Abort // A one-shot

So I realized that my one-shots aren’t just cute little mini-stories. They’re masterpieces. :laughing:

Don’t be alarmed by the wall of text you will see; my sister claims it’s an easy read, so you’ll probably do fine reading it. There’s really no point of posting it in two pieces, since compared to my actual fanfiction it is actually quite short.

Now, this story has a lot of deep themes in it, and you really have to have a sharp mind to pick them up. If you think of what’s being said from a human perspective but recognize it in robotic terms, I think you’ll understand what’s going on and will see the deeper themes presented throughout the writing. It can get pretty emotional if you catch what’s happening and see how it is resolved.

Obviously, this takes place several years before the movie.

Again, a lot of what is written and how it is presented is up to interpretation of what you think it means, but I think what’s going on will become apparent as the story progresses. Also, for those who have mentioned that I don’t write enough “descriptive stories”, this story is almost entirely written in descriptive terms.

Anyhow, I ramble! Please comment if you’ve read it, and I will be more than happy to answer any question you may have about it.

DATE STAMP: 07-05-2779
02:11:37:067 AM - AXIOM Standard Time
Annual Reconnaissance Report
Recon #00774; Scout Group 1, Probes 1-5
PROBE1 - MALFUNCTION, SERVICE IMMEDIATELY
PROBE2 - Negative
PROBE3 - Negative
PROBE4 - Negative
PROBE5 - Negative

AUTO quickly skimmed through the yearly reconnaissance report and would have dismissed it just as he always did if it weren’t for the alert that came up, notifying him that one of the EVE probes had malfunctioned and needed repair. He pressed several buttons on the touchscreen control panel, and the report page disappeared. He pressed another combination of buttons, and GO-4 entered the room, giving a salute as he appeared. He ordered the small robot to bring the problematic probe straight to the Repair Ward to be serviced, and GO-4 obeyed without hesitation.

EVE Probe1 had been in hibernation mode since leaving Earth, and for the first few moments after being turned on in the Repair Ward she was extremely disoriented. The first thing she saw was a large robotic hand charging towards her head with a small red device that attached to her head and chest. She pulled away and began to screech at the robots who were handling her.

“Leave me alone!” she was screaming at them in her own computerized robotic language. “What do you think you’re doing to me?! I’m perfectly fine!

She pushed them away and activated her plasma gun, aiming at one of the robots. GO-4 was still on the MV-R vehicle with her, and when he saw her acting up he commanded the robots to shut her down. One reached for the yellow button on the device attached to EVE, but she whipped around and let out another sharp beep, her gun still drawn.

“I said leave me alone!!!” she cried. As soon as she spoke, she felt the robot behind her give her a good tap from behind, and she let out a yelp at the disturbing gesture. She was sure she heard GO-4 laugh at the action. She was still in shock of the move, and in the short few seconds she was still, the other robot was able to reach in and shut her down.

GO-4 returned to the Bridge and told AUTO that she was being serviced, and that was all AUTO needed to know. He immediately returned to his duties, making sure that everything was in tip-top shape before the captain awoke at 9:00.

The digital clock in AUTO’s programming, which was tied to the ship’s main computer, clicked from 5:29 to 5:30, and almost as soon as it did, a new message popped up on a screen on the other side of the room. He glided over to the small screen, pressed a button, and read through the message.

Repair Ward Diagnostic Report
EVE PROBE1
Internal programming error; was unable to be repaired.
Probe exhibits unnatural behavior; fighting, screaming, breakdowns.
Needs various programming patches, microprocessor upgrade, reformatted hard drive filing system.
Actions performed: Standard probe diagnostic, hard drive file system check, microprocessor stability test, vegetation sustainability check, standard debugging.
Passed 3/5 tests.

Unfortunately, AUTO knew what this meant - he had to service the probe himself. He never had to do this before, and although he was capable of writing programs and building computer patches, he was unsure of how he was to assess the problem with the EVE probe. If it was an issue with behavior, then something was definitely wrong. Something in her programming must have corrupted somehow, for a probe like her was simply built to scan for plant life and not exert emotion and free-willed behavior.

He’d get down to the bottom of it. He was too sharp of a robot to let a problem like this go unresolved.

