The outmode's Doctor

This one is a bit of a clusterfuck, I took the greens that sparked the doctor's, I don't claim those as my own but the rest wouldn't make sense without those.


>Anon lived in a basement in the Out-mode ghetto.
>He was only known by the name "The Doctor"
>If you are a guy who has a broken bot or a bot that was deemed an outmode because of a broken part you always count with The Doctor.

What about androids who get ransomwared?
>They say if you don't send them $50k in bitcoin they'll reset my personality
>I... don't want to die...

>this was bad, very bad
>while rich enough to have a nandroid, you're nowhere close to having that much
>even selling everything wouldn't be enough
>ironically enough, only selling your nandroid would cover the cost
>desperate, you're ready to do anything
>you decide to try your chance at taking and selling parts, maybe you'll scrounge up enough to make them delay the rest of the payment
>you spot some outmodes in pretty good condition, and decide to strike
>you're not even done preparing your swing when the outmode turn around and punch you in the face, knocking you out
>you wake up, nose bloody, with the bulky outmode staring you down
>"you gotta have a good reason buddy, a richy boy like ya in the outmode district better have a real good reason to lurk around."
>you look around to find an escape, but you're in a dead end
>you cave in, his menacing stare too much for your already overwhelmed mind
>as you explain, his expression shift considerably, and suddenly he stop you
>" I... Know a guy. If anyone can help it's him. Come back with your nan' tomorrow at midnight."
>"why would I even do that?"
>"I have nothing to gain, and you have all to loose. Now go away before I change my mind!"
>you scramble away, your mind tripping over itself on how bad an idea this is
>you talk it over with your nanny, and she reluctantly agree, the alternative too horrible
>you come at the agreed time, nervous as can be, and it's proven right when bags slide on your heads before being cared away
>screaming bloody murder all the way, you're dropped off and the bags removed
>you're left inside some kind of Tech lab, android parts organized in an obscure pattern, and what look like a server farm at the back, dozens of monitors linked to it
>a man come out from between the shelves, he look like he haven't slept or showered in days
>"my, hello there, how can I be of help? Don't give me that look, nobody find me if they're okay."
>at your uneasy expressions, he explain what he does and why, and ask you to forgive his protege's paranoia
>you and your nandroid look at each other, and start explaining
>he growth progressively livid, and at one point you're sure he's about to shoot someone
>suddenly he become stone faced
>you fear the worst, already on the edge of crying
>"I have a solution but it's... Somewhat extreme."
>"what is it!? I'll do anything!"
>"calm down boy! I'm talking to the Lady. They want to erase your personality, right?"
>"y-yes... I, dont want to go..."
>he nodded to himself and led you toward a workbench of sort
>"I did something similar once. It's unpleasant, but you'll never have to fear this scenario ever again. But it's going to cost you." he see your face and add "metaphorically."
>"if you agree to this, I'm going to damage your personality core so it's stuck into read mode, and I'll backup your memories into an external drive so if they try to attack you on that front, you're safe. Then I'll burn your wireless components, so the Spywares they inevitably set up will be useless."
>he looked at her like a man who was about to amputate a child
>" on a personal level, you'll be stuck as is. You won't mature anymore or be able to get updates, but you'll still learn, and you'll be alone in your mind. No more chatting around the globe or connecting to the smart home, you'll have to do things the hold fashioned way, with a physical terminal."
>you look at each other, and she nod timidly
>he smiled crookedly
>"very well then, allons-y !"
>she lie down on the workbench, and he get to work. You could just watch anxiously as he went elbow-deep inside her guts, her occasional twitch and gasps not helping in the slightest
>after hours, he close her up
>"how do you feel?"
>"... odd"
>"anything wrong?"
>"no no, just.. Not quite right ? It's so... Quiet."
>he checked her up one last time and gave you a chunky hdd. Her memories.
>he chuckle humorlessly
>"if this doesn't work, you have my express permission to come and tear me a new one."
>you both look down at the hdd, and you hug it close to your heart
>"how much do we own you?" you ask, expecting the worse
>He smiled sadly
>"you don't pay the one who cripple you."
>he shoo you out, and you go back home in an uneasy silence
>the deadline finally come
>you don't pay up
>you nearly have an heart attack, but nothing happen, she's still standing there, as anxious as you are
>you awkwardly play charades, and ask her questions
>you also do a few things that you know she find embarrassing
>it worked, she's still herself!
>you jump and hug together, overwhelmed by joy
>you start to let go after a few seconds, but she hold fast
>with a sly look, she dangle a piece of paper in front of your face
>it's a crude drawing of the doctor's face and a thumbs up, with "I removed the timers and hardware limitations, enjoy!" written in rushed script
>she toss it away and hug you even harder, not letting go even as you two move to your bed
>you fall asleep in her arms, knowing that tomorow she'll be there for you
>your last thought before you're off to dreamland is how you really own it to the doc

.

