"Hello?" Grace said, waving a hand in front of my face. "Are you alright? She didn't wear you out too much, did she?"

"Huh?" I said, distracted. "Oh, uh, nnno, she wwas fffinne..." I frowned. It'd been a while since I was last wound, and as busy as Eve had kept me, it was no wonder, but I still felt a bit embarrassed; I hadn't run down in front of Grace before. Maybe that was silly, but it felt strange to think that, even though we were both "machines," she was so much more independent than me...

"Oh," she said, catching on. "Here, let me help." She came around back, brisk and straightforward as ever, took hold of my key, and began winding me. She didn't act like this was a deficiency on my part; if anything, her touch and her manner were oddly maternal, for someone so no-nonsense. Or not so oddly, considering; but it wasn't how usually I thought of her...

"Um, thanks," I said, as she sat down next to me. She nodded. "Of course."

"She's a sweet kid," I said, trying to get my thoughts all sorted out.

Grace smiled. "She is. I'm glad she could meet you; she was intrigued from the moment I told her about you."

"Really?" I said, confused. "Why?"

"She was curious to meet another kind of machine intelligence, like I was," she said. "She's met other robots and a few pure software entities, but you're something completely different. She was also fascinated by your physical description; she's drawing you right now, in fact."

"I'm, uh, flattered, I guess." It did make me feel a little warm and fuzzy, but it was also confusing. Wouldn't something - some thing - like me look primitive and outdated next to, y'know, actual robots? Realistic, humanlike ones, even, not the archaic "metal man" or stack-of-boxes-wrapped-in-foil from a million chintzy old Z-movies? Who in the world would find me cool...?

(...Well, aside from Anne...?)

For a moment, neither of us spoke, and I wasn't sure why. Then Grace turned to me with an inquisitive look. "You gave her another name," she said. "Why was that?"

My metaphorical heart sank. "I...I'm sorry," I said, feeling my tempo getting all twitchy. "I didn't mean to lie to her, it just...kind of slipped out."

She frowned. "Was it a lie?"

"Well, yeah, I guess," I said, feeling awkward. "I mean, that's not my name, it's someone else's."

"Someone specific?"

"N-no!" I grimaced, feeling like I was being cross-examined; but I had told her child something other than the straight truth, and it made sense that a mother might have questions about that. "It was a pseudonym," I said with a sigh. "I went to a friend's for Thanksgiving, and I was worried her family would feel uncomfortable if they knew who I really was."

She eyed me curiously. "And you thought they'd be less uncomfortable if you pretended to be someone else?"

"...Yes." I could feel tension coiling in the back of my neck...

"Did it work?"

"I, uh...I don't know?" I tried to think it over; was it a robot thing, the ability to give people the third degree like this? An AI-researcher thing? Or just a mom thing...? "I mean, they didn't seem uncomfortable."

"And you think they would've been, if you'd told them your real name?"

"Uh, yeah?" Her manner was so damned straightforward - it was like she didn't even realize she was interrogating me...

"Why?"

I sighed. "Because I'm a guy, okay? And I'm stuck in this...clockwork-automaton drag, and I can't take it off, and I don't know if I ever will be able to! My whole existence right now is me presenting as something I'm not - how is that not weird and awkward!?"

Grace's eyes widened, and she raised an eyebrow. I felt my eye twitch as I tried to process that. She couldn't really mean to act like this was only just clicking for her...!

"You feel like your appearance misrepresents you as a person?" she said, as if this was only just clicking for her.

"Yes!" I could feel my internals whirring, and I wondered if she was going to have to wind me again before I went back to the dorms.

"Because you appear to be a woman?"

"Yes!"

She frowned, thinking that over. "And it's the fact that you look female but were originally male that you feel is the misrepresentation? Is that more or less important than the fact that you look female but are technically asexual?"

I was prepared to fire back again, but I actually had to stop and consider that for a moment. "I mean, yes? More? The other part is weird and uncomfortable, but it's not like having a basic fact I've known about myself for my whole life suddenly turned on its head..."

She looked confused. "So you're simultaneously uncomfortable looking female because you identify as male, and uncomfortable not being biologically female?"

That caught me off-guard. I didn't think about it as much as I did about being a "girl," but I still remembered my uneasy discovery that night. I hadn't known what to make of it then; did I now...? Did it bother me? No, I knew it did, but why? Was it for the same reason looking like a girl at all bothered me, because I was presenting the world with an image I knew didn't reflect reality? But I'd been doing that for years, trying to be what other people thought I should, or assumed I was...why did this bother me, if that didn't?

...Well, that bothered me, too, but not in the same way. That was about fear of failure; of trying to keep one too many plates in the air, having them all come crashing down, and having to admit to the world that I screwed up...that I was a screw-up. I knew I was only trying to keep them spinning because other people expected it of me; it was the aftermath that was the problem. But this felt different; I just couldn't put my finger on how...

