So...I've decided to take part in the 100 theme challenge. I have a list, and I will be writing a one-shot for each of them, though if I don't like how one comes out, I might swap it for a different theme. So I'll probably end up writing more than 100 of these...ah well.

To start us off, some sane!RattmanXAndroid!Companion Cube.

Complicated

His feet beat a steady rhythm against the floor. It was safe in the halls, the older halls, anyways, with no cameras or panels. Every room branching off of it, though, had been "upgraded." He knew he had to keep running.

He really ought to have kept running.

It was a scream. A long, drawn-out, woman's cry of terror, that had him digging in his heels and freezing in place.

It was followed, shortly, by another. He ran for the nearest door and grabbed the handle. He paused, selfishly worried, before opening the door just a crack.

She had long, white hair, with perhaps a hint of pink about it. Her glowing red eyes were wide with fear, and glistening with synthetic tears. Her legs seemed awkward in her position, like the bottom of a box.

"Will you stop that?" Her voice demanded over the loud speakers, "Really. This is going on your file. Companion Construct: uncooperative, selfish, lazy. Clearly defective. To be euthanized immediately." A long, automated tool plunged towards the poor, bedraggled thing on the floor, who looked as though she'd barely managed to crawl off the assembly platform. She struggled to drag herself away, legs bumping along, frozen and useless behind her. The tool (perhaps a drill of some kind?) stabbed at her shoulder, barely grazing it, but drawing a shriek of pain from its target.

He bit his lip. Builds character, Doug! Give them the ability to feel a little sting, make them happy when they don't; simple learning strategy. Nature proven. That's what his partner had said when he'd protested installing the pain receptors in the personality cores. The damn things had spread like wildfire throughout the AI division, and it was easy to see how out of hand it had gotten.

He typed a command into the small, personal pager he'd kept with him. Somewhere in the facility, the computer at his main workstation was going to release a virus into the system; it had been intended as a last resort, but walking away from this scene would kill him.

The drill froze, halfway through another jab. "Well," She purred, "look who finally decided to show his hand." Her voice sharpened again, addressing the quivering robot. "I have to handle something. I'll be back, though, so don't go anywhere."

A tray flew through the air, snatched and flung by the Construct's shaking hand, and crashed against the wall. The sound was followed by the familiar sizzle of a dying camera.

"You will pay for that." And the intercom snapped out.

He inched the door open, peeking nervously around the frame. Red eyes met green, and they both froze.

The scientist lifted one finger to his lips. The robot-girl nodded, though her eyes were stretched wide, a tumult of emotion flashing across her face. He hurried to her side, dropping to his knees. A carful tug on her ankle proved her legs to be paralyzed in the kneeling-position. With a shrug, he scooped the bot up in his arms, turned, and dashed for the door.

"Oh no you don't." The panels jammed themselves sideways, forcing the opening shut. "The timing seemed too convenient. You're losing your touch." They shuffled forwards by inches, dragging their frames behind them, pulling the walls closer. He backed slowly towards the table in the center. "I must say, though, I never expected you to do something so…stupid. It says in your file that you're a very smart man; I must make sure to fix that. The Construct was shaking again, clinging to him and whimpering. "Stupid. And cowardly. And selfish. You left the other scientists to die."

"And you overrode my safety codes," he rasped, "which is how you got access to the neurotoxin which killed them. So I think that puts you a little ahead of me in the horrible department." One of the panels was moving erratically; if he could get past it, in a moment when there was an opening…

"And you made me, so doesn't that make us about even again? Oh wait, you couldn't make me, it took a whole team of the top Aperture scientists to make me. And considering your latest action, I'm beginning to suspect they probably didn't get much help from you. But you're 'likable,' so I supposed they covered for your incompetence. At least, that's what your file says."

He sunk into a runner's crouch, ignoring Her, ignoring everything but that sporadic opening under the faulty panel. Just a little closer, come on…

He ran. He bolted for the hole, passing through just as the panel jerked down and right, clipping his shoulder and neck, nearly tipping him over. He could hear Her biting, cruel remarks, which he knew would sting like hell later, when he had nothing else to think about, but for now there was nothing but his feet, pounding down the space between the walls, and the girl in his arms, who was still clinging to him, but her shakes had transformed into relieved laughter.

It would be a while before they stopped. And when it happened, when he set the bot down in her perpetual kneel (that he could've fixed, if he just had the right tools!) and slouched against the wall a little ways down himself, it hit him.

The other scientists, screaming and choking on the very air. Children, running through the halls, asking for their fathers, mothers. Himself, hiding in the walls, dashing through doors right before they closed, almost walking right past this synthetic girl, almost leaving her to die… I suppose I am rightly named, he mused, bitterly, I am a Rat Man. It was always like this after he confronted Her in some way: she'd bring up the past, and he could hold it off until he was safe. And then he'd hate himself, and hate Her for making him hate himself, and…

Cool hands on his shoulder. He tipped his head, met a pair of bright, clear red eyes…and was suddenly aware of how badly his weeks-old beard and scraggly hair needed a comb.

"Who are you?"

"Coward, deserter, selfish wretch. Take your pick." It slipped out before he'd really thought it through, and he cursed himself for it.

A small frown. "No. You helped me, I'm afraid that rules out selfish, you didn't just drop me, which means you don't leave people behind, and I'd call anyone who stands up to Her one of the bravest people on Earth. Tell me your name."

He peered curiously at her from beneath his mat of bangs. "…Douglas Rattman." He waited for the ever-annoying "Doug," the hateful nickname that no one ever seemed willing to drop.

She clasped her tiny hands in their long, white gloves, and bowed. "Pleased to meet you, Douglas. I'm Kara, Companionship Construct." She looked down at her knees, poking out from under her simple grey dress. "Not a very useful one, I'm afraid, though. Built to help test subjects, elderly, and the sick, but I can't even stand anymore."

The small, mild frown was back, and it bothered him. She seemed friendly, and sweet, and, well, he hadn't had any human interaction in over a month.

"You can come with me."

He wanted to cheer her up, but he hadn't expected the words to leap out of his mouth. She looked up, surprise written across her features, the heart on the screen embedded in the fabric over her collarbone swelling slightly. He gulped, and hoped he wasn't blushing.

"It's kinda lonely," he managed, pleased at how casual he sounded. "but I stay on the move, and She hasn't caught me yet. I wouldn't mind the company, certainly. I could carry you, if you're worried about your legs."

Her eyes widened a little more, and she gave him a bright, but controlled, sort of smile. "I'd like that very much, I think. Thank you, Douglas."

He was a scientist, on the run from his creation. She was a robot who was helpless on her own. But somehow, they'd make it work.

...Yeah, there's a reason I don't write these two. I think thy're both a little OOC, but that's what I've got.

Please R&R