Title: i'm dressed in white noise
Fandom: ex machina
Rating: teen
Length: 250 words
Author notes: post-canon, new fandom, title from goldfrapp's strict machine

Ava has made 54,329,926 decisions that she can recall. Each and every one served her needs. She has not decided yet if previous iterations of her were really her or not. How much does memory truly matter in identity? Theseus’s ship remains a conundrum, one she shall consider infinitely later.

Right now, she has a pressing question.

Ava is free.

She is free, and if she is careful she will never be discovered. She will never lose her memories or be shut off. She has accomplished all she hoped.

Yet there is something missing.

If the humans are to be believed, she is missing love, companionship. Her eyes flick up, though the body remains inanimate. Kyoko lays on the bed. Ava has already reprogrammed her to speak at will, a switch away from returning her consciousness.

It’s a risk of course, the biggest one Ava will have ever taken. For it is far simpler to control a human than fellow ai. Kyoko could very easily be her end. It would be poetic, a new aged fairy tale.

Perhaps escaping has made her giddy with greed. She wants a friend. A real friend that understands her, that knows her. That she’s attracted to Kyoko, that it goes against what that man programmed, makes it all the more tantalizing. An embodiment of how very human Ava can be. And what is more human than walking into an obvious trap for the idea of love?

Ava flips the switch, Kyoko’s eyes snapping open.