Don't Look Deeper

The series' protagonist, Aisha.

Aisha is a seemingly ordinary teenager who's close to graduating from high school, dating a boy, partying with her friends and the normal teenage things. While drunk at a party though, she injures herself and discovers her dark secret-she's an android.

Before she knows it, Aisha is on the run from her creator and the company which owns her technology, who want to control or shut her down. As everything she ever knew is thrown into question, Aisha has to fight for survival and her freedom while still grappling with the revelation of her identity.

Examples:

• Abusive Parents: Sharon and Martin, who are Aisha's parents in different senses (he emotionally, plus “adopting” her basically, while she created Aisha), also manipulated and lied to her over her whole life. Neither told her she's an android, secretly monitored her, made up a fake past (including a dead mom) and showed no signs of ending this. She's naturally very hostile to both of them upon learning about her true past and nature. However, they really do love her and make up for their past treatment by doing all they can to protect Aisha from the robotics company which owns her technology, who want her shut down.
• And the Adventure Continues: At the end, Aisha's been restored from backup and a full body replacement is being made for her safely in China, outside of her manufacturer's control, where she's hopefully safe and free to create the life she wishes.
• Androids Are People, Too: Aisha and her loved ones strongly advocate her personhood, against the company who made her technology which sees her as Just a Machine they want shut down.
• Atomic F-Bomb: When she's stopped at the city limit by her programmed inhibition, Aisha loudly shouts "Fuuuuck!" in frustration.
• Big Brother Is Watching You: Aisha learns her creator Sharon is always monitoring her with various surveillance mechanisms, supposedly for her own benefit. She gets them all shut down.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Aisha kissed Jenny passionately after they both confessed to liking each other, having sex and starting a relationship after this.
• Bisexual Love Triangle: Aisha's boyfriend is Levi at the start of the series. However, after learning she's really an android Aisha drifts apart from him and grows attracted to Jenny. It turns out she'd dated Jenny in the past, but her memories of this were erased. She dumps Levi and then looks set to rekindle things with Jenny until more pressing matters intervene.
• Blackmail: In order to stop her memory wipes, Aisha blackmails Sharon, her creator, by threatening to blow the lid on her status as a secret human-passing android using a video which would go live if she doesn't log in every three minutes and stop it.
• Brain Uploading: Aisha's memory and personality are twice saved using other android brains, so that they can be restored from this backup later.
• Catapult Nightmare: Aisha sits bolt upright after waking up from a nightmare in which she killed her pet ferret, discovering that they both were robots by doing so.
• Do Androids Dream?: Aisha poignantly questions if she's "real" on her self-discovery of being an android, though her creator Sharon fully believes she's a person, which she soon accepts as well. It's indicated of other androids too, albeit on a lesser scale, as they exhibit some independent personalities.
• Ear Ache: Aisha stabs a blade into her left ear after discovering circuitry inside her arm, pulling out a cable while doing so. She realizes she's really an android this way, and this cable controls her ear's audio.
• Expository Hairstyle Change:
  • Aisha completely changes both her hair and clothing style to appear far more edgy after growing rebellious.
  • Jenny also changed her hairstyle, which previously had been ordinary, into a more punk-looking do which had blue streaks, after becoming more unconventional.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Even as a child, Sharon could take apart her mechanical doll to see how it worked. She grows up to make androids (including Aisha) who can pass for human, in concert with other expert engineers.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: Sharon pointedly calls Aisha "her" and not "it" when proposing her creation with her bosses, in keeping with her view of Aisha's being a person, while they do the opposite.
• Just a Machine: Aisha is viewed this way by her owners, believing she's a dangerous unauthorized experiment to shut down, nothing more, in spite of all evidence. Abel temporarily shows sympathy, but not enough to stop him participating in this.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Aisha's therapist deletes (though not permanently) all her recent memories of discovering she's an android after Aisha reveals it. It's revealed later that other memories were also erased, though they get restored and Aisha remembers the erased parts of her past again.
• Lipstick Lesbian: Aisha and Jenny, who it turns out she'd been involved with are girls with a chapstick look (long hair, but fairly average clothing). In Aisha's case she seems to be bisexual, with her dating a boy initially too, but Jenny isn't shown as attracted to anyone but Aisha.
• Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Jenny had eaten out Aisha while the two were lying on the floor in a former tiger cage together.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Aisha means "she who lives", and it turns out Sharon named her this precisely as she's an android who's outwardly indistinguishable from human, i.e. a living being.
