Chapter Text
Lando truly had no clue what he was signing up for when he applied for this job.
He has just got his engineering degree, so he is pretty desperate for work. He applied for every job he could find, not really paying attention to job titles after a while. Being fresh out of university he didn’t really have the option to be picky.
One job title did stick out to him, a robotics job with a very vague title. Something about being a “Mechanical Engineer for Robotics” at McLaren racing. He just assumed he would be working on the cars electronics, doing some odd jobs maybe. Little did he know what he was getting into.
McLaren has two drivers, Daniel Riccardo, and Oscar Piastri.
Daniel Riccardo is great, an amazing driver. But now that he’s getting closer to retirement all the real focus at the moment is on their newest driver, the one who’s been showing insane potential.
Oscar Piastri.
He’s been set up for a good career, amazing performance. Getting better with each race, he’s becoming popular. Real popular.
He’s a little shy maybe, not sure how to talk to press, keeping to himself more than other drivers. Nothing bad, just not that social of a guy. Nothing out of the ordinary, hell might be refreshing with how other drivers can be.
Lando had to admit he was a bit of a fan of Oscar’s, he watches Formula 1 casually. His university friends would put it on and he would tune in every now and then, but he has to admit he was more likely to pay attention when Oscar was on screen.
He’s handsome after all, a little awkward at times but handsome non-the-less.
Honestly, the job title mostly stood out to him cause of the hope to meet Oscar.
Daniel too but, mainly Oscar.
He thought it would be a fun job to do for a few years, the vague job description mentioned it being an opportunity to travel for work, so he thought it would be something fun early to do in his career. Something impressive to put on a resume, not permanent, nothing insane.
He got an interview, and it went well. The interviewer said he seemed perfect for the job, that he had a good chance to get it. A nice lady who just asked vague questions about programming languages. It sounded great, Lando was pretty excited.
Once he got the job, he was invited to the McLaren Technology Center. All Lando was told on the phone is that he would be in charge of a project.
Sounded surreal at the time to be in charge of a project for McLaren, little did he knows how more surreal it would become.
When he arrived he was immediately ushered away, a security guard taking him through many hallways, using a plethora of keycards for each wing. It didn’t seem odd to him at the time, but now it makes a lot of sense.
After like 10 hallways they made it to a big door with the words “McLaren O. P. Robotics Center” on a huge sign above the door.
Lando wasn’t told much on the way here by anyone, the emails he got were vague, calls felt weirdly short, and the people at the front desk seemed a little tense when they heard his name.
Lando tried to think nothing of it, but when he walked into that room everything made even less sense than before.
Two men are in the room waiting for Lando, one Lando recognises instantly. Oscar Piastri. The other Lando doesn’t.
Oscar Piastri sits on a bench, he’s shirtless which caught Lando’s eye first admittedly. But something else catches his eye too, something that looks like an opened flap of skin on his left arm.
He’s plugged into some computer, diagnostics visible on multiple screens.
Diagrams, graphs, lines of constantly moving code.
It looks complex, like something out of a sci-fi movie. Nothing Lando has ever seen before.
He understands parts of it, the coding language seems familiar to him, the graphs seem to be about some statistic.
But overall it’s confusing.
Lando looks back at Oscar, feeling a little uncomfortable cause to him him it looks like Oscar’s arm was cut open. Oscar looking incredibly calm though.
But as Lando moves closer he realises what he’s seeing.
That isn’t flap of skin, thats a panel. And metal can be seen inside, wires and metal.
Lando pauses only a few steps now from the door, his mind struggling to process whats happening in front of him.
The man walks up to Lando casually, holding out his hand for him to shake, “I’m Tom Stallard, Oscar’s racing engineer.”
Lando shakes the man’s hand, his eyes unable to move from the exposed metal under Oscar’s skin.
What the hell is going on here? What the hell is Oscar? What the hell did he sign up for?
Oscar doesn’t move his gaze, just staring at the wall with a blank expression.
Lando clears his throat, “Nice to meet you?”
Lando’s tone is more of a question than a response, Tom looks back at Oscar who is sitting on the bench staring directly ahead at a wall. Not even looking near the other two, his expression entirely blank.
Tom looks at Lando with a raised eyebrow, clearly not expecting the confusion, “You were told right?”
Lando shakes his head, his eyes still glued to the wires. Completely unaware of what he’s meant to know by now.
Is he some cyborg? Some robot? Is this one big prank?
