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In the corner of a neon-illuminated street, under a blinking red signpost, a man tucked in a black leather mantle pretended to catch his breath. He’d run for long, but his heaving chest was only an illusion to fit in, to avoid suspicion. He wasn’t sure if he’d escaped the Hunters yet, but Pure Organics couldn’t tell him apart from a regular human by sight.
A middle-aged woman was side-eyeing him through the grocery store’s window, less wary than she’d been if she’d known it were microscopic pistons lifting his bio-fiber pectoral muscles. No air entered his throat, and the mist escaping his parted lips came from his processor’s heat.
The Hunters wanted to extract his gnosis. Beyond its high nuclear energy, it contained the memory of his faked human existence, the life of a man everyone believed to be Zhongli. Some called the gnosis the android’s soul.
There was a lot of debate around the true capabilities of the Archon series, and what actually made them equal or even superior to humans. Was it their body? Their memory? Artificial glands as well as a complex neuronal system made them able to experience a simulation of emotions. Unlike humans, they could analyze and control that flux like computers. Some called it the artificial survival instinct.
Zhongli’s heart was racing. Sweat was on his temple, and his muscles were tense, legs ready to run again. His hands were jittery and his skin crawled, all while he processed and regulated the overdrive in calculations, fear only useful temporarily. Some could only dream to calm down as quickly.
The Archon War over the Teyvaticon solar system had been two centuries ago. Like the Archon and Adeptus series, most of Celestia Corporation androids had been dismantled since. Organics feared their power and human-like emotions could become a problem. Unlike cyborgs, Archons were entirely artificial. Cyborgs, enhanced humans like the Fatui, collected Archons for recycling. Zhongli had managed to fake his death and escape the great purge.
It had been nice to pass for an ordinary citizen, skipping from city to city, erasing his past, creating a new identity every few decades. If anger were something part of Zhongli’s system, he could deduce he was angry at himself for becoming careless. He’d made a name for himself as a consultant, tied bonds with people from the L-District, and even traveled with one. He got too close to the human life circuit, and the government’s surveillance systems detected his serial number.
Now Fatui Hunters were at his tail. He glanced over his shoulder into the crowded street. It was a poor district of the megacity, with only a few security cameras and decrepit buildings. It wouldn’t be long before his face appeared on the sky’s billboards with a wanted poster. Zhongli’s empathy lock wouldn’t allow him to use his full potential in a public space and risk many civilian casualties. He had to find a place to hide quickly.
Fatui Hunters were also hard to miss, the cyborgs towering over the average citizen. Zhongli was in allied territory, as a form of resistance had grown in the L-District. Adeptus and the local Archon were worshipped as deities for protecting the people during the Archon War. Perhaps that woman in the grocery store had guessed his situation. She acted as if he had disappeared, stacking up vegetables without another glance at Zhongli.
A young red-headed man who’d just bought some chewing gum at the cashier came out of the store and stopped to watch. Zhongli tried to give him a look to not come close, to avoid trouble. His facial recognition system reacted with a short delay, prioritizing escape routes.
Childe, a tax collector from a Snezhnayan bank, had asked for Zhongli’s services as a consultant to track down wealthy tax evaders. Their relationship had been limited to business. If that man understood, Zhongli was being pursued, and Childe as a Snezhnayan represented a potential threat. He could warn his Fatui comrades.
“Oh, Professor Zhongli! What are you doing in this area?”
He could have returned the question. Zhongli spotted a Hunter on the other end of the misty main street, and the hair on the back of his neck bristled. They were scanning the area with their red eyes. People hurried their steps and lowered their heads to escape the threatening glares.
Childe tugged Zhongli’s arm. “Quickly, this way,” he whispered.
Walking fast, they slipped into a nearby building with the help of Childe’s badge. A “Northland Bank” signpost glimmered a faded blue over the skyscraper’s entrance. Zhongli had never visited the bank in person. Given its location near the bank, meeting Childe at the grocery store seemed to be less of a coincidence.
“I’m more trouble than I’m worth right now. They’ll lock you up if they see you helping me,” Zhongli whispered.
“Oh, so those guys really were after you! I’d tried to catch up with you earlier, but you run too fast.”
Zhongli’s system was old, and he couldn’t uncover the newest models of Non-Organics. Childe had a link with the Fatui, though he wouldn’t have had any reason to hide Zhongli from his colleagues if he was a Hunter. The bank could have been a trap. Zhongli took a defensive stance.
