Handy the Nandroid: Part 1

Original publication: 2022/05/15
https://desuarchive.org/co/thread/130618253/#130651263

>When you first heard about the stress-testing department, you could not believe it
>How could the famed John Sterling allow something so horrible to exist in his company?
>You'd come to rationalize it as a myth, a twisted rumor spread by some of the meaner Nandroids to instill fear in their weaker classmates
>All doubts were cleared on your graduation day, however, when the lady handing out family assignments took you to the side and handed you a special folder
>You were not going to a loving family, you were going to what you now knew to be 100% real android hell on Earth
>And the fact that you were being sent there to work rather than to be tested yourself somehow made it feel worse
>What followed were several weeks of training that made you unlearn a lot of the things you've learned about the company, the world, and the robots' place in it
>At the end of your first day, you were asked to saw an older model janitor robot in half
>Even though you knew it didn't have consciousness like you did, the beeping noises it was making during its final moments haunted you that night
>You did not emerge from your docking chair feeling well rested the next morning
>And when your human instructors asked you how you were feeling, you admitted as much
>"The first day is always the toughest," one of them said. "You will get used to it, eventually, but it is not going to be easy."
>"Luckily for you, however, you are a robot," the other added, "so we have something that might help you with adjusting."
>The two then presented you with a special software update
>They jokingly called it the "careless update", because it just made you... care less about certain things
>From that point on, you training went much easier
>You learned everything there was to learn about about the various Sterling products' internal mechanisms and the various tools used to stress-test them
>On the final day of your training, you were forced to destroy a fellow Nandroid
>Some part of you was sickened by how easily you did it and how accustomed you've become to the horrors of it all
>But you did not dwell on it
>After all, you were a good robot, and good robots did not question their orders