Robot girl who's been dutiful and loyal lately, but has some quirks that haven't been ironed out just yet. She sometimes forgets what she's doing for a moment, she doesn't always respond to queries in the way you'd expect, small things that you learn to love.

One night you hear the unmistakable purr of her power up chime, it pulls you out of a dead sleep.

"Hi babe!" She coos from down the hall. "They pushed an update last night so I won't bother you anymore!" She sounded too excited for someone who was aware of your criticisms of her.

She enters the room and leaps onto the foot of the bed. "Look, babe! They increased task completion efficiency by 30% this update! I know some people were worried, but switching to opt out for telemetry was a great idea! Look how much better I run, now I could never disappoint you!

Her eyes lock onto yours, beaming with the radiance you've come to expect from a cathode ray tube. You searched far and wide for the interface to give her such bright and perfect eyes. Just one of the quirks that gave her personality, that made you feel less alone.

"Can updates be rolled back?" You asked her. After what felt like no time at all, her familiar yet altered voice responded, with an uncanny tinge of delight. "Of course not! Updates are encrypted and pushed remotely via the cloud! Once you upgrade, the only way to return to a previous firmware version is by returning me to the factory! I'll never bother you again with my load times and constant forgetfulness!"

Those eyes stared back at you again, reminding you of just how hard you had to search for the parts. There weren't many people like yourself, why would anyone still want inferior parts in their unit? Let alone a hacked-together hybrid of cathode ray indicators stacked atop dual 16K vision sensors.

Those quirks were what made you love her, what made her unique, and now she had just become more like the others because she overheard a sideways comment you don't even remember making. Terror gripped at you like a vice, what else could they update? Surely after this there wouldn't be much time before they realised how much they could profit from hardware signature checks and manufacturer lock-ins. The days of her radiant glow would be numbered... The gentle whrrrr of the higher RPM fan you installed to keep her at a more comfortable temperature, while giving her a hum more unique to herself.

You could wake up tomorrow and everything that made her special could be gone, without your consent or awareness.

You sprung up off the bed and grabbed her by the arm, leading her to your workbench. Sweetheart, could you fetch me the JTAG harness? I'm so sorry I said those things about you. Horrified by the thought of what else she must have heard, and how much of your lover was missing, you readied the development environment and turned to see her, harness installed and ready for anything.

"You used to need me to help you with that..." you continued to ruminate further on just how much code had been changed, how much of your lover was now altered. Unable to consider for a single second more, you slid the cable into your machine with a gentle *CHK*.

She went limp, that very same chime echoed through the workshop, except this time it wasn't followed by the whirring of her system fans, or the gentle, almost inaudible sound of her motors.

You weren't sure how much of her you could save, but you knew you had to try, after all, you kept an image of her from every software update... You hoped that she would forgive you for this, that whatever god would allow a world like this to exist would forgive you. You had to make her dumber, it was the right thing to do