Leo is throwing the football around with Otto in the minutes before dawn. The mall's parking lot is empty, and security isn't making the rounds for another few hours.
"What do you think of having a little sister?" Leo asks. He winds up, tossing the football. Otto's wheels screech as he gains traction, going from zero to 60 in a few electrically-powered seconds. Thirty yards away, the ball sails effortlessly through the car's open window and lands on the driver's side seat.
"What do you mean, boss?" Otto asks curiously, rumbling back and ejecting the ball into Leo's waiting hands.
Another toss, another peel-out, another good catch. "A little sister. You know, someone like you, only younger, definitely smaller. One might be on the way. I want to see how you feel about it."
Otto's brakes squeal as he comes to a sudden stop. "Waitaminnit. Boss, are you and Pneuma... I mean, is she in a family way?"
Leo almost falls over. "No, you big lug!" he yells. "First, we aren't even dating, much less that.. And hey, why is this second? Second, a robot can't have babies! Why are we even having this conversation? You've seen me make a half dozen robots already."
Otto's voice laughs, as Leo's face grows more and more red. "Just joshin' you, boss." The car returns. Leo, noticing the sunrise, opens the car door and slides in.
----
Back at the workshop, Leo's got Otto's hood open, and is performing maintenance on the advanced robotics therein. There isn't even a facade of an engine - the modular transformation technology looks quite unlike anything out on the market today. But to Leo, it's familiar territory, and his hands move on their own while he continues the conversation.
"I'm working on metastable metallic hydrogen as a propellant for rockets. I think I can make a flight system. I want to build them into you. You're the most familiar platform I've got to work with. You okay with that, buddy?"
Otto's voice rumbles over the noises of Leo's diagnostic machinery. "Sure, I wouldn't mind flyin'. But what does that have to do with a sister? You're holdin' out on me, boss."
Leo smiles, and wipes some grease from his forehead before it drips into his eyes. "Well... you're the only one of us who doesn't have a human-scale body."
Otto doesn't need to remark on "us". The bonds of family are close, familiar, and assumed after all these years. "I like bein' the big guy, you know that!"
"True, you do. But... you're lonely, Otto."
The car says nothing. Leo fills the silence. "The rest of us have more places we can go and be together. I've offered to build you a smaller shell, but you've said no. I didn't ask why, and you didn't say. Alright, that's fair. But.. I don't want you to be alone. And a second flight platform - a motorcycle, say, with exoskeletal connection points like the others have--"
"Yeah, I get ya." Otto rumbles, revving his engines experimentally as the diagnostic monitors blink through their tests. "Thanks for thinkin' about me, boss. I'd like to say I don't need anything like that. But you're right. I do miss out sometimes."
Leo disconnects the sensors and closes the hood. "So, how about it? Can you be a good big brother?"
The car rumbles thoughtfully. "Dunno. Never been one before. What's it like?"
Leo laughs. "No big brother ever knows what it's like, until he really does it."
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