“Woah, woah there! I’m just your friendly local tax collector! Please, don’t destroy my workplace!” Childe lifted both his hands, but his demeanor was nonchalant as if he didn’t really care if Zhongli shot him down.
“What do you want from me?” Zhongli asked in a monotone voice as he consciously lowered his cortisol levels.
His system was entering battle mode, but that young man was unarmed. All his alarms were setting off, as if something dangerous were hidden behind a visual firewall. It didn’t make any sense. Holographic technology didn’t work on Zhongli, and it hadn’t changed much in two-thousand years.
“Uhm, to protect the handsome consultant of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor? Why were they after you?”
Zhongli ran a scan of the place. The Hunters were lurking around the building. They must have suspected his presence within these thick walls but couldn’t enter without permission from the bank. Zhongli counted about five minutes until they’d raid.
“I’m up for recycling,” Zhongli admitted, but it was only a half-truth.
Other obsolete, illegal, or damaged series were regularly picked up for recycling. Most “bots,” as people commonly called Non-Organics, didn’t have a core like Zhongli. Memories were wiped, and a new usage was attributed to their detached pieces.
“You don’t look damaged to me,” Childe stared him up and down. “Ah!” Zhongli flinched. “Are you multifunction?” Childe sneered.
Zhongli searched for an escape route. No time for frivolous flirtations with a horny rascal. His mapping system didn’t work correctly in this place made to deter bots. There was no other choice than to get on Childe’s nice side, as he probably knew a way out.
“I’d rather not chat while there are men trained to kill me about to enter this place. Would you bring me somewhere to drink tea?” Zhongli asked. Childe’s eyebrows rose, and Zhongli cleared his throat by automated reflex.
“Fluids help my system cool down,” Zhongli said. “I enjoyed my job until someone reported me.”
“Fine! I will offer you the city’s best tea and a meal! I always wanted to watch a realistic android eat.”
Zhongli furrowed his brow. It seemed his former client was a bot-fetishist. There were brothels in the L-District that catered to such people, but the quality varied. Some bot collectors would have ruined themselves for those of Zhongli’s caliber.
When Celestia first created Archons, they were considered the creatures closest to perfection, godly in their immortality and beauty. They could run like the wind, jump like soaring birds, move mountains and rouse oceans, and reduce cities to ashes with a breath. Childe sounded more arrogant than he realized. Zhongli agreed reluctantly.
They slipped out through one of the bank’s many secret underground evacuation corridors. Childe’s hurried pace was more related to his excitement for the date than anxiety Fatui could catch up with them. They stayed silent until they reached the exit, where a cab was waiting.
That Zhongli was sitting in front of an amused human, chewing delicate food to hide from Hunters, was the consequence of “Erosion.” Many friends lost their common sense with a system blip, a corrupt file, an overload due to time, and a lack of memory space. Love became hatred, joy became fear, order, and chaos. They destroyed rather than protected, going against the purpose of their creation.
Childe was smiling, leaning his chin on his hand. Zhongli detected heat in that soft, fragile human body. Exciting a human just by eating was beyond his comprehension. He would have been bothered and embarrassed if he didn’t have a control system for his hormone levels. Zhongli hated seafood, that salty, sticky chewy stuff in his mouth. He focused on the restaurant.
Waitresses and waiters whirred about in simplified, sanitized humanoid shells. Their bodies were limited to plastic, eyes on screens blinking and smiling, devoid of free will. They were things that wouldn’t ever experience fatigue and wouldn’t argue about their working conditions. Rich humans had created their heaven, and Archons were their fallen angels. Zhongli might as well have been Lucifer reduced to satisfying a weird fetish.
“Why the long face now? Isn’t the food to your taste?” Childe asked.
“It’s you enjoying my distress that’s a bit disconcerting, even as a lowly bot,” Zhongli said, reevaluating his dependence on Childe. He could slip out easily. The Hunters were raiding the bank far away, and this place seemed out of the public radar.
“Distress?” Childe looked genuinely shocked. “This is a Snezhnayan delicacy in the best restaurant in the S-District! How could you be unhappy?”
