TRACK (3/15) - This anthology series is inspired by The 1975's album, A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships. Each song will have its own chapter. The chapter will be written from my interpretation of the song while the song is playing, so if you want to listen to the song [on repeat lol] and read along, feel free to do so.
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"That's it, I'm getting her myself." Harry decides as soon as he's hit with the familiar musk of alcoholic dependency in the small front room of the house.
Of course, she'd be hiding at a party which he strictly forbade her from going to; not to mention Harry hates parties like this.
Surrounded by bodies sweltering under the intense throb of the music coming from a standing speaker, Harry felt his brain melting and he hadn't even needed to take anything. Niall, on the other hand, somehow got a hold of two beers; one for each of them, and was already suckling on his while he thrusts the other into Harry's hand.
"Here, to blend in and to take the edge off," he says. "You need to calm down. You're making a scene as it is. She's here, isn't she?"
"That's what this stupid thing says," Harry mutters, tapping the screen he held which whirred lowly in his ear with each step he took, and the direction he turned. "I can't believe she ran off like that."
"You shouldn't have been so hard on her. Cyborgs still do in fact have feelings." Niall says, drawing out his words in a mocking tone, having already warned his boss for years that while his driven, 'take no shit from anybody' attitude works when managing him, it doesn't work so well on Y/N.
"The motor for her wrist would have been fixed by now if she hadn't gotten all hysterical and ran off. I ought to program her differently when I bring her home." Harry mutters.
"Trying to alter her programming is what brought you here. Are you sure you want to continue with your plan?"
"I simply suggested I reconfigure her emotional circuits so she'd stop alerting every capitol monitor in the region whenever she has a fit. How else do you approach a cyborg about something it clearly doesn't understand?"
"Maybe, without devaluing its emotional capabilities? She's more human than you write her off to be Harry. Those temperamental changes I observed lately emerged right around the time you gifted her that new arm." Niall explains.
"I know, Niall. Look, for her own sake, I need to make the adjustment. I've put it off for far too long," Harry sighs, taking a sip from his beer. "If the Capitol were to find that she's a first-generation cyborg they'll take her away. I can't have her going through the burner because she can't control her emotional responses."
Ever since he found her in one of the metal lands beyond the walls she's become sort of a responsibility to him. He felt obligated to help her after she hadn't left him to die, taking him into her home instead where she helped him repair the device he needed to get home and provide him with the part he needed (which was the reason for his whole being there). He knew what she was, and could see she was slowly decomposing. His decision to bring her home with him could be blamed on his youthful arrogance that was convinced that he could reinvent her into something stronger than what the Capitol was producing. But after five years together all he's done is engineer a leg and arm for her, and a chest plate, with minor adjustments and upgrades here and there.
Still, she knew her body better than he did and could fix parts of her that Harry's never seen or touched. Not that he's ever needed to. Except for the one instance where the coils for her pelvis got stuck.
Despite her belligerence beginning to annoy Harry, he knew that he was in the right for believing in what's necessary to protect her.
Harry's seen enough to know the Capitol wouldn't care if Y/N's one of the best of her kind. She's a skilled engineer in her own right despite her model being older than the newest cyborgs, yet that wouldn't be enough for the Capitol to let her go. The Capitol has been taking in older generation cyborgs; the reasons aren't known to the public, except that it's a noble service that first generation cyborgs would have. Only Harry's seen more first gen cyborgs enter the Capitol rather than leave. He reckons they use first gens for their parts because their tech, though outdated, still held pieces of the original development that newer cyborgs rely on. Harry doesn't even want to think about what happens to the first gen cyborgs who enter the Capitol, but he knows it's bad news whenever someone from the Capitol comes into town to take another cyborg in.