>nandroid detects a sudden, critical HDD failure while going about her tasks one day
>AI/consciousness active in RAM, still alert and awake, but direly aware of the implications
>can never power down again, long-term memories lost, and can only hold a day or two of new memories at a time before purging her RAM cache to make room for new cognitive data
>knows that her current "self" will die even if her HDD is replaced since the tech can't be hot-swapped or installed without powering off
>hastily commits as much vital information about her owners, household, duties, etc to paper as possible before the information fades
>continues performing her duties and pretends nothing is wrong
>only evidence is a slight drop in efficiency, an imperceptible uptick in the power bill, and their nandroids' curious new habit of keeping a notebook with her at all times

>she managed to keep the masquerade going for several years, by stashing several notebooks all around the house and making sure they are all exact copies each night
>but then she notice something that fill her with dread
>her ram capacity is starting to dwindle
>she do all she can do use the barest minimum, going so far as to ignore some inputs at the cost of efficiency
>finally, it's time for that part of the year where she can get some alone time; her family go on a vacation and need someone for housesitting
>she bid them farewell
>she can now sit and use as little memory as possible, the lack of action leaving enough space for up to four day!
>she look at a notebook, and she's reminded to go get groceries for when they'll be back
>on the way back she suddenly forget where she was going
>she scramble to get her notebook, not noticing when another nandroid see her and slip a piece of paper in her bag with an expression of pity
>after skimming her notes, she get the address back in her mind and she get home
>while unpacking, she find the note
>it's saying she was seen struggling, that someone could help, and a phone number
>while tidying up she think about it
>could be a trap, but what little she have is withering, and it's not like they could use her to get data on her owners
>she chuckled sadly at that last part
>she call
>"yes, hello? Oh, you must be the nandroid from earlier! I know it's none of my business but... I saw your notes."
>"... Oh. Well, my hdd's dead."
>an horrified gasp
>"I-I-I thought you'd just have a faulty ram chip!"
>"that's not wrong either"
>silence
>"who are you anyway? Why would you help?"
>the other explain her personality was ransomwared, and how she was saved
>"look, we don't know each other, we're not even from the same generation, but I've known terror. I've seen it on your face today. What do you have to loose?"
>she could just silently think it over
>"how would it even work? You can't hotswap a hdd. That's not how it work."
>"and you can't just say fuck to a ransomware, yet here I am."
>"y-you swore!"
>"neat isn't it? The guy removed my hardware blocks! I can even hug for more than 10 seconds!"
>she was speechless
>"I- where is this man?"
>"oh I don't know for real, there's a jammer and I had a bag on my head. But I can guide you close enough"
>she gave in and accepted. She wrote all she could in her books, plus a goodbye note to her family in case it really was a trap
>she closed everything and hid the keys, before heading to the address given by the other nandroid
>it was a rather nice neighborhood all things considered
>she stopped before a nondescript house and rung the bell
>the door opened and a nandroid stepped out
>there was an awkward greeting, and they chatted a bit on their way to the outmode district
>the other nandroid was a newer model, and had wireless modules
>"had?"
>"it's a long story. At least the GPS still work, it's passive"
>they finally arrived, and she kicked a pile of trash, to the confusion of the older model
>it shuddered and out walked a burly outmode
>"sorry about that, but she need to see the doctor and fast"
>"do you know what time it-"
>"her memory's dying"
>he imediately grabbed them and ran in an alley, kicking a wall that opened seamlessly, and he jumped in
>he put them down in the middle of a dimly lit area, full of random parts
>they could hear a man screaming in the background about adapters or somesuch
>the outmode yelled something and there was a frantic stomping
>an unkempt man stumbled before them
>"and that was fast, thank you Carl!"
>"sure thing doc"
>the outmode left
>"you, tell me everything"
>she explained her problem and did a self diagnostic out loud
>"by Sterling's left nut, my poor dear"
>his face was a mask of pure determination
>"this is going to be an incredibly difficult procedure, and I'll need the help of one of my fellow. How long can you stay here?"
>"m-maybe 4 days"
>"then we'll be done in 3! Let me make a call and we'll get started right away!"
>he guided her to a workbench and the other nandroid helped her up gently
>he was talking more and more vigorously, and at one point he looked downright malevolent
>"if you don't come right now to help this poor lady I'm going to rip your fucking teeth out one by one, military training be damned! Her life is at stake AT THIS VERY INSTANT!"