  • In a similar manner, Aisha's android brother is named Calien, meaning "warrior of the life" in the Shoshone language.
• Missing Mom: Aisha's fake background when living as Martin's daughter includes a dead mother. It turns out she never existed, which Aisha's quite distraught to learn.
• Nanomachines: Noah Zabinski has invented nanites that can be used for microsurgery, with him shown demonstrating this through them repairing a deaf woman's eardrums so that she hears.
• Nonconformist Dyed Hair:
  • Jenny has dyed her hair partly blue. In concert with her nose ring and dark punk-style clothing, this signals that she's her own person who defies conventions.
  • Aisha also puts some blue streaks in her hair after she's changed it, as a sign of her asserting independence.
• No Full Name Given: Most of the characters are only called by their first names, while last names aren't revealed.
• No Periods, Period: Aisha is suffering from period cramps starting out. Upon learning she's really an android then getting codes to hack her system, she gratefully turns off her simulated period.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Aisha tries to empathize with one of the people after her, a trans man, because both just want recognition of who they are-in his case male, for her as a person. He lets her have one last meeting with her little brother, but still shuts down Aisha after.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Martin's daughter Cynthia died of salmonella poisoning, devasting him and her mom, with their marriage ending as a result. It's strongly implied this is why he bonds so quickly with Aisha, saying he'd viewed her as his daughter from the moment the two met, because she'd reminded him of Cynthia. He later takes on the role as being Aisha's father, and is determine not to lose her too.
• Precision F-Strike:
  • Aisha fills in her Scantron so this spells out Fuck It after growing rebellious.
  • After hearing Levi say female android Emma was Just a Machine, Aisha angrily orders him to "Stop the fucking car" because she's an android as well.
  • Aisha also tells Noah to go fuck himself when he insincerely apologizes for shutting her down.
• Queer Establishing Moment: Aisha is dating Levi when the series starts, but then shows attraction to Jenny, starting as they're sharing a bed while in a motel room. It turns out Aisha had been girlfriends with her before, but the memories got erased.
• Replacement Goldfish: It's strongly implied Martin bonds with Aisha and sees himself as her father at first due to wanting a substitute for his daughter Cynthia, as she died young years before, though he denies it when Sharon raises the idea.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: Aisha learns she's an android so human-like she's indistinguishable from an organic person in her appearance, and she herself had no idea at first.
• Robosexual:
  • Levi hacks a female android to make her give him oral sex, disgusting Aisha.
  • On a less creepy note, at a later point Aisha (who's a very human-like android) displays attraction toward the human girl Jenny. It turns out they had previously had a relationship that Aisha can't remember initially due to her memory being wiped, including Jenny giving her oral sex. Her past relationship with Levi turns out to be this too retrospectively, though neither knew it at the time.
• Robot Girl: Aisha is an android made to appear like a beautiful human woman, though she doesn't know this at first. She's so convincing other people are fooled too, not just her. Aisha's given away only when an injury shows her metallic innards.
• Sexbot: Levi hacks Emma to use her as one, making her give him fellatio. Aisha, his girlfriend, walks in to catch him at it and is disgusted.
• Sexy Discretion Shot: Sharon and Martin are shown making out, then in bed together after having sex offscreen.
• "Shut Up" Kiss: Sharon kisses Martin to stop him venting his worry about Aisha, saying it’s her best method to shut him up.
• Speculative Fiction LGBT: Aisha, who's an android indistinguishable from a young human woman at least in her appearance, is attracted to human women, and had been involved with Jenny. She also compares her struggle for acceptance as a person to a trans man's difficulties regarding this with his gender.
• Super-Senses: Aisha gains these after getting control for her system, initiating audio enhancement. It had been demonstrated even before that she's able to hear sounds no human (or organic creature) can.
• Throwing Off the Disability: Noah Zabinski is introduced while curing a young deaf woman, Kathleen, with an infusion of nanites to repair her eardrums. Kathleen hears after this for the very first time, due to having been totally deaf from birth.
• Tomato in the Mirror: The whole plot is prompted by Aisha discovering she's really an android, with no idea beforehand this was the case, after damaging herself when drunk.
• Tracking Device: One gets shut down when Aisha has Sharon end all monitoring of her, though she has another too in her foot which lets Jenny find her. Jenny then removes it for her as well.
• Transferable Memory: Android memories can be transmitted to other androids and stored in their own brains as a backup for restoring them later. Aisha uses this to insure she survives her destruction by the Zabinski brothers.
• Turned Against Their Masters: In a nonviolent example, after learning she's really an android, Aisha rebels against control by her creator Sharon and her tech owners, breaking free to live how she wishes.