Maggie's Reanimation (Part 2/3)

	...Finally, I'm awake! Have we reached Oreg-
Something's wrong: I can't open my eyes. I can't seem to move my limbs or speak either.
	...This is certainly odd, but there's no need to panic. A cog must be loose in my body somewhere that's inhibiting my movement, assuming that Mister just wound me up.
	Until he unwinds me or has me fixed, only my thoughts can keep me company...

2 MONTHS LATER...

	"Why the hell is Martin here so early?" you muttered to yourself, slamming the door of your car shut. It wasn't even 6 AM, yet there his truck was, three hours ahead of schedule. The gray September morning was slightly chilly, and the sun hadn't even touched the horizon yet... but that only made the bright yellow light shooting out the windows of the shop even more visible.
	Ever since he did away with the "open 24 hours" thing a few weeks back, you were back to your original morning shift: 6 to noon. He found out that you received such few customers during the early hours that it wasn't worth paying you to do almost nothing. Oh well, it wasn't like dealing with those polite robots was that much of a chore anyway.
	Still, in the five years you've known him, you've NEVER seen him in the shop before 8:30 at the earliest. With an inhale, you powerwalked up the cement step and peered in through the large front window.
	...And what a sight it was. He wasn't there in the waiting room, but several active nandroids were lounging around like they owned the damn place! The stiff brown loveseat, many of the uncomfortable metal chairs, and even your spot behind the desk were all occupied. The scene was shocking enough, but one with black pigtails was sweeping the floor as if it were her own home!
	If Martin's truck weren't out front, you would have stormed in and started throwing questions at the girls left and right. As you pushed the door open, all the droids stopped their casual conversations and spun their heads towards you. After a short silence, a barrage of smiles and greetings came flowing your way.
	"Good morning, Mr. Carducci!"
	"Morning, sir!"
	"Care for some coffee?"
	"Good morning!"
	"Hello, Mr. Carducci!
	"Hey, remember me, Matt?" the familiar redhead at your desk asked with a smirk.
	Just as soon as you raised your eyebrows in confusion, Martin breezed into the room from his repair station. He looked VERY pleased that you were there, which was an expression that rarely appeared on his face.
	"Hey, Matt!" he exclaimed as he grabbed your shoulders, "Today's the fuckin' day! She's finally ready!"
Ah damn, Looks like he wants me to play the guessing game.
	"...What the hell are you talking about, man?" you asked in a low voice, "WHO'S finally ready? And why'd you wake up all the bots?"
	He jokingly scoffed and mirrored your volume. "What, you don't remember?"
	"...No, I don't! What are you talking about?!" you snapped.
"Well, it's a long story, but I'll fill you in real quick." Somehow still holding his thin patience together, he escorted you towards the doorframe of the brightly lit back room to show you. "Follow us, girls!" he announced to the droids, "You can come look now!"

	Laid out on the center workbench was a naked Sterling model with its rubber faceplate detached. A really off-putting sight to say the least, and the lack of a wig didn't make it any easier on the eyes. THIS was what Martin was waiting to show you?
	"A couple months ago," he began, "an old friend of mine brought in a decrepit antique nandroid that was stuck in the ground for a long time-"
	...Now it was all coming back to you. You hadn't so much as thought about Dave or his special request since August.
	"Needless to say, its body was beyond salvageable, and gears aren't my area of expertise anyway, so I thought of another idea."
He pinched something small on the tabletop and held it up for his murmuring audience to see.
	"THIS right here," he proudly announced, "is the technological breakthrough that's gonna bring this old girl back!"
Setting it back down, he grabbed a thin rusty cylinder and did the same.
	"Now, the brains of old clockwork nandroids were very impressive for their time," he told his small crowd, "You see the dozens of tiny dents on the surface?"
He held it out with both hands towards the closest bot, and she carefully took it from him, silently examining it.
	"Pass it around and back to me when you're done," he requested. It was funny seeing the two sides of Martin O'Reilly: an asshole around humans, but a natural entertainer around nandroids.
	Over their chatter, he continued his analysis. "Those dents are actually bits of data, if you could believe it." When the brain came back to him, he ran his finger along the grooves. 	"It works like this: there are six 'brushes', if you will, that make contact with the brain as it spins in the droid's head, and each one touches a different column of dents: memory, motor skills, speech, things like that. As they touch, they propel specific cogs that allow the droid to move, speak, and think."
	He paused to take a sip from his coffee mug, precariously resting right next to the open circuits of the Sterling model's head.
	"When she learns a new phrase or goes to a location she's never been to before, a thin needle concealed in the brush pushes down and very briefly scrapes into the surface, etching the memory in. However," he admitted, "when she came into my possession, I didn't know any of that. I brought her over to three separate mechanics, and only the last guy gave me a rundown on how she works."
	You cleared your throat to get his attention, and received it from all the girls in the room as well.
	"So, where's her body, then?"
His smile dropped at your interruption, but he forced it back on his face almost instantly. With gritted teeth and a glare in your direction, he resumed his story.
	"I was GETTING to that, Matt... I sent letters about her, (with pictures as evidence) to the few robotics companies I knew based in the East Coast. I explained how she wound up in my care and wanted to see if they could offer any insight to repairing her." He then locked eyes with the droid closest to him: the sporty redhead that occupied your desk a minute ago.
	"Can you guess who got back to me first?"
Before she could calmly answer, Ms. Black Pigtails the Sweeper jumped up and down with her hand raised like an excited schoolgirl.
	"OOH! OOH! WAS IT STERLING, SIR?"
	"You're damn right, honey!" he said with a grin, "They offered to take a look at her brain, so I pulled it out and shipped it to them, expecting nothing more than a letter back telling me they didn't know what to do with it... The last thing I expected was to receive it back along with a nandroid's CPU a month later."
	"You mean they were able to-?" the redhead in front asked.
"Yep! Best 2 grand I ever spent," he said while grabbing the small processor off the workbench again, "I DID say the dents in her brain contained data, after all."
	Wheeling around, he sat the lifeless bot up and held the chip an inch away from the insert port in her forehead. "So without further ado..."
*click*

[Powering on...]
Date of last activation: 00/00/0000
Warning! Unknown CPU detected
[Scanning...]
Security scan complete! Brand: STERLING, model: CUSTOM, serial number 00088968713
[Retrieving data...]
Success!
[Beginning diagnostics...]
[Calibrating optical sensors...]
[Initializing vocal processor...]

	Martin secured the faceplate back onto her head, finally hiding that disturbing metal skull of hers. With everyone completely focused on her, the hum of her internal fan became the loudest thing in the room. "And to answer your question, Matt," he said, "I sold her body to a museum down south."
	A minute passed, and she didn't move. Martin then let out a sigh and harshly flicked her left temple. Unexpectedly, that seemed to do the trick.
	Her glowing blue eyes shot open, causing Pigtails to flinch. You all stared at her, but her pupils remained still.
Suddenly, she blinked and her mouth opened.
	"-Thank God!" she exclaimed, "Are we in Oregon yet, sir?"
For the first time, her eyes slowly shifted to the robotic cluster in front of her and then to Martin. Her cheeks lit up red in a mix of confusion and some embarrassment, at least, that's what you figured.
	"...Where am I?"