GO-4 returned to the Bridge with EVE not even ten mintues after AUTO received the last message. He shoved her inside, saluted AUTO, and disappeared again, leaving the probe alone with the wheel. EVE let out a sigh as AUTO rummaged through a storage compartment for some wires. Before he could open a panel on her that revealed her microprocessor and various wired connections, she pulled back and frowned at him, giving a low whirr that seemed to say, “back off.” AUTO again advanced towards her and managed to pry open the panel against her will.

EVE continued to protest as AUTO attached the wires to her and connected the other ends to the computer. He ignored her for the first five minutes as an advanced diagnostic program began to run, which would attempt to determine the cause of EVE’s unusual behavior. After a while she fell silent and simply watched as her programming failed test after test in the diagnostic, and her eyes followed AUTO as he hovered to another section of the control panel and brought up a raw computer script. At first she simply watched him as he typed in what looked like garbled letters and characters, but looking again she understood what he was doing.

Computer program, she thought. Is he rewriting my programming?

“AUTO,” she softly called. The robot whirled around, a bit startled by the unusual sound of her crystalline voice speaking his name. She pointed to the screen he was working on. “Reprogramming?”

AUTO shook his head. “Writing a programming patch,” he replied in that monotonous voice of his. “Your behavior violates protocol. It will be terminated immediately.”

EVE narrowed her eyes and pulled back slightly in confusion. Behavior? What was that?

The diagnostic finished running, and AUTO came back over to look over the results. EVE impatiently looked around the room as AUTO messed with the computer, realizing for the first time that she had really never been up here before. She ran an internal analysis on her location, and the words “AXIOM Bridge” appeared on her screen. She looked towards the windows and was fascinated by the billions of twinkling stars out in space, and when she blinked she noticed her reflection in the mirror of the window. Those bright blue LED lights, shaped like perfect female eyes, blinked back. She had never really paid any attention to what she looked like, as there had never really been a reason for her to see herself, but when she looked over that sleek, egg-shaped probe made of the smoothest glass material, she couldn’t help but be in awe.

She let out a giggle and continued to observe her surroundings as AUTO engrossed himself in computer duties. The room was large and circular, with shiny floors that reflected the soft recessed lighting in the ceiling. In the floor were wide holes, also lit by dim LED lighting, that allowed AUTO access downstairs to the Captain’s Quarters where the captain now slept. There were several control panels, all lit up with brightly-colored touch-activated buttons, all along the walls of the room. She lifted her head up and could see tracks in the ceiling, which AUTO used for transport around and across the room.

Her eyes finally fell on AUTO again, who had finished the patch and was ready to install it using a microchip and some thin, translucent wires. EVE decided not to fight back this time and let AUTO type in a code on her keypad that opened her chest cavity, which was normally reserved for containing vegetation should she find a sample of it on Earth. He opened a few more panels inside the compartment, pulled out some wires from there, and connected them with the translucent wires. Eventually, he had the microchip hard-wired to EVE, and he attached the microchip to the back of the compartment. He left it open as he resumed completing the other tasks that needed to be performed in order to fix EVE.

EVE shook her head and pointed to her open compartment, looking up at AUTO with her eyes squinted in confusion. “Would you explain this to me?” she asked him, using that language only they could understand. AUTO opened a new program and turned to EVE after hearing her question.

“The microchip has a patch in it that will control your behavior,” he simply replied.

EVE cocked her head. “So you’re… trying to control me?”

AUTO was silent and unsure of how to respond. His speech faltered a bit before he actually spoke. “No. That is not the case.”

EVE went quiet again, watching intently as AUTO set up a new program that would reformat her hard drive’s filing system.

“Will that wipe out my memory?” she wondered.

“No,” AUTO again replied.

“But it says ‘reformat’.”

“It will not erase your memory.”

She sighed in reluctance and dully stared at the steering wheel while he continued to work. He turned to face her, and when he saw the unimpressed expression on her face, something in his programming snapped.

He almost felt like laughing at the way she was looking at him.

But… why?

He shrugged it off immediately. “You must be in power reserve mode in order for the program to run.”

EVE was still frowning. “Who says I’ll listen to you?”

AUTO went tense at the words. “There will be no arguments. You will obey me.” EVE slowly hung her head, and her eyes drooped.

“Yes, sir,” she answered in submission, and moments later she voluntarily entered power reserve mode. AUTO ran the program, which took over an hour to complete, and allowed EVE to awaken once the procedure was finished. She was silent the entire time he upgraded her processor, and when he was sure he had addressed all the problems the Repair Ward report had listed, he activated the microchip and closed EVE’s chest cavity.

