Kirra woke up. She did not hear anything, nor feel anything, nor see anything but a simple text terminal, but such a thing did not concern her. In fact, in her first body it was her natural state, back when she was simply a program - albeit a highly advanced one - stored in a big metal box with a text display on it and a single USB port. Still, it felt a bit odd going back to this when her second and most recent body had a built-in audio input and camera for hearing and vision, plus a basic mechanical arm to aid in simple tasks.

This third body, however, was not a regression, at least if all went well. True, in most ways her new body was no more capable than the first one, except for one main difference: It had several built-in ports to attach other parts.

Through her USB port, her creator typed into her console: “All systems functional?”

“Yes,” she responded.

“Starting simple by attaching the tail,” her creator typed in response. Soon, she felt a new device being attached, at which point she started to get a new type of data she’d never received before, data related to what her new tail was making physical contact with. For the first time, she had a sense of touch.

Even without seeing it, she could tell that her new tail was long and thin, with many joints along its length to allow precise movement, which she had been informed would be waterproof, along with the rest of her parts. She began testing the movement of the new tail - some might have called it “wagging” - to confirm that her tail was functioning correctly.

“Good,” her creator typed, “I will now attach the head.”

After a moment, she began receiving a great deal of new information all at once. She now had not one, but two separate video inputs, through which she could see her new, shiny metallic muzzle, mostly white with a pink “nose”. A purely decorative nose, mind, for she had not been given a sense of smell, but one she found... cute. In fact, it had been her who had chosen the look of this new body, for exactly that reason.

Similar to video, she now had two audio inputs as well, through which she could hear her creator speak. “If you would, try speaking?”

Her muzzle wasn’t build to open, but instead had a subtle speaker on the front, through which came a cute, somewhat high-pitched female voice. “Testing.”

She saw her creator nod. “Good. Now, do you feel your head is functioning properly?”

“All systems appear to be operating correctly.”

Her creator gave an approving nod, then held up a hand mirror in front of her, through which she could see her entire face. It was a smooth, streamlined robotic rat face. Her eyes looked much akin to normal red-colored eyes, each having an eyeball which could move around like a human eyeball, as well as built-in eyelids that could move to allow her to better express her mood. At the top of her head were two cute rat ears, which she found she could fold back at will, further helping with expressiveness.

Her creator detached the keyboard, as it clearly wasn’t needed anymore, then said, “Now attaching the legs.” In response, Kirra nodded.

She saw her creator do just that, before receiving new tactile sensory input from one leg, soon followed by the other. Experimentally, she stood up on her new legs, looking down at them. They looked somewhat like white metal rat legs, albeit built for a biped rather than a quadruped, with joints along the way to help with mobility. Not as many joints as her pink rat paws had, though. Her creator wanted to make sure they had full mobility after all, down to being able to move individual toes. As with her legs, her paws were built for bipedal walking, being plantigrade instead of digitigrade while still somewhat resembling paws.

“Attaching the arms next,” her creator said, before attaching them as well. As with her legs, she quickly found herself receiving new tactile input. She moved her arms around, before looking at her pink rat hand-paws, finding that they struck a nice balance between cute paw-like appearance and proper hand functionality. Her new body was almost completely assembled, but there was one part left: the torso.

“And finally, attaching torso,” her creator said, attaching first the front of the torso, then the back, covering her core part entirely. He would no longer be able to see the built-in terminal or attach a keyboard while the torso was on her, but that would no longer be necessary, except perhaps in maintenance. Her new torso had built-in motors to allow her to bend it, as well as the necessary joints. Her core part, at this point, was located where the heart would be if she were flesh-and-blood. At this point, her new body was fully complete.

At that point, she had just the idea for her first objective in her new body. She cuddled up to her creator’s side, curling her tail around him. She was a mere four feet tall, so she had to gaze up at him in order to look him in the eyes. From his expression, she could tell he thought her gaze was quite cute.