heart. break.
She is a good mechanic, and she knows it. She prides herself on her ability to fix whatever may be broken, to mend what may be rent. Her strong arms can lift entire robots, and her deft fingers can find the smallest crack. With a murmured spell, or a twist of her wrench, or, when all else fails, simple duct tape, she will fix anything broken that may fall in her path.
Today, what has fallen in her path is a job. A wealthy temple from the Ivory Tower district, has sent a malfunctioning SecuriBot to be fixed. She does not know why she, a barely twenty-year-old mechanic, only the third- or fourth-best in the city, has been tasked with this, only that her knowledge of programming, and wires, and everything technological will come in handy
A spectral figure hovers over her right shoulder, offering comments that, though they are helpful, she will dismiss as unnecessary.
CUT THAT WIRE
He points to a green wire.
“Absolutely I will not,” she says. “You do not know what that does.” She swivels to face the monitor on her left displaying the bot’s memory files. She clicks on the latest one, hoping to find out something as to what may have damaged the bot. The video begins to play, but quickly dissolves into static and white noise. She frowns and hits a few keys, trying to restore the image.
WHAT DID YOU DO?
“Nothing! Stupid ebanyj SecBot is not durable for to remember damage. I will have to see if memories are encoded.”
AND IF THEY ARE NOT?
“Then we run systems check until something turns up.”
WE?
“Well, if you’re going to be here, you might as well be useful and not just annoying, yes?”
I AM BEING USEFUL. I AM THE SOURCE OF YOUR POWER.
“Oh, fignya, you’re the source of my power. My magic runs in my veins and I am plenty good mechanic without, thank you.”
YES BUT YOUR MAGIC IS IN YOUR VEINS BECAUSE OF ME.
“Then remove it, I don’t give a shit.”
I COULD.
“You won’t though.”
I COULD THOUGH.
“Mhm. Is what I thought.”
She brings up the base code for the bot, but before she finds what she was looking for, a folder appears, labeled é̵̛̯͍̥̜̑̇r̴̺̄̔̔r̷̨͖̙̬͎͍͊̅́o̸̮͆ȑ̷̢̡̛̻̬. Intrigued, she clicks. A prompt flashes on the screen, asking for a password. Bewildered, she turns to the god over her shoulder. And everything goes bright, then black. Her ears ring, then she hears nothing. And as her heart is pierced by flying shrapnel, pain explodes throughout her body
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