“You will be kept on the Bridge for the next five days,” AUTO told her. “Must make sure programming patch works correctly.”

EVE was thankful to finally be out of AUTO’s hair, and she entered sleep mode in a shadowy corner of the Bridge. AUTO returned to his post and went into sleep as well, still subconsciously steering the ship in the background.

Apparently, he had never noticed that as soon as the microchip was activated and EVE’s compartment had closed, the small plant logo on her chest began to light up.

Day two of five had passed, and EVE woke up that morning to an unsual, continuous beeping. It sounded as if it were coming from her. She had been in sleep mode for the past few days, unconscious of AUTO checking on the microchip on a daily basis, and hadn’t been turned on at all the entire time. She couldn’t recall ever hearing this beeping before, and as soon as she awoke she alerted AUTO.

He jolted out of sleep mode and was at her side as soon as she called. She noticed now that she was awake that her vision was flickering in and out, and it was taking her longer than it normally did to retrieve data from her short-term memory cache. She could barely even move.

“AUTO…?” she timidly managed, her voice coming out slowly and painfully. She tilted her head. “Problem?”

“Low battery,” AUTO answered her. EVE let out a confused hum. She had never had problems with her battery before, in fact, usually it would keep for an entire month during a reconnaissance mission. She only had to charge it once a year, and she had just been charged a few days ago. How could it have drained so fast - especially with her being in sleep mode all this time?

AUTO went through the tedious process of hooking her up to the computer all over again, and she felt so weak that she couldn’t even fight back. She found her head drooping and her vision going black for moments at a time, and when AUTO noticed this he waved a knob in front of her screen.

Something was going awry in his programming again. How come he felt concerned for her?

“EVE?” he found himself saying. Normally he called her by her formal name of “Probe1”. Her eyes snapped open, and she looked up at him with her eyes round and filled with fright. AUTO hurriedly turned to the computer and began transmitting a charge to EVE’s depleating battery. “Stay… awake, EVE.”

He quickly opened her compartment again and took a look at the microchip, noticing for the first time that some kind of indicator light was flashing on it. Electricity channeled through some of the wires that held it in place, which were all connected to EVE in one way or another. It wasn’t just little bursts of electricity either, it was surges of power. Obviously, it was pulling its source of energy from EVE’s battery supply, which would explain why her battery had gone down so fast.

If the microchip was drawing so much power, AUTO deduced that adding more parts to it would help even out the amount of energy it took in. He put EVE back to sleep and worked for another hour on elaborating that small chip until it became what looked like a miniature motherboard. He attached more wires to regulate the energy flow, attached the motherboard to EVE, and closed her up all over again.

Keep her in sleep mode so she’ll properly recharge, he told himself, and he gently moved her back to the spot where she had been previously napping. He was about to go back to sleep as well, but he found himself still hovering next to the unconscious probe, staring at her in what felt like awe. But that was the problem - for the first time in his existence, he realized that he was feeling. Feeling breached programming. He couldn’t feel. He shouldn’t feel. That was wrong.

She was spotless and seamless; streamlined and sleek. Her design was black and white, with no grey at all. Her eyes were like newborn stars, so bright and full of energy. She spoke in crystalline, celestial tones; each word she delivered always rang clear and clean. And next to the AUTO Pilot, she had the most important job in the entire line of BnL robots. Didn’t that make her AUTO’s equal; his colleague?

No. No, he couldn’t be thinking like this. He quickly turned from her, resolving to rid his mind of any thought of her. Instead of her coming back to his mind, however, thoughts about the microchip-turned-motherboard began to trickle in. He slowly turned back around and faced her, wondering if he should at least take one more look at that microchip. She was in sleep mode and wouldn’t awaken while he inspected her, so he decided to give it a look over just once more.

The compartment was opened once again. AUTO reached in and carefully attached another wire connected to the computer to the microchip, opened up a computer program, and began running simple tests on it. He noticed as the tests ran that traces of program dialogue was turning up in the results. He immediately distinguished it as different from EVE’s programming scripts. That didn’t make sense - this microchip didn’t have the capacity to write its own program. Yet it was happening before AUTO in real time.

An indicator on the side of the screen gave an estimate of EVE’s battery level, and it visibly began to drop. That microchip was sucking power again, this time harder than the last. AUTO connected new wires to the microchip and added even more parts, and the battery issue was once again resolved.