Sure Lando was told that he would manage a robotics project, but he didn’t think it could possibly be an actual robot.
What is the project? God he’s so unprepared for this job.
Tom mutters something about ‘useless management’ under his breath, clearly he’s unprepared too.
“Oscar Piastri is McLaren’s robotics team’s most recent attempt at an android driver.” Tom explains, as if that should clear everything up.
It doesn’t, Lando’s left with even more questions than he had before. His mind struggling to process what this means.
He was right, he’s a robot. But it doesn’t entirely help the confusion.
Android? Like entirely robotic.
He looks so human, if it wasn’t for the panel being open you wouldn’t even know.
His chest is rising and falling, it looks like breathing,
His eyes are blinking.
If it wasn’t for him being so still, Lando wouldn’t think anything of it.
Wait.
Most recent? They’ve tried this before?
“Oscar Piastri is an android? Like a robot?” Lando asks, his eyes looking Oscar up and down.
Tom nods, walking to stand next to Oscar. Lando hesitantly walks by his side, not sure if he should keep his distance or not.
“McLaren realised that the real future of Formula 1 could be with robotics, so Oscar Piastri 8.1 is their attempt at a fully autonomous robotic driver.” Tom says, Oscar finally looking up when he hears his name.
Part of Lando feels like he’s being pranked.
How the hell is this possible?
If this is true, Oscar would be one of the most advanced pieces of technology ever created. Technology being used that no one else would even be aware of yet.
Lando is both in awe and disturbed at the same time, unsure of what to make of this.
“What is my job then? No one told me.” Lando asks, now unsure of what the hell he managed to get himself into.
Again, Tom mutters further about the useless management.
Tom moves closer to Lando now, “You are here to perform maintenance on Oscar, make sure he’s at peak performance for races.”
Lando nods slowly, really trying to process all this information properly. But it’s impossible, what he’s looking at right now should not exist. It shouldn’t even be possible.
How the hell is he meant to do this job?
Tom walks towards the computer, Lando follows behind him, a little hesitant.
“Everything is on here, he runs on systems and code you said you understood during your interview.”
Yeah they asked Lando a few questions about which coding languages he was familiar with, but they never explained that they would be used in this way.
He feels so unprepared, so naive. He’s fresh out of university, why are they trusting him with this?
Lando nods though, trying to not look as overwhelmed as he feels. He’s also trying to interpret what is on all of those monitors. The coding language is familiar to him, but it’s more complex than Lando had ever seen before.
Lines of code flash across the screen, tracking every single process in Oscar’s system. Every blink, every movement of his eyes, every ‘breath’. It’s so strange.
Tom looks towards the computer, and then back at Lando, “I have no clue whats going on here, I’m just his race engineer. But you should…” he pauses for a moment before adding, “Eventually.”
Great, they are really giving him a lot of help here aren’t they?
Lando just stares at the computer, unsure what to say. Watching very process update.
Tom clears his throat, briefly looking towards Oscar again, “I’ll leave you to get to know Oscar, the robotics team said they’ll train you later.”
Tom walks out, not leaving Lando any time to ask any more questions.
Great.
He just dropped a bombshell on him and then expected Lando to understand everything, why the hell is McLaren racing so horrible at communication? Especially about something this insane.
Lando is unsure on what to do, but he decides to introduce himself to Oscar.
He should act human right? He’s meant to be one.
He rolls over an office chair to sit on facing Oscar, trying to think of what to say. Oscar just stares directly ahead as if Lando wasn’t even there. Unnerving, but Lando tries to not let it get the better of him.
He isn’t sure how to talk to a robot, he’s never had this experience before and it’s pretty uncanny. Oscar isn’t exactly helping with his blank stare.
“I’m your uh… New engineer. My name is Lando.” Lando says, holding his hand out.
Oscar just stares at his hand for a moment, before shaking it. His grip firm, his movements looking natural. It’s amazing, yet also kind of terrifying for Lando.
If Lando didn’t know, he couldn’t even tell that Oscar is a robot. Which is the point, but terrifying non-the-less.
The only tell is his lack of emotion.
“I am Oscar, hello.” he replies simply.
Formal, really formal.
Hello? Who the hell says hello?
Well people do say hello, but the way Oscar says it. No real emotion to his tone, robotic.
He may be a robot, but for some reason Lando expected more personality. He’s meant to blend in right?
Lando knows he’s programmed this way most likely, it’s a choice. But why would they pick that? Why would they make him so robotic? Isn’t the point for him to him to be human?