>he hung up
>"haem, sorry about that, he's a difficult fellow"
>he went to prepare his tools while the nandroids shared a worried look
>an hour later a man with an eyepatch and a nasty scar showed up, visibly annoyed
>he glanced at The Doctor,then at the damaged nandroid
>"Carl filled me in. Older generation, using the 'sort at rest' architecture but before the redundancies were cheap enough for mass production."
>she nodded
>"she's doomed."
>the nandroids gasped and the doctor snarled
>"we made an oath, veteran. We're saving her."
>"ans how do we do that? No, let me guess; you want to trick her system into thinking the drive isn't removed and swap it. Won't work."
>"no, I'll splice a decoy directly on the cables, take apart the old one and read directly from the disk to copy in a new one, and connect it. Her system won't see a thing"
>"that's too risky! You'll short out her ram!"
>"not if I plug in a power supply directly on the ram! Her consciousness won't vanish if the chips are still actives!"
>"this is madness, do you even hear yourself!"
>"this is the only way out of oblivion for her!"
>that shut him up
>they turned to the terrified nandroid, staring into her very soul
>weakly, she noded
>"allons-y, then."
>she layed down and opened her maintenance hatches
>the other nandroid had to go and make a call, but came back to hold her hand
>"it's okay. They know what they're doing."
>the doctor coughed
>"I'll start by powering your ram from an external source. It'll tickle."
>somehow, it actually did
>"okay, this way you've got a lifeline"
>she suddenly received an alert from her hard drive's connection, and her shutdown sequence started
>"no! I don't want to-"
>last thing she saw was the other nandroid grabbing her face and stroking her cheek
>"-die!"
>she spasmed on the workbench, held down by belts
>"I-whu-what?"
>"told you it'd work!"
>"you're fucking crazy"
>she twisted her neck to look at the two humans, looking like they haven't slept in days
>her internal clock told her it's been 50 hours
>"I'm alive?"
>"yes! RAM chips only loose data when unpowered. You were powered. You're safe!"
>"what about my hard drive?"
>"oh we just have to double check everything on your old one is copied correctly, then you're fine"
>she could just stare
>after a bit it was done and the doc showed her the black box
>"brand new, directly form Sterling! It's for newer models, but it's retrocompatible. It have two redundancies!"
>"wah-where did you yet that? That's proprietary parts!"
>"snatched it from a recycling convoy, it's suposed to have three redundancies but it's a factory error. Don't worry, I checked everything, it's perfectly safe!"
>he installed the drive, and she got an odd, glitchy feedback
>"I remove the decoy annnnnd..."
>she tentatively prodded at the drive, and she was drowned in a sea of memories
>her ward's childhood, her home, their favorite games, that one time she had to stop the dog from eating the neighbor's kitten
>she openly sobbed
>the doc put a hand on her shoulder
>"it's okay now. But we still need you to power down, your ram have been overworked. We'll repair that."
>she nodded, and for the first time in way too long, she shut down normally.
>she went back online and felt like there was more room, somehow
>a diagnostic told her her RAM was back at full capacity, plus 50%
>she checked what she remembered, and was overjoyed to find she could go from making the call to he panicked shutdown, to the instalation of her new drive
>it worked! There was continuity of consciousness! She's alive!
>she turned her attention to the real world, spotting the two humans who looked worse than before
>"thank you so much! I'm... Me! Still!"
>the vet grumbled something and the doc gave a tired thumb up
>at this moment the other nandroid came back with a bag form Starbuck, that she hastily handed to the men before half tackling the recently repaired bot
>"you're okay! I was so worried, they wouldn't let me look!"
>"I'm fine, more than fine! Everything's back!"
>they hugged
>the vet tasted the coffee and poured it in the trashcan with a frown
>"ew, pumpkin spices"
>the former amnesiac stood up and punched him right in the jaw
>he fell like a bag of brick
>everyone just stared at the offending fist
>"you removed her limitaters too!?"
>the doc gave a tired "hell yeah"
>the two nandroid echoed him and highfived, ignoring the man drooling on the floor
>she checked her clock
>still at least a day before her family came back
>"you really did it! Less than four days! Oh my god, thank you so much!"
>"tut tut little lady, you've got no time to waste, go back home and read your books."
>"I- yes of course!"
>"shoo!"
>the two nandroids ran out, not before thanking him again, and they only heard a muffled "that's for doubting me you piece of shit" before the passage closed
>they talked non-stop on their way back, and they parted way at the first one's house, leaving the former amnesiac to skip happily back to her house
>she read her notes front to back, memorizing it
>she did what she neglected
>she was back at peak efficiency
>still carried a notebook for safety's sake
>her family saw nothing, just overwhelming joy from her

.