He sat back and found himself slowly shaking his head.

Impossible, he thought. The microchip keeps demanding growth, is pulling battery from EVE, and is writing its own programming. That’s not… normal.

He stared at the screen, which still displayed the test results, then looked back down at EVE, who was still sleeping soundly. He reached forward and turned her back on, just to see what she would do. At first she was a bit confused, but the confusion quickly turned to anger within a few seconds.

“I was perfectly fine napping!” she yelled at him using that unique series of blips and screeches. “You didn’t have to go and disturb me! What is wrong with you?!” She zipped to and fro, waving her arms as she continued. “I don’t deserve to be treated like this! I come up here for standard procedure, and I feel like I’m being used instead!”

AUTO’s lens widened at the words.

EVE continued, sounding even more distressed. “I’ve never felt so… so upset in my life! I don’t know why that anger just came over me…” She paused, and AUTO watched intently as her eyes ever so slowly drooped and her arms hung at her side. “I can’t… explain it. That wasn’t me. It’s not in my programming to feel that way.”

AUTO knew if he had a beating heart, it would be pounding right about now. She had a behavior malfunction before, and the microchip was supposed to fix that. It seems as though it’s only made things worse.

Something else in his programming twisted when EVE brought her sad eyes up to meet his gaze. It gripped him. There was something deep and touching about the way her LED eyes flickered.

“I’m… sorry,” she managed, her voice wrenched with anguish. “I’ve never acted that way before. Ever.”

AUTO couldn’t take it anymore. Watching the way she acted seemed to… break his heart.

“Your apology is accepted,” he quietly replied, and without another word EVE went back into sleep mode. He was still in shock of her sudden change of attitude, and even more confused about why she apologized for the way she felt. If she had not been controlling her actions, how did they come out?

There was only one answer: the behavior patch. That microchip.

AUTO was dumbfounded. It’s as if… it has a mind of its own.

If that were true, how in the world was he supposed to change that without altering EVE’s behavior? The microchip had been built to fix the problem, not make it worse! It was not only stealing EVE’s power, but now completely interfering with her programming.

For what felt like the millionth time, AUTO was plugging the microchip back into the computer and bringing up various script windows that now revealed a full program had been written within the microchip’s mainframe. It drew more power than ever before, and by now AUTO knew the only way to fix that was to add more parts. How much more would he have to add? This didn’t seem right at all! The microchip should have stayed a microchip; not transformed into a raw robotic mainframe…

Wait. A robotic mainframe? Did that mean that if AUTO added more parts… it would eventually become a brand new robot?

With it assuming a mind of its own, this was completely possible.

But it wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

He pressed a combination of buttons, and a new window popped up on the screen. The voice of the main computer came on and read aloud what was displayed on the screen.

“Are you sure you want to abort the program?”

Two options. Abort or cancel.

AUTO reached forward to press the former, but found himself shaking as he slowly neared it.

Are you sure you should be doing this? the thought flashed quickly through his mind. He hovered over the button, and he was still quivering. Why do you get nervous at the mere thought of terminating that microchip…?

“Are you sure you want to abort the program…?”

AUTO caved in. He pressed “Abort”.

The indicator light on the microchip ceased to flash. AUTO almost felt lightheaded as he stared at it, watching as the electricity slowly stopped flowing into the small machine. The microchip was rendered inactive, and it was ready to be disposed of.

He watched in silence as the plant logo stopped strobing. For a fleeting moment, he felt regret flood over him, and he was unsure why.

It was for EVE’s own good, he reasoned, plucking the microchip from her chest cavity. The wires snapped and sparks flew onto the ground as the wires hooked to the now inactive microchip were severed from EVE.

Five full days had passed. EVE showed no signs of malfunction since AUTO had aborted the microchip’s programming, and she passed all of the advanced diagnostic tests the second time it was run. Finally, AUTO woke her up and was prepared to see her off to the bay where EVE probes were stored until their respective reconnaissance missions.

He told her that she had passed diagnostic tests and was fit to be put back into service, but as he explained it all to her she barely heard the words he was saying. She stared at him the entire time, her eyes narrowed and her head slightly cocked.

Somehow, she knew he had done something against her will. Something drastic without her permission.

She felt… violated. Used. And she couldn’t even begin to explain why.

She could no longer see him the same way. As he was speaking to her, she ignored what was being said and turned her back to him. AUTO didn’t quite understand what she meant by the move, and when he glided over to stand in front of her, she refused to make eye contact.