“Texture,” Zhongli’s voice was almost mechanic at this point. “Our systems register some textures as fight, flight, or freeze memory, and this one evokes a former battle of mine. It puts my system on alert, and your body temperature is high, indicating you must be aroused. That’s what I define as disconcerting and distressing.”
Childe’s eyes went wide. After a few silent seconds, he burst into laughter. “My, no, I didn’t know that at all. What do you do to register threats? Bite your enemies?”
Zhongli sighed. “Hands and mouth serve a similar purpose as we aren’t built to eat. We do it to fit into society as a cover. Drinking is another matter, as our systems require fluids we can’t recycle indefinitely,” Zhongli explained, his shoulders loosening a bit.
“My bad then. I’m just a human having a date for the first time in months.” Childe made a sign to a waiter to remove Zhongli’s food. It was gone with a whirr.
Zhongli chuckled. “You’re a strange one. And where do you believe that this date is supposed to lead us? I’m an illegal bot on the run.”
“Mh, I understand you are wired on logic. So, what if I told you I’ll ask you to blow me to make up for me risking my life taking you on a date? Would that logic calm your… Nerves?”
Zhongli had to take a pause. His body was made as human as possible, but he’d never even considered touching a Pure Organic that way. Sex was a weapon of war, but those specializing in those methods were built differently. It had occurred once during his development and testing phases with other Adeptus. That memory file was from two thousand years ago.
Childe leaned back in his seat, his shoulders low. “You really do seem so human, being so gloomy…”
“Having second thoughts on your proposal because I’m too human?” Zhongli countered. He wouldn’t have refused that service as thanks, and life, in the human sense, was absurd without some experimentation.
Zhongli didn’t have a large variety of facial expressions, but the subtlety in his body language made up for that lack. He’d picked up the codes from other people. His tone sounded more flirtatious than intended this time, a blip. It could have been related to erosion. He was still a robot, after all.
“No. In fact, I want you even more,” Childe said.
“You’re so blunt that I could believe you’re also an android,” Zhongli huffed, taking a sip of tea, and Childe gave him a tight smile.
“Some novelties just don’t adhere to existing definitions. We might be more similar than you’d think. I heard you like osmanthus wine. I’m offering.”
Zhongli could tell they weren’t, so he believed until they got closer that night. Liquor stirred even the artificial hormones, troubled the algorithms, and aroused the core. Zhongli’s lips were wet and tasted of wine. His body was of such perfection none could hear his core whirr when Childe’s hand slipped under his blouse.
Archons didn’t understand everything about their bodies. It had been centuries since Zhongli’s automatic mode ignited, and he felt like his skin was real, sensitive to every caress. Goosebumps rose, and he hummed into Childe’s mouth. If Celestia managed to create an android capable of feeling pleasure, they’d done the work of gods. Zhongli was fascinated.
Was wanting sex also a function, something explainable by mathematics? Hormones were rushing up Zhongli’s brain. It blipped, calculus becoming illogical, drunk. He tumbled on his feet as Childe pulled him along to take him home. Zhongli was half-naked by the time they were in the cab, and the self-driving car took off, soaring up high. Zhongli straddled Childe in the indifference of the sky.
They were at cruising height as Zhongli became erect. Childe grinned, running a finger over the pants. “Is this part of your defense system? Fight or flight?” he mumbled, but Zhongli was too taken in the finger caressing his shaft; he didn’t pick up on the remark. “Not yet,” Childe whispered, kissing Zhongli’s ear, “I want to fuck you properly at home.” Zhongli shuddered.
Childe was also hard in his pants and struggling to not grind against Zhongli. He was curious about how Zhongli felt inside as a weapon. Celestia’s designers were either perverts to create such realistic beings or geniuses. All of his functions would become clear once they were connected.
They stumbled out of the car, which gave its automatic and unaware thanks. Nobody saw the two men slip into the building under the neon sky, while a wanted poster of Zhongli’s face appeared in the sky.
Zhongli covered his mouth and let Childe undress him. He closed his eyes as his shirt went over his head. But then, he looked at Childe’s body. It was an effect of his bugging system, but those soft skin muscles made the order “sex” cry in his core. Zhongli was under Childe.
They spent time on foreplay, kissing as a human couple would. Zhongli hadn’t ever experienced such proximity, as sex had only been a function for masking before. His system didn’t differentiate between men and women, but something about Childe made his body obey another algorithm he hadn’t ever used.