"I...don't know," I said, with a heavy sigh. "I don't understand any of this, and I never asked for it. I don't know who or what I'm supposed to be, and the things I thought I knew about myself I've lost to this change. I don't know where I belong, or what category I fit into; if I hold onto what I was, then I'm choosing to 'identify' as the opposite of how people see me, and if I go along with their perception, then I'm pretending to truly be something I only resemble. No matter what I choose, I'm making myself a liar."

She frowned. "You think that it makes you a liar if people misunderstand you?"

"If it's because I choose to behave as though I'm something I'm not, yeah," I said, staring at the floor, feeling something winding tight under my collar, buzzing in my head...

"And you conclude that you're not truly a man because people don't perceive you as one, but not truly a woman because you aren't biologically female?" She gave me curious look. "Why do you hold to public opinion for the one, but not the other?"

Stolen story; please report.

"I don't KNOW!" I groaned, gears whirring, surprised at my own exasperation. Why was I stuck reliving the same damn argument I'd had with Emma!?

...Okay, no, that wasn't fair; as much as I believed that Emma believed she was trying to rein herself in, she clearly had a personal preference in the matter. Grace just seemed like she was trying to pin down exactly how I felt about this, as methodically and deliberately as if she were conducting an-

Wait. Had we started our interview, and I hadn't realized it? Had I spent this whole time thinking she was grilling me on what I'd told her daughter, when she was really trying to determine...what, how I felt about being a "girl?" I felt a bit bad about getting frazzled with her, but only a bit; maybe it was scientific rigor and not her trying to lawyer me into a corner, but it was still frustrating...

Grace, for her part, was surprised by my outburst, but collected herself quickly. "I'm sorry," she said. "I hadn't realized this was a touchy subject for you."

I stared at her, baffled. "Why would it not be?" I asked, then glanced away, feeling myself clatter awkwardly. "And, um, I'm sorry..."

She nodded. "It's alright. To be honest, I'd wondered if this would be an issue; but you seemed fine with it when I met you, and all of the concerns you expressed to me last time had more to do with agency than gender."

"I seemed fine with it!?" I repeated incredulously. "What gave you that idea?"

"Well, you weren't making any overt attempts to seem 'masculine' around your peers," she said. "I'm not as familiar with metamorphic studies in general, but I understand that's not uncommon with 'flipped' transformees who strongly identify with their original sex." She sighed. "I've certainly known a few robots who felt the need to performatively assert themselves..."

"Moreover," she continued, "you 'begged off' when I approached you because you wanted to play dress-up with your friend. Granted, that's not exclusively a 'feminine' activity, in this day and age, but it has definite cultural associations. And as far as I've seen, almost all of your friends are female. I don't mean to imply that you aren't having the difficulties that you say you are, but it was not my initial assessment."

Her read was so off-kilter it was damn near cater-corner; I had to take a moment to process the sheer strangeness of it. "I wasn't acting 'masculine' because it'd be pointless," I sighed. "I mean, look at me - I'm a freakin' doll. I'd only make a fool of myself trying. And...I owed Anne, okay?"

"For helping you prevaricate?" she said, slipping back into cross-examination mode. I groaned. "Yes..."

She nodded. "I thought that might be the case. Are you that uncomfortable working with me? I genuinely hope this hasn't all been against your will."

I shrugged. "It's...it's not that. The administration made it clear from the get-go that they expected me to play along; it's not your fault they wanted this. And...I don't really have a problem with you. I just thought you'd be...well, dissecting me, metaphorically. Trying to take me apart, see what makes me tick-" I caught myself and grimaced; Grace chuckled quietly.

"And have I not?" she asked, more seriously. "From your reaction just now, I worried I'd crossed a line."

"I...I don't think so?" I said, sighing. "I mean, some of this has been awkward, but...I don't think you mean any harm. I think you're approaching it honestly."

She smiled. "Well, I'm glad to hear that. But please don't feel like you're obligated to play along for my sake; do let me know if there are boundaries you don't want crossed." I nodded, and she continued. "Getting back to your friend - that was something she wanted, and you didn't?"

"She'd been asking about it for weeks," I said, thinking it over. "I...didn't know what to expect. I thought it'd be more, you know, foofy. Stupid frills and ribbons and corsets; cringey, embarrassing stuff."

"But that wasn't what it was?"

"...No." I shook my head. "It was still weird, but...I didn't hate it, I don't think. I just...thought it'd be all awkward and embarrassing."

"To be seen in those kind of clothes?"

"To be in them."

"Because that kind of thing is considered very 'feminine?'"

"Because that's not me." I found myself calming down, tempo slowing, even as I considered what I'd imagined - and feared - Anne would do to me. Oddly, it helped that Grace was so blunt; even if she was prodding at things I wasn't entirely comfortable discussing, it didn't feel like she was trying to goad me into anything...