“You uh… Your code is pretty complex.” Lando says, unsure of what to say.
Lando isn’t the best at talking to people in general, but this isn’t helpful.
Oscar shrugs, “Version 8.1 is meant to be better.”
Again, a short response. Giving Lando hardly anything to go on. Lando thinks for a moment, really trying to process whats going on here.
“Version 8.1? Is that your software?” Lando asks, trying to get a basis of the technology.
Oscar shakes his head, “No, thats me. My body. My technology.”
Again Lando is left with more questions, this all seems so normal to Oscar.
“So they do variants?”
Oscar nods, his motion smooth. Lando swears he can hear a quiet hum coming from a motor in Oscar.
“I am OP8.1. The others were scrapped.”
“Scrapped? Like destroyed?”
Oscar nods again, “Scrapped.”
“Why?” Lando asks, his curiosity only growing.
“Didn’t perform right. Didn’t win races.”
So casual, everything Oscar says is so casual. Like theres no connection in his mind between the words and their meanings.
No wonder they aren’t giving the guy emotion, they don’t want him to process how crazy this is.
Oscar’s basically telling Lando that the others were killed, and he’s using the same tone as when he told Lando his name.
“Will they destroy you?” Lando asks.
Oscar nods matter of factly, “If I don’t perform right. Yes.”
Lando stands up again, going to look at the computer diagnostics again.
One monitor has a bunch of statistics on it all of the losses and wins associated with each model.
OP5.1: 5 podium, 19 losses, 0 wins. (Didn’t perform to standards) Scrapped.
OP6.1: 8 podium, 15 losses, 2 wins. (Didn’t perform to standards) Scrapped.
OP7.1: 9 podium, 13 losses, 3 wins. (Didn’t perform to standards) Scrapped.
OP8.1: To Be Determined.
The data is straight forward, all variants didn’t perform well enough. All of them got scrapped.
Lando doesn’t understand why though, those stats are impressive. Something a human driver would be congratulated for. Yet all these versions of Oscar were scrapped. How the hell is Lando meant to make it so this version does perform well? Nothing else seems to be making McLaren happy.
Lando looks back at Oscar, staring directly at the wall. His eyes not dark, not warm, not sad. Nothing, absolutely no emotion.
Why?
Why do they do this?
They could make Oscar the fan favourite, the guy everyone roots for. They have gotten close, but they can construct any personality for him that they want. And they made him a husk?
Lando feels bad for the guy, and he isn’t even fucking real.
Oscar Piastri isn’t real.
How is he meant to be okay with that? How is that fair to the other drivers?
How is he meant to process this? Technology that shouldn't exist, that shouldn’t be this good.
Lando just takes a breath, and continues.
“You’re okay with dying?” Lando asks, taken aback by this whole situation.
“Yes.”
Thats all Oscar had to say, he didn’t even make eye contact with Lando as he said it. Just a simple answer as if the question holds no weight at all.
What the fuck has Lando gotten himself into?
He thought that paycheck was too good to be true, he thought this job was a dream job in general. But is it? Is it worth this?
Lando’s whole job is to make a robot perform to standards that seem impossible. Those stats would be beyond impressive for a human driver, so why is that so horrible for Oscar?
“Do you even feel emotion at all?” Lando asks.
Oscar shakes his head, “Why would I? I’m a robot.”
He’s right, Sci-Fi movies have taught Lando that giving a robot emotions is never a good idea. But this feels different, Oscar isn’t some sort of killing machine.
He’s meant to be like a human right? blend in.
Humans have emotions, humans have personality. Wouldn’t it make sense to give him one?
“What if I gave you-” Lando pauses, unsure if he should tell Oscar this before he gets permission, he continues anyway, “What if I gave you emotion.
Oscar looks up at him, “I don’t know what that would even mean for me.”
Lando presses his lips together, looking at the data on the computer deep in thought.
He shouldn’t do it yet, he should wait until he at least talks to someone about what this all means. What his job entails.
He doesn’t know how he would even do it, he’s never seen this technology before. He isn’t even sure if it’s possible.
But when he looks at Oscar he can’t help but feel sad, seeing the lack of anything on his face. Blank, robotic. He may not be human, but he’s meant to be. He’s meant to seem that way at least.
Lando rubs his face, unsure of what to make of all of this.
He’s certain of one thing though, he will do everything to make sure that they don’t destroy Oscar.
Oscar might not care, but Lando does. And he isn’t entirely sure why.