I lay in bed for a few minutes as my engine - my heart - slowly returned to its normal thrum. The pounding faded away and soon I could hardly detect the beat at all. My breathing likewise slowed until it dropped from my conscious mind, becoming as automatic as pistons firing. The strange sense of need between my legs dissipated as well as things seemed to dry themselves in a manner that I found highly disconcerting… soon enough, even that was gone and my body returned to what I considered its default state.

But none of that did anything for my thoughts.

Visions of Samantha in my bed came and went, each as confusing as the last. I’d seen humans kissing in the station and occasionally on the street, but I didn’t possess any knowledge of what deeper intimacy actually entailed. Fireman Jimmy had often boasted about how tight his latest paramour had been, but tight how? My body didn’t seem to be tight anywhere. There were curves all over the place, and even the things that were flat were still soft and stretchy. Maybe there was something wrong with the way I looked. Maybe I’d been cursed with a hideously ugly body for whatever unknown failure had kept me from the Great Scrapheap.

It was this worry that finally hauled me from my berth. I slipped out of the bed and walked to the full-length mirror next to my closet, truly studying my new appearance for the first time. My shoulder-length red hair was particularly jumbled and tangled, far from the sleek, stick-straight hair some of the firemens’ wives had possessed. My face was very symmetrical, with green eyes that seemed larger than I would have expected. My lips were full, and I opened and closed my mouth several times, pressing them together as I tried to mimic what Samantha had done in my dream. This didn’t seem to do anything for me - no pleasure, no intimacy, nothing. Why were things so different when they involved her?

Reaching up, I pulled my night shirt up and over my head, tugging my breasts slightly as the fabric caught on the soft lumps. I discarded the garment, then hooked my thumbs into the waist of my panties, sliding them down my smooth legs before kicking them off to the side. My eyes roamed up and down my body, trying to connect pieces of me to the things I’d heard about humans over the past forty years, both in a practical sense and an intimate one.

I knew, for starters, that human women sometimes dressed to accentuate some part of their appearance, though what those clothes were and what they were showing off wasn’t something I’d ever fully grasped. I had seen women wearing bathing suits that left their legs bare - and my legs certainly seemed long and curvy to my eyes… But what would others think about them? I leaned down and ran my hand up and down my calf, fingers sliding along the smooth skin. There was nothing tight about them. My thighs, likewise, proved highly inadequate. I probed a finger into the small, wet indentation above my thighs and-

I jerked my hand right back out of that place. 

That’s not tight at all. I shuddered, sensations down there reminding me of how I’d felt when I woke up. Best to leave that for later, as it was clearly not a piece of anatomy that was similar to any part of my previous structurally sound truck body. Instead, I reached up and ran a hand along my stomach, feeling how flat and soft it was. The curve of my waist as it narrowed from my hips before expanding to my chest was egregiously smooth.

And that chest! 

These stupid breasts were the least tight thing about me. They felt like heavy bags, flopping needlessly whenever I tried to lift or look at one. They didn’t go with the rest of me at all, sticking out suddenly from what otherwise might have been a smoother - and tighter - torso. Perhaps that was my flaw… Breasts that were too large blocking people from seeing my firmer, stronger rib cage.

That has to be it, I thought, frowning at my reflection. It made so much sense… After all, as Red-1, I’d had a core steel structure hard enough to make a container ship weak at the knees. My bones, though decidedly more frail than American Steel, were much stronger than the rest of me. That skeletal structure was less visible than it had once been when I was the #1 fire truck in the state of Ohio, but it was still there. I just needed to figure out how to show off how strong and tight I truly was underneath these ugly, flabby breasts.

I sighed, staring at myself for a minute more. I’d been cursed, and there were no two ways about it. Something I’d done had prevented me from exalted status in the Great Scrapheap, and instead sent me to a weak life of humanity. Worse yet, a substandard example of humanity that was somehow more humiliating than being a human in the first place. I’d never done anything in my life without intending to be the best at it.

But… I was still the best fire truck even after newer models were brought in to replace me. 

Being ugly didn’t mean I shouldn’t be the best girl that I could be.

I had an important job feeding others. I had at least one close friend - and I could make more. There was the makings of a life here, a life spent helping people just as I always had. Red-1 was dead, gone, and hopefully not forgotten in the hearts and minds of those that I had served.

But Red, #1 delivery driver, was still here.

I had spent most of the previous day on autopilot, from the frantic rush to get to work to the even-more-confusing mess of understanding my new job, with hardly a moment to process. Today, I didn’t have any of that to occupy my time. Today, my new goal was to understand people. To understand me, and how I related to them. I didn’t have time to sit around and feel sorry for what I’d lost, or how I’d lost it. Even knowing what would happen to me, I would still give everything to save that man again.

No, today was going to be the start of a new me. A better me. The best me. “You,” I whispered to myself, “are going to be so tight when you figure this all out.”

Fireman Jimmy would have been so proud.