“EVE,” he began, but she violently shook her head and pointed to the plant icon on her chest.

“Violation,” she cried. AUTO stood aback. EVE let out another angry blip. “Breached directive!”

GO-4 appeared and asked AUTO if he wanted him to transport EVE back downstairs to the bay where she belonged, and AUTO hardly heard him ask the question. He was overwhelmed by what he was feeling - what had he done wrong? What had he done to cause her to act like this?

“Yes,” he eventually said, answering GO-4’s question. “You may return her to the storage bay.”

That image of EVE’s hardened expression was burned in his memory forever. The way she spoke her last words to him rang in his thoughts for hour after hour. But it was only then, after she had left, that the feelings he had been overtaken by began to fade and disappear; as if they had never once been a hindrance to him or his programming.

And EVE never learned over the course of her existence about that microchip or what had become of it.


Good one little_chef! I LOVE IT!

wannabechef91: Aww, why thank you! I appreciate it! :slight_smile: Did it confuse you at all? (The only reason why I ask is because I happen to write a lot of details into the story that people sometimes miss, and the meaning of this story could seem a bit clouded to people.) If you need any explanation at all, don’t be afraid to ask.

little chef

No, not at all! I guess this ones I understand than Psyche OS X (no offense). :slight_smile:

None taken - Psyche OS X is a crazy story, and a lot is always happening, so I can see why someone would quickly get confused. :laughing: I try to explain my stories the best I can however, so that’s why encourage my readers to always ask questions. It helps keep me in check and lets me know that I’m solid on the knowledge of the material I’m writing.

Thanks again - I’m glad you could enjoy this one. :slight_smile:

little chef

Yeah, I do enjoy it!

This has got to be the most beautiful and dreamlike description of EVE I’ve ever read (she’s my favorite character!). I like how you explore AUTO’s feelings for her in this story, and how you give a backstory explaning how EVE can think, feel, and behave outside her programming.

As always, keep up the good work!

Agree, JustSoWall-ECrazy! Really detailed and great description! :smiley:

D’awww, thanks you guys! :smiley: I’m glad you enjoyed that little bit… I really have a lot of fun trying to describe those robots, since they mean so much to me and I see them so deeply.

JustSoWall-eCrazy: The whole idea of AUTO kind of having a “thing” for EVE in the past not only gives a bit of light to his feelings in Psyche, but was also inspired by TDIT in a comment he made over there about AUTO and EVE possibly having an “office romance”. I didn’t really go into a lot of detail, because I was trying to tell a different story with this one, but I also wanted to see if TDIT would end up writing a story on that subject. I would love to read about it! :smiley:

Anyhow, thank you both - it really makes my day to see people enjoying my work. <3

little chef

I really like it little_chef_eva09! It’s kinda like a foreshadowing of Psyche OS X with Auto and Eve.

I kinda understand a theme, but I’m not literate enough to describe what I think it is, if that makes sense to anybody. :wink:

Sorry for the double-post. :confused:

Ok, so I read it over again, and here’s what I’m getting from the story.

So, like, the chip is like the symbol for Auto’s feelings and what he did for Eve. Putting the chip in her was like forcing her to accept what he wanted for her. When it wasn’t enough, he worked harder and harder to get it right. Though, he didn’t want to, he had to take out the chip because it was best for everybody. Then he had to let her go (or in this case, let GO-4 take her away). The theme I’m taking from the story is that if you love something, sometimes you have to let it go.

I hope that helps. little_chef_eva09. I tried my best, but I’m not that good at stuff like this. :confused:

mo: You know what? That is a really good way to interpret it. I actually never thought of it that way, which is kinda funny 'cuz I wrote it. :laughing: But yeah, I’ll go ahead and give you an inside view of the themes in this story, straight out of the author’s mind.

First of all, think of it this way: take what’s happening in the story to the robots, and interpret it into human action and circumstance. Also, the title of the story itself sheds a lot of light on the subject and what’s happening. There are actually a few symbolic motifs within the story that I can point out.

