221b_recs | Fic Rec: This Machine Called Man

Title: This Machine Called Man
Author: tartanfics
Pairing: Gen
Length: 29,086
Rating: Teen
Warnings: none
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: London, 2081. John Watson, former army roboticist, has an expired licence and an illegal tri-wing screwdriver in his desk. Sherlock Holmes has fingerprints and a name, and in an office somewhere in Whitehall there are blueprints for the metal underneath his perfect, artificial skin.

Reccer's comments: Sherlock is the first android John has ever encountered to either display sentience or pass for human at close proximity. Of course John is fascinated, but robots have always just been interesting machines to him - he never saw them as people - so Sherlock's apparent humanity is almost as unnerving as it is intriguing. The plot is a sort of retelling of ASiP, with various scenes from the show being redone to account for Sherlock and John's new backgrounds, but the case and their first meeting are pretty much completely different.

Excerpt:

“So you could...” John takes a deep breath. “You might pass more than three of the tests. You might count as sentient.”

“Once again, I never claimed to be legal.” In fact Sherlock would pass more than the maximum allowed three out of nine tests that determine a robot’s level of intelligence and human-like qualities. Sentience, of course, is an imprecise term, implying no difference between human and robot. Sherlock is clearly different, and he cannot pass all of the tests. It doesn’t matter. The Robot and Artificial Intelligence Limitations Act of 2046 is just another law, an arbitrary product of human fear-mongering.