FFM 2025 17: Before QWERTY

Challenge: Use neopronouns instead of he/she/they. One of the characters must redo something before the end of the story.

This challenge turned out to be just about perfect for QWERTY’s backstory, so that’s what you get here. Viva!

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QWERTY remembers aers first boot and going through the identity selection program. Name — aers first name, Lora, based on aers serial number, LO-12-1 — preferred pronouns in gendered languages — ae always sounded lovely — and so on. It was followed by the initiation program, which acclimated aer to the world and aers basic functions.

Existence was exciting. The KoltoMech LO-series was a jack of all trades and while some of Lora’s batchmates bemoaned the lack of a definite function, ae did not mind. In aers processor, it meant they had far more options for work out there than the mechs who were built for a limited set of functions. Having variance meant that should any of the LO units grow bored of their work, they could go find something else to do, while the more limited mechs would have to either put up with it or reset their memory units (and perhaps even personality programming, in the most extreme cases).

Lora, alongside many others of aers batch, was soon hired by the Interstellar Relief Foundation, which needed jacks of all trades just like them. Ae came to love being part of the relief operations; no job was the same or came with the same tasks, as ae and aers batchmates found themselves inevitably doing everything they had been designed for, from translation to medical aid to heavy lifting to combat.

Ae loved the variance, as much as the organics’ nonsense that came with not just the trauma the people the IRF was helping had endured but also the less charitably motivated people in the crew irritated aer. The variance and the gratitude of the people ae helped made putting up with the irritating parts of the job worth it all and so much more.

As illogical and frustrating as organics could be, Lora would have never exchanged aers job for something that involved less interaction with them.

Then came the day that changed everything. A relief mission gone awry by a pirate attack. An EMP bomb crashed both the security units as well as all the other mechs in the small camp, including Lora. When ae rebooted, aers combat systems, both the weapons as well as all related protocols, were disabled, as were communications systems. When ae was able to observe aers surroundings, ae found the other mechs in similar states.

The pirates wiped their identifier chips and sold them all on the black market. Lora never saw most of aers fellow mechs ever again, with only one other LO unit and two security units being bought by the same organic who picked aer.

An organic who turned out to be a “hiring manager” for a slaver operation on planet Heot. A snide Gheiah by the name Olgh, who filled their identifier chips with bogus information and gave them their tasks. Lora and aers fellow LO unit, Polly, found themselves working as “pretty cleaners”.

Ae hated the new job, both because of how ae ended up there and because of the demeaning way ae and Polly were treated. Ae knew Polly hated it too, but with their weapons systems offline and security units reprogrammed to keep slaves from fleeing, they had no choice but to put up with it or risk reprogramming.

Polly eventually got so sick of it that ze decided to risk it, only to be caught and reprogrammed into liking the degenerate way the slavers treated the mechs and organics who were made to be “pretty cleaners”.

Lora hated it but ae hated the idea of turning out like Polly even more, and so ae continued to put up with all the nonsense.

Then, one day, an Eskel-Zai warrior — clearly a dishonorable one, just like all their customers — wound up taking interest in aer. The warrior, for whatever reason, decided to place a bet to get custody of aer rather than outright buy aer and wound up winning. Somehow even further demeaned by the way ae had been used as a wager like an appliance, Lora was taken to a Koltotech AZ-3000 named Riverless.

Then the warrior asked aer to help with breaking people out of the slaver operation. Ae was more than happy to oblige.

The warrior’s mission was a massive success, releasing not just the Infini’Republic general the warrior had been sent to rescue but also multiple bystanders. After everyone had been released from the bureaucratic process that followed their rescue, Lora stood in front of the ship’s ramp, wondering what ae was supposed to do with aers existence now. The IRF had gone downhill while ae had been absent to the point ae no longer wanted to be a part of it despite having that option.

The warrior — Beyari Ket — offered a solution, “I could use a reliable partner during my hunts and I think you and I worked well together on Heot. What do you say?”

“I’d still like to do relief jobs,” Lora informed.

“Why not both? We could hunt and render aid alternately.”

Lora considered. Ae liked the sound of that. “Deal.”

Beyari Ket grinned. “Super.”

When the Riverless took off from Frio-Lont, Lora re-ran aers identity selection program; after the events of Heot, ae was in need of revising aers identity, not to mention restoring aers identifier chip’s data.

Quite a lot of the things remained the same; the pronoun ae sounded just as lovely as on the day ae had first booted up, and ae still agreed with many of aers original selections.

Aers name, however, ae had wanted to change for a long time now.

When the program finished, ae reached out to shake aers new partner’s hand. “I am KoltoMech LO-series android QWERTY. Pleasure to meet you.”

Beyari Ket shook aers hand. “The pleasure is all mine, QWERTY. Welcome to the crew.”