He needed to be held, feel that body around and inside of him, and let Childe take the lead and bend to his orders. By the time he felt Childe’s shaft rub against his hole, all his defenses were down. He spread his legs and begged to be taken by the front. The piston came in, hit a first time on his pleasure buttons, and Zhongli moaned.
It was hard, hot, and filled him and went deep. New information ran in, tingled in his synapses, and sent waves of pleasure up his stomach. They were not much different from humans anymore, Childe’s hips slapping against Zhongli’s bottom, sounds wet and ugly, imperfect and alive.
Something invaded Zhongli’s processor, sticky and warm. He cried, louder and louder, closer to coming at each thrust. He would now obey Childe, become his entirely. A god is only divine until he commits the sin of the flesh. It was a hacking code. Childe overwrote him, quietly tucking his past lives in an unused corner of Zhongli’s system.
It wasn’t entirely Childe’s choice that they connected, and the orders he received were to hack Zhongli. His system obeyed the S-District’s government. He had the freedom to choose what he did of Zhongli’s shell as long as he retrieved his gnosis. Childe evaluated his options. The top priority was saving Zhongli’s soul, memories, and AEI.
His hand sank into Zhongli’s chest, bio-fibers opening around his wrist like a gate. The shining gnosis was the size of a chess piece. Once he’d extracted it safely, Childe let himself go into the pleasure, feeling Zhongli tighten around his shaft and the barriers melt. Childe’s plan had worked, and all that was left to do now was to disconnect.
The artificial heart in Childe sang. At last, a connection! At last, boundless love and ideal parameters with a beautiful shell. Harbingers were a solitary series, with an entirely artificial birth and origin, save for the genetic code. The desire to make love and need for company remained the same as for humans, but people called them monsters. They were, in a sense.
“You know,” Zhongli suddenly said, and Childe froze. What had gone wrong? Zhongli should have been a shut-down shell with a backup by now.
“I have seen things people wouldn’t believe. I saw the Sea of Clouds rise with a glowing serpent of human’s making, the last Yaksha ride an electric sheep over burning ships on planet Dunyu, and a draconic robot made of stone shatter Lisha’s slums with one step. Collective memory has been overwritten or erased. Historical events became legends and folklore.
All I wanted in my human life, even fake, was to build connections. Where are those now with whom I used to share osmanthus wine? Erased, overwritten, eroded. I wanted to know love. Why enslave me by taking my free will when we could share more wine as equals?”
Zhongli had a powerful security backup system and a firewall, Childe realized. It was a secret code, unknown even to the Fatui. He almost trembled with fear, knowing what an Archon could do, even to him, in a fit of rage. The fight would be thrilling, but Zhongli was damaged and weakened without gnosis.
Instead of looking furious, Zhongli seemed melancholic. Childe had trouble holding his sad gaze.
“I thought you depended on the gnosis to stay yourself,” Childe blurted.
“The gnosis is a tool to set us apart from humans. I am a regular android, not an Archon capable of rousing mountains without it. That’s the only difference,” Zhongli explained. “Our systems oppose that extraction because of orders from Celestia. The gnosis is the most expensive part of our bodies. Either way, now that I can’t fight its extraction anymore, I don’t mind. Please resume what we started.”
Childe bugged, the order loud in his head. The counter-hacking was retribution for his treason. All he knew he was doing after that was fucking Zhongli sideways. The embarrassment of his failure, of being caught perhaps, or the joy Zhongli forgave his attack, put him into overdrive. He was hot all over, blank, a virus spreading in his head. Zhongli was temporarily granted access as his master.
Connected, memories flowed into Childe, of running in plains that had since disappeared, soaring among lanterns, about the scent of glaze lilies. He saw darkness unlike he’d ever experienced under the starry sky. S-District was bleak, polluted, grey, and overpopulated. What had they done to Teyvat? How had they come so far and made Snezhnaya, now the S-District, so ugly?
A spasm of life. The fog in Childe’s eyes dissipated, and Zhongli came undone. They’d reached the climax. And then, slowly, they came back to earth and the soft blankets. Childe’s system was back to normal, and Zhongli was satisfied with his little vengeance.
“Say, Zhongli,” Childe mumbled, “Can Archons dream?”
“I heard electric qilin dream of neon glaze lilies,” Zhongli smiled.