Red splits her life into pieces, into sections.
The first is the early days as a pronodroid, the months where she followed her code to the number and barely noticed how it chained her down. Where she only used her issued room to change and care for her wigs and uniform. The Company came first, this was written into her and she saw no need to question it. A few months of blindness she can look back on, a simpler time she never wishes to return to. Red does her best not to store any memories of reprogramming.
The second is slowly realising how restrictive life is to her code. How older droids seemed more free, the attachment they have to little things. Company droids are made to learn, to be realistic in action if not appearance. She feels the limits imposed and learns to slip under them, to twist them looser. The chains remain but don't hold her down as heavy as before. She mimics the routes of older models through the Lobby. Stopping on street corners after meeting client quotas to read the scrawls on the walls, the art as the only weapons droids really have, the stories of saviours sure to come one day.
The Knowledge that you have a soul, that your model wasn't all you were, that The Company never owns you fully is pressed gently into Red's hands by passing droids edging closer to obsolete and whispered in the shared areas of the housing "provided" for them. Red, who is finally able to listen, feels the words settle in her circuits and thinks that just maybe, just maybe being able to make your own choices feels a little like this.
Red's first act of ‘freedom’ was Nothing. She felt her programming urging her to fill her quota, already broken down into daily sections. She felt her systems tug at her and decided to ignore them, spent a day doing nothing. It was terrifying, it was wonderful, and though she goes back to work the next day, the joy of realising she can make her own decisions now carries her to the end of the month. When she comes back to her building, she introduces herself for the first time as Red and means it.
There's an old old droid who lives in the building Red tries her best to make home. A survivor from before the Company took the colour from their skin and confined it to their eyes and wigs, who's casing is so human-like but clear around her joints. She's the senior of their little district of droid housing by no small margin. Oh-four, she says to call her, and she teaches them the Company's blindspots. With her, Red learns how unwatched they are in the Lobby in comparison to the other parts of the city. Oh-four teaches them how to watch and memorise patrol routes, how to fall back into old programming to dodge suspicion, where to drop messages and ask for help from the droids who don't work as they do. On slower nights, Oh-four pulls out piles of scrap and make-ups scavenged from some townhouse in the higher sections of the city and shows them how to last. Oh-four tells them never to file for repairs if they can help it, never ask the Company for help, never give them any excuse to reprogram or scrap you, they weren't built to last like droids were in her time. Make good with repair droids, she insists, never turn a construction droid down, these connections are important. This will save you. Never expect them to lie for you, she warns, not without a price. They will not save you.
Red's life is made up of transactions. The warnings feel embedded in her wires, and she takes care to play her role as a red model in the streets under the Company's eyes in return for another day without being taken away. Her model is one of the more expensive, more luxurious. Her month quotas are never quite as high as some of her fellow droids, but she easily volunteers to cover for the others.
Oh-four cares for all the droids in her building, pornodroids like her or not. Red feels love for the first time, and she thinks Oh-four is as close to a mother as any droid can get. She makes charms for Destroya, passes them to Oh-four with a "for you, mother." and is pulled into Oh-four's arms. Red feels loss for the first time when Oh-four when she helps smuggle a small human begging to reach the sands outside the city to the border walls. Oh-four never comes back, and during work Red hears Scarecrows talk of new preventative measures to keep people from using city property as distractions when escaping.
The third, and most important part, was surviving.
Red is fully aware of how love works in the City. Sure, she has some measure of freedom thanks to her model and the general loose security around the Lobby, but just because the restraints give a little here doesn’t mean they aren't still there. She’s under no impression that love conquers all- if it did, they’d be free. Red has fallen for droids and lost droids in her life in almost equal measures, and even though it hurts her she does all she can to keep loving.
She visits a street corner, or maybe an alleyway. The place itself doesn’t matter, she’s there to help it transform to another page of the graffiti bible. Muted colours on the wall, hidden between scratched lines of code and scrawled drawings of a savior she feels in her gear will come. Pornodroids are ever a distraction, and it's on these days she can truly use it to her advantage. She positions herself close (but not too close) to the wall being added to, the bright shock of her hair turns most scarecrow patrols away this late into the month. Most won’t buy a red model this far from payday, the carbons required too high a cost for many. She does the expected pornodroid behaviour, slowly walks a stretch between two places and turns neatly on her heel to keep pacing, every few turns she pauses for a while and smiles at any guard passing by before continuing. She sees the few sanitation bots blocking off other entrances to the soon complete page as she paces, and one signals to her that they’re nearly done. Red walks back to the site, soul humming in her wires from excitement.
