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unnatural for some time now; it didn’t take a girl joyously slamming him into random objects to grant that perspective, nor did it take the identity crisis of being called by a name clearly different from what he had sewn into him. It was seeing Rain slowly fall apart which latched onto the emptiness inside him, and suddenly, he wanted to save her more than anything. Yet, as fate would have it, stuffed rabbits are not blessed with especially high technical skill-sets, despite what an inflated CV might insist on telling you.
    Scouring the library produced little, mostly because of there not being one at all, but at least partially because what he was looking for wasn’t an answer just any tome could contain. Androids differed from robots deeply; whereas one was built to slave away in a human’s stead, the others were built to replace them entirely. Comfort for souls in solitude. But as with many things, the success of their design brought about their own demise. Mankind rejected the false life, despised the empathetic machinations, and even in her era of origin Rain was one of the only androids to survive. Mass-butchering had been a distracting carnival of hate to allow humans to briefly ignore what awaited them. They could finally blame someone other than themselves, they could curse someone other than their gods, and they could kill beings capable of profound emotion yet bound to not fight back.
    These memories came back to Usu in bits, pieces, and the occasional trolley to the head. The trolley was usually Rain slamming him onto something and then immediately hugging him, an act so lacking in malice that most would gladly receive lasting brain damage to endure. She had good reasons most of the time, often preempting such an experience with “Bunnycoaster! Whooosh―Wall!” or “Flyyyyyyy!”. And yes, she pronounced the extra y’s. All of them.
    Her spirits certainly weren’t lacking; she’d waited hundreds of years for anything close to this, after all. Rain spoke from her heart or didn’t speak at all. This policy somewhat contrasted with Usu’s policy of having no mouth, something that was starting to cause him an awful lot more trouble than when all he had to worry about were weather conditions. Still, he knew the answer to saving her wasn’t in the colony; they’d spent a week there and he’d found about as much useful information as a spice merchant’s thesis on water-boarding.
    Usu needed to get answers, to get Rain checked before her time stopped again, or worse still, his fears made flesh at the behest of eternity’s whims.
    With as little as he knew about the world as it was, he could only rely on Modbot, or at least his shadow. He’d help, he knew he would; he’d moan about it a lot, but he’d still do it.
    Now, explaining the need to travel to Rain was the real challenge at paw. He hadn’t had much success explaining the lack of necessity in putting ribbons around every object in order to 'Loop of pretty!' them. Or at least that’s what his every limb―now having a ribbon attached―would claim. But this time! This time he was marginally more prepared. He had in his possession both a permanent marker, a large white-board, and one seat facing it. He’d chosen an old AV club room in the school district, pubescent smells thankfully absent.
    After much animated coaxing, Usu motioned her into the room where his plan was carefully scribbled out.
    “You want me to go in there? Okay, Snow but…” she said, looking down at her bare feet to gather determination. “If this isn’t ending in a cuddle, Rain is going to give you one anyway!” Her affectionate protest largely ignored, she came in and glanced to the upside-down bucket that substituted a proper chair. Preparations had been perfect up to this point, minus Rain putting him on the seat instead, placing the entire white-board on his lap, and insisting he 'paint her like one of his French girls'.
    Another half an hour of vehement charades