen with a very telling glint.
Oh crap.
Family chat.
As Rowan swiftly fished for his phone—he could have used his tablet, but he didn’t want to move his screen from his data points—Raina was already chuckling.
“Riley ispissedat you.”
A thread had been going this entire time between Raina, Riley, and Ruben, Rowan’s closest-in-age sibling and only brother. Raina, as eldest, was usually the one to initiate family chat threads, since she considered it her duty to ensure they communicated somewhat regularly, even if Rowan and Riley predominantly responded with single words or emojis and Ruben’s contributions were largely memes.
Among the siblings, Raina was the only bubbly and outgoing one. Personable. But also a littlemuch. That was basically how Rowan and the rest of them could be described too, just in their own unique ways—and somewhat similar ways where it pertained to Rowan and Riley.
Ruben was definitely the worst though. He had been the one to kick off this morning’s chat with one of his all too frequently used “recovering from last night’s bender” gifs. This oneappeared to be a sleeping monkey holding a shot glass beside an empty bottle of Jack Daniels.
Raina: Rough night? Or is it week/month/year on your calendar by now?