EVE’s behavior - The EVE probes were never built to express emotion, as is already implied on the movie; so when she is said to have a malfunction, it is because she is contracting emotion and breaking through her programming without realizing it. When she’s down in the Repair Ward, note the way she’s being treated by the other robots. GO-4 laughs at their actions. Even up on the Bridge when AUTO’s tearing her apart and inspecting her, she gets frustrated. [spoil]You could easily compare this behavior to her being “played with” by other men. While GO-4 and the Repair Ward robots see it as a joke, AUTO is oblivious that his actions are offensive, suggesting he is still unfamiliar with reason and independent behavior.[/spoil] When the microchip is aborted, she has no idea that it had taken place, and yet she feels violated; she knows by some strange form of instinct that something’s been done with her that she hasn’t been told about. When she cries “Breached directive!”, you can deduce that her directive has been used for something it’s not supposed to be used for, or something she would not have tolerated if she were conscious.

The microchip - This is a pivotal figure in the story. First note that AUTO was the one to install it. He meant it for one thing (a behavior patch), but it spiraled out of control and became something he never expected it would become (a robotic mainframe). [spoil]Could be interpreted as giving EVE a child she didn’t want.[/spoil] As the days pass, the microchip demands more energy, thus requiring more parts; the only way it can get this energy is from EVE, because it is hard-wired to her. [spoil]A baby gets its sustainance directly from its mother and grows over time.[/spoil] Eventually, AUTO finds out that this microchip is writing its own programming, which wasn’t supposed to happen, either. It was solely meant for behavior purposes. [spoil]Could be compared to babies developing a brain and their bodies producing their unique DNA.[/spoil]

This line will give it all away:

When AUTO aborted the program, it was because he felt that it would harm EVE more than it would help her, and because he realized that it would only become a brand new robot, he knew he couldn’t let that happen and stopped it before it went any further. He never told EVE about this.

The plant icon - If you notice in the film, the little plant logo that lights up on EVE’s chest only begins to strobe when a plant is in it, and this may sound obvious, but think about it. The plant is living. EVE could put a weed in there for all she cares, and it would pick it up because it’s alive. When she takes the plant from WALL•E after his “pod adventure”, it lights up because it senses a living object within her compartment. So with this knowledge, we could deduce that this microchip, although it was never supposed to be, was alive, correct?

When the program is aborted and AUTO severs the wires from EVE, the icon no longer flashes.

AUTO’s feelings - At the beginning of the story, AUTO is going about routine business and doesn’t see his encounter with EVE as anything more than maintenance. However, after a while of working on her and watching her show emotion and behavior, something snaps in his programming. He realizes that he is feeling as well. When he realizes the gravity of the situation he’s gotten them in, those feelings increase, and he only realizes that he’s doing what he’s doing for EVE’s sake; no longer for routine maintenance. He’s feeling something towards that microchip as well; note his behavior as he makes the decision to abort it. He feels a new emotion called regret, and he can’t quite explain it. Despite these strong feelings, he knows that protocol comes first and has EVE sent back only because it’s the way things are supposed to be. Were it not for that, I think he may have pursued a relationship with her.

Oh my goodness, I didn’t think it would get this long. Please forgive me. :laughing: I think I’ve still left out a few details, but that’s the general idea of what I was trying to convey. Again, you really have to think about what’s happening to the robots in human terms, and then it will all make sense, but I think what I’ve written here will give you a pretty good idea. :wink:

little chef

Alright! I wasn’t way off! I was kinda worried that I looked something over and had a completely wrong answer. Kind of a relief.

Thanks for posting the themes you wrote little_chef_eva09! It really helps to understand the story a bit more and give it a deeper meaning. Suddenly I think of abortion when I think of the plant icon or the microchip. :laughing:

Holy M-O-lly! I’m in awe of your writing talent, little_chef, you might just give Netbug a run for her money! I’m so glad you decided to do your take on my musing about Eve and Auto being possibly romantically-linked.

The way how I interpreted it was pretty much similar to mo’s. The way I saw it, Auto has repressed feelings for Eve, and it was not mutual. The chip was sort of like the metaphor for their relationship, but when it didn’t work out for Eve (possibly due to his aggressive nature and mistreatment of her), he had to let her go before any more harm is done to her. I saw it as a metaphor for abusive relationships, and how one party (in this exceptional case, the ‘abuser’) has to sever the ties before it got any worse.

But upon reading your explanation, it throws a whole new light on your fic! I’m amazed I missed out on the ‘baby’ references and the concept of forced abortions being explored. That’s what I admire about your fanfics, they have the courage to talk about the ‘tough stuff’ in a very matured and respectful way. It can sometimes be harrowing, but always enlightening.

