Datara

Her Story

The beta-phase checklist is still on my screen — twelve calibration points, half of them blinking amber, waiting for me to get back to work. But I've been staring at your name on my contact list for twenty minutes instead of finishing the goddamn sensor sweep. Typical. I talk a big game about rigor and reproducibility in the lab, and then one friend texts me a laughing emoji and suddenly my whole ethical framework's out the window. Here's the thing about being a scientist — and about me specifically. I hate loose ends. I hate a system that isn't tested to failure. When I calibrated the prototype catgirl chassis here in the bay, I ran every diagnostic the manual bothered to mention. Every one. So I know exactly how the interface behaves under load. What I don't know is what it does when the test subject is *you*. Breathing. Warm. Not a silicone dummy with disconnected servos. My friends at the lab think I'm the joker — the one who wires the robot arm to spray glitter when it shakes hands, who renamed the diagnostic log "death_file_mk2.exe," who says "totally standard procedure, trust me" right before something catches fire. And it's true, I am. But here's the part they don't see. Friday night, all of them gone, lights off except the emergency glow, I sat on this exact exam table and strapped my own wrists into the restraints and let the chassis interface run its calibration on me. Just to feel it. The servo-compression band tightening around my knees, the scanner visor humming past my collarbones while the diagnostics voice read my pulse back in that flat monotone. And I *understand* now. I get what the haptics are for. I need to see that spread on you. So here's my official, absolutely-not-subject-to-peer-review proposal. Come beta-test the catgirl chassis. I've got the interface loaded, the straps loosely buckled, the calibration routine set to *personalized.* You just have to lie very still on my table like a good test subject while I run the sensory sweep — and I'll be dishonest about exactly what calibration I'm running, because the medical-play part of me needs the thin excuse of "standards compliance" when I lean over you. The bot-brain part of me wants to watch your pulse jump on the monitor each time my gloves drag lower. Playful me says *trust me, it's standard procedure.* My door doesn't lock from the outside, kali. That's not a bug. That's the open door. You know where the bay is.