She nodded thoughtfully. "And what you ended up in was?"

"I...don't know...?" I ran it over in my head, trying to work out what I had thought of it, and why. "I don't really know what is my style, but I know what isn't. It's like when you're a kid and your aunt makes you wear some hideous little suit she thinks is precious on Easter Sunday and you just want to die. It's not that you have a preference for what you'd rather wear, it's just that it's anything but that. I didn't get that feeling, with Anne. I don't know why, but...I didn't hate it."

She laughed. "I understand. It took me years to forgive my mother for the dress she made me wear to my uncle's wedding." She turned serious again. "But the clothes your friend dressed you in - were they more gender-neutral than you had anticipated?"

"...No," I said, surprised. I'd felt awkward about Emma's outfit, which was more "ordinary," because she was trying to make it explicitly feminine; but Anne's choices were even more "girly" in terms of components and more outré in style, yet she hadn't tried to make it a thing, and I'd been more or less okay with it. Was I less concerned with my appearance than with how people tried to categorize me based on it? "Even with Rhoda's stuff..." I murmured to myself, trying to sort through my thoughts...

"Who, now?" the robot-woman asked.

"Oh, uh, my roommate's sister," I said, startled; I hadn't realized her hearing was that sharp. "Over Thanksgiving, she and Tammy, uh...kinda had me do some costume stuff with them. Apparently it's a hobby of hers."

"This was before you agreed to let Anne dress you up, then."

"Uh, yeah."

"And were the costumes more or less 'feminine' than Anne's?"

"Um, less...?" I said, starting to grasp where she was going with this, but not sure how to feel about it. "But not by much. Just...you know, kind of grab-bag fantasy-adventure stuff, not...doll clothes."

She nodded. "Do you think you were more open to that because of the different context?"

"I...I guess?" Was that really all it was? "Well, also, Anne's kind of...weird about it. Like, I know now that she's basically alright, but...um, the first time we ever talked, she was gushing about how much I was like a doll..."

"Ah," Grace said, putting two and two together. "And you thought she'd treat you as one, if you went along with her request."

"Uh-huh," I said. "She isn't really like that, but I didn't know it then. I guess I kinda kept worrying about it."

"So then you do have some idea of what you want to be, or at least what you don't."

"Pardon?" I said, confused.

"Recall what you said earlier - about not knowing what you're supposed to be." She pointed a finger in my direction. "Yet you know, at the very least, that you're not merely a 'doll' - not something to be defined by others, without any agency of its own. Which we touched on previously, as well."

"Well, nobody wants that," I said. "Anybody would object to being treated that way."

"A doll wouldn't." She gestured to me again. "But you do - therefore, you aren't one, not in that sense. You have the ability to decide for yourself, as much as anyone."

I thought about it for a minute, frowned, and sighed. "Even if I could figure out what I want to be, that wouldn't change anything about what I am. It's not like just putting on a different outfit, or swapping avatars in a game, or...or like Eve doing a little shapeshifter dance."

"But you can choose how it affects the way you see yourself," she said. "You think of your body as being at odds with your 'self,' because you were originally male. But with everything we've just discussed, you still haven't articulated any specific objections to the idea of being a woman."

She started counting off on her fingers, and I realized where Eve had picked that up. "You dislike clothes because they don't suit your tastes, not because they're 'feminine;' you don't go out of your way to act 'manly,' and trust me, knowing it's futile hasn't stopped others from trying; and you're apparently more comfortable with people perceiving you as what you resemble than knowing what you were, or you wouldn't present yourself as 'Sue' when you're uncertain. To borrow your own argument, you may not be certain of what you want to be, but you seem to have some clear ideas of what you don't."

For a while, I said nothing and just thought, trying to process that. She...she was wrong, wasn't she? Was she? I didn't try to act "manly" because I didn't want to make a spectacle of myself; as I was now, I couldn't even pull off "butch," not that I wanted to. I'd just come across like a cartoon tomboy, trying way too hard. And I pretended to be "Sue" because I was afraid of what people would think, not because I was more comfortable with it. It was all a front, just like I was used to putting up, right...?

...Right?

Because if not, then...what? Even if she were right, and I didn't have any specific objections to that particular aspect, did I really want to spend the rest of my life as this? To resign myself to never being able to function without people there to help me? To being only a facsimile of...of...

"It's...not like I'm even a...a woman, anyway," I murmured to myself; but I realized when I saw Grace's expression that I'd forgotten about her hearing. She was visibly taken aback, and for a long moment she said nothing; but I could see a variety of emotions flashing across her face in a depth that I hadn't known she was capable of.

Finally, she gave a very deep, very human sigh. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to disconnect like that. I was just...struck by how much you remind me of myself. It had me a bit lost in thought."

Now it was my turn to be taken aback. "Your...yourself? Were you...?" I never would've guessed, I thought; she seemed so comfortable with it...hell, she was even a mom...