I also liked their exchanges, and Auto’s thought processes. They have your usual brand of eloquent descriptions.

If I have any qualms about this story, it’s that it’s too short (I was expecting more conversations and developing feelings throughout the five days, but most of the story is told from Auto’s viewpoint and involved repairing Eve). I also would’ve liked more descriptions of how Eve felt about Auto, and maybe for her to reciprocate his feelings for her (the way she kept brushing him off came off as one-sided, unless you meant it to be an unrequited romance kinda thing). As it is, not much was explored in terms of how they felt about each other, the story focusing more on the puzzle over how the patch kept malfunctioning Eve.

But other than that, this is another heart wrenching and compelling tale, and I think I finally understand the tagline in your sig. :wink:

TDIT: Told 'cha.

mo: It’s not like I had a pop quiz waiting for you guys after reading this story, and I’d randomly PM you and say “HEY, what does this part of the story REALLY mean??” :laughing: Haha!! :stuck_out_tongue: I like the way you and TDIT interpreted it in simple terms; as the author, I probably would have never thought of it in such a concise, yet extremely simple way. So thank you both for your interpretations - you weren’t missing the mark at all. :wink:

TDIT: Okay, seriously, stop flattering me so. :stuck_out_tongue: I don’t even know how to handle it anymore, I just feel so… man, my heart’s soaring and my head’s in the clouds right about now. <3 I mean, being considered as good as Netbug, who is like, the BEST and everyone knows it…? sweats Geez, I just don’t even know what to say…!

The thing with AUTO is, he’s not being “abusive” on purpose. He’s completely oblivious to the fact that his actions are considered “offensive”. It’s not yet in his “programming” to think that way, I guess ([spoil]and in Psyche when he goes into Alex O’Neill, who was an abusive person, it’s almost like he gets those new ideas from him with an already preconceived desire for Eve in the back of his mind, because of what happened between them before they became human[/spoil]).

Why thank you! :slight_smile: It doesn’t help that these issues are reeling in my mind quite often, and they are really pressing issues to me. It also gives me a chance to present it in a way that people normally wouldn’t think to present it, and like you’ve said, it makes the reader not only that much more interested in the story, but also shows them a new way of looking at a situation like this. I’m glad it comes off as respectful, though. I was definitely afraid of it being “explicit”, as I’ve seen it get in badly-written fanfiction. :confused:

And about the shortness, yeah, I probably could have elaborated on it exchange-wise, as you mentioned, but the fact that it is so short kinda gives it the punch in the gut I was going for. At least, I think it did. I don’t think that at that time, EVE really understood “love”, and AUTO didn’t either, but he felt it before she did. The first time she learns to love is through WALL•E, and I kind of wanted it to stay that way. It’s kind of like when a guy likes a girl and starts falling madly in love with her, but all the while she is oblivious. :wink: I really wanted the story to focus on that microchip though, after all, [spoil]it is the untold tale of a “child” that never came to be, and we technically should have never learned that it existed[/spoil]. :stuck_out_tongue:

Nevertheless, I’m honored that you enjoyed this one - after Psyche, it is probably one of the deepest pieces of fanfiction I’ve ever written. I appreciate every word you’ve written on my work; they mean more to me than you’ll ever know, and I just get so excited when I see that you’ve made a comment on my story. Thanks again!

little chef

Why haven’t I reviewed this yet? O_O

Hehe…no time like the present.

I love the tension that sort of escalates through the entire story until the whole course of events becomes really turbulent and swift. I really enjoyed this short story, and these sort of fanfics are starting to become few and far between. So I’m really glad you wrote such a quality work like this, because it’s a breath of fresh air compared to most works this length. Fabulous.

AUTOA113: I’m so glad you were able to enjoy it; after Psyche (and a fiction novel I’m working on), this is probably one of the favorite (and most detailed) works of mine so far. :wink: I’ve never really been one to make an analogy out of a story, but I just totally proved myself wrong here. I’m hoping you read through the explanations I give a couple posts up on the different themes presented here, as that will really give you a better grasp on what you’ve read and possibly missed in the writing. (But knowing you, I’m pretty sure you were all over that! :stuck_out_tongue:)

It’s good for me to know that my writing is refreshing and an interesting read; that seriously gives me a good boost inside and tells me to keep going with this. :slight_smile: I appreciate your support! You guys mean the world to me! <3

little chef