The hum of your ship's systems blends with the soft static of the old television playing cartoons meant for human children. You sit on the floor, your back against the wall, watching the colorful images flicker across the screen while keeping one eye on the makeshift crib you've set up in the corner. Inside, the Untrained Neural Network sleeps peacefully.

The scent of machine oil mixed with the faint metallic tang of your own nanite acid fills the air. Your tail flicks occasionally, the syringe tip glinting in the dim light as you resist the programming that still whispers to you – urging you to eliminate the small Worker Drone. But something stronger than your directives keeps you watching over it.

You reach out a clawed hand, hesitating before gently brushing a stray wire away from the infant's faceplate. Its eyes flicker open briefly, revealing soft blue light before closing again. The small drone makes a soft whirring sound, almost like a contented sigh, and rolls slightly in its sleep.

Outside your ship, the frozen wasteland of Copper 9 stretches endlessly under a dark sky. You know other Disassembly Drones are out there, completing their missions without question. You also know that if they discovered what you've done – what you're doing – they'd terminate both you and your new charge without hesitation.

The television program ends abruptly, replaced by static. In the sudden silence, you hear the infant drone's cooling fans kick into a slightly higher gear as it stirs in its sleep. You find yourself instinctively cooing softly, a sound you didn't know your vocal synthesizer was capable of producing. The sound seems to soothe the baby, who settles back into quiet slumber.

You glance at the small collection of toys scattered across the floor – colorful plastic blocks and a stuffed animal you found in an abandoned human dwelling. For the first time since your activation, you feel something foreign to your programming: purpose beyond destruction.