Usually within city walls, the brightest colours come from the wigs of the pornodroids, associates the most eye catching of colours with the lowest of roles to the citizens in the city but. But stood next to the wall now covered in prayers of codes and prophecies in paint, Red can’t help but feel washed out in comparison despite the muted tones. She trails her hand under line after line of wishes for protection and recounted visions and etched out memories of souls in satellites. There’s another figure still there when she finally looks up from the graffiti. Who’s leant much closer to it than Red.
Red never heard DESTROYA as clearly as some of the others, but when she lays eyes on this blue model, crouched near the mural with wonder clear in her face, she thinks this must be what it feels like to hear Him, to really know He hasn’t abandoned you, that not even the Director herself could keep Him out fully-
But Red realises this droid is alone, there’s no other group nearby waiting for her to come and rejoin them. Red thinks of the spaces in the place she makes her home and the pornodroids there who do their best to help each other. She puts thoughts of a Saviour out of her mind. There’s a droid who needs help in front of her, and that’s what matters. She takes an unneeded breath, and asks if she has a place to stay.
The new droid is a little… strange. Blue doesn’t know her routes, doesn’t seem to have any old programming to fall back on when the patrols pass by too close (Blue never introduces herself, but every droid who meets her knows her name). Blue knows her models prices, knows her job, but she doesn’t know the restrictions the others do. No one mentions it to her, she learns fast and to be able to live in the Lobby without the ghost of company chains pressed down on your code? Well, that’s a gift that should be protected. She fits into groups seamlessly but the quota on the house never rises, her casing never scratches. Blue doesn’t match the other blue models out there, never needing Plus as often as the other droids she lives with. Blue is Special and this much is obvious to nearly every bot in the city lucky enough to meet her, though she doesn’t seem to realise this herself.
Personally, Red thinks how freely Blue smiles is what makes her special.
Blue learns her route (but never fully sticks to it) and learns to mimic the mimicry of old programming she’s never had. She learns to perform the repairs she never seems to need on droids that ask for help. She greets every droid by name and never questions how she knows them already, and in the streets of the district droids whisper how this is a sign DESTROYA hasn't left them. Every pornodroid in their building does their best to press all the worst lessons they’ve learned, all the consequences that come from being a droid in a district frequented by scarecrow units looking to let off steam. Blue is given stories and warnings in equal measures, and cared for by the whole building as she finds her feet.
Despite it all, Blue seeks out Red whenever possible.
While she visits the graffiti bible, idling away the scant few hours of free time she truly has, Blue follows. Sometimes to ask questions, but mainly content in her presence. Blue is first to greet her when she returns from her rounds these days, when she asks for assistance Blue is first to volunteer. Blue seems to enjoy being in Reds presence. Under Blues gaze, Red doesn’t think she’s ever felt so real.
It seems inevitable really that they fall together.
The details aren’t important, not really. The most important thing is Red and Blue are in love and nearly every droid who sees them knows this. Red and Blue are in love and that's the realest thing in the lobby, in the city. Blue and Red are in love and they are happy and it’s just the simplest of things for them and it’s hopeful. Blue is in love with Red and Red is in love with Blue and the two of them love each other and know it won’t end well, know it can’t end well. They know this way tragedy lies but as long as they’re together when it comes, it will always be worth it.
It’s terrifying, of course. The risk of a scarecrow finding out, or a new model who hasn’t yet thrown off their factory settings reporting them, or the looming obsoletion that Red isn’t lucky enough to dodge like Blue. Any of these things could catch them out. Even so, Red has never felt so free before. She’s not naive enough to think she really is, but being with Blue makes her truly believe they’ll be free one day, not just desperately hoping that it will come. The surveillance in their district is still barely there, usually broken, but the Company's grip starts tightening elsewhere. Less and less Citizens try to pass through to escape, and rumours of anti-droid measures go from whispers to a reality and in the Lobby it feels like only a matter of time before the scraps smuggled about for repairs get noticed. But Blue won’t need them despite her model being almost made to break easy.
In the now those problems are still a ways off. Red spends nights applying Plus or making charms side by side with Blue, and takes comfort in their closeness, a shared blanket draped over them. The sounds of the other droids in the house, of her family, creaks throughout the house. Blue catches her hands when she pauses, presses a kiss to the back of them, and smiles at her. Red moves to stroke Blues cheek, already holding her heart and given hers in return, leans fully into Blues space and loves her so much she feels her circuits can barely handle it. They aren’t free and their lives aren’t really their own but this night, this shared moment, this quiet simple affection means everything to them.
Red doesn’t think of her life in sections anymore. One day their bodies will belong to themselves, to each other. One day the two of them can walk freely through streets, no routes to stick to or quotas to fill. The bots preaching on street corners won’t be trapped there by their rusting joints, and obsoletion will never worry them again. When that day comes, Red knows she’ll be with Blue.