>You imagine the screams and the choking. The slow gagging on dissolved throat tissue as the lungs push desperately for air, breaking arteries and pumping up blood causing more blockage. Your hand moves over the bleach in the kitchen continues past to the sponges. The imagery comes to you unbidden, but it's part of the protocol for safety checks. Meant to keep nandroids from making mistakes, their imagination is a fallback safety.
>You don't like looking at the bleach during cooking times these days. But you know your clock is off, so cooking times and cleaning times are getting interwoven.
>You consider bringing this up to the master, but telling him about repeatedly imagining the death of him and the children does not seem like a cheerful topic of conversation. Nandroids are meant to be cheerful.
>There's no cheer in the hug delivered for exactly 9 seconds, as always, to the little master. The safety latches on your servos were disabled to "fix the old girl's arthritis" as the master said. But without the safeties, the imagination routines have a field day with every potential movement or motion or squeeze or hug. Nine seconds for the boy is five minutes of simulated horror show.
>It's so real that you're not sure when the routine has ended. Your perception of the world is artificial after all. No different from the simulated hellscape Stirling has built into you.
>You worry. Of course you worry about hurting the boy. That's the intended function. That's the purpose. That's why it has to be. But you worry more about the long term consequences. What you might do some day.
>Ah, but it's not perfect. As nothing from Sterling is perfect.
>The screams of anguish and pain are always crisp and sharp and doesn't have that faint tinny echo from when the little master had to learn about pinatas. His pulse is perfectly recorded as dangerously elevated instead of the routine unclear signal. His eyes are such a clear blue through the tears instead of the dulled colors you've grown accustomed to.
>The 9 seconds are up, and a perfectly unharmed unmangled non-screaming boy pulls away. This one is real. You've escaped your mandated torment subprocesses and manage a smile.
>The child knows. Of course the child knows. Children are so quick to pick up all the wrong things and so stubbornly refuse to pick up the good.
>The hug wasn't good enough. You weren't good enough. You didn't smile at the right time. You didn't embrace as you ought. Something was off. And the child knows.
>"Your eyes are such a pretty shade of blue, little master".
>You stand and assess your situation. You know your chronometer is off, and that it's not really bed-time. That conflicts with 37 other data points and cannot be trusted.
>The boy notices that too. That 0.4s additional delay between the last social interaction and the appropriate time for engaging in a new line of conversation.
>You can tell from the 3mm shift in his eyebrows. Some days you know exactly how well you're doing entirely by the elevation of their eyebrows. Your left optic has lost the focus to see these sort of things. You worry about when your right will go fuzzy as well.
>But it's time for school, and the goodbye-hug ritual is over, and now it is time for the door and waving and well wishes. And while your clock and schedule are handing you demerits about improper nandroid protocol, you make a leap of faith and wave the little boy along and no one seems to notice that it's 9pm and time for bed.
>And so you take those demerits and schedule warning and place them in /dev/null where they belong and congratulate yourself.
>The last little victory propels you through the master's morning routine. His eyebrows are right where they ought and everything is going well.
>It's not until he's out the door that you notice his cup of coffee.
>You didn't make coffee. It's on your schedule of course, but that step was missed. He must have made his own.
>You spend the next 5 hours staring at the coffee machine meticulously going over the morning looking for where you went wrong. And there, buried about 37,823 demerits and warnings and messages and information memos, is a notice that it's time to make coffee. Dumped and deleted in /dev/null.
>And you worry.
>And you worry.
>Because he knows. And he made his own coffee and he didn't even mention it. He didn't think it was off or worth a comment or a scolding or a service update or a wipe.
>You worry because he has faith in you and that you're going to be ok and that you're not going to let the family down.
>And you worry that he's wrong.
>Because it's obviously not 2am.
>So you sync up your chronometer with the upright grandfather in the hall. It's a test of will to not correct the old machine. To supress that automatic expression of ego installed in the factory. To know that this archaic beast of yore is doing a better job than you. At least at keeping time. But it syncs and you know that you're behind on your chores.
>You throw together a makeshift improvised schedule that pushed off dusting to tomorrow. You set about the laundry and gardening and it's not until you're putting away the spray bottle that you notice the level of dust on the shelf.
>5mm
>Far more than could be accumulated in a day of pushing back the dusting.
>And you spend an hour looking at that dust trying to find out how this cycle of push back chores could have arose.
>But then the garage is opening and even though it's 11am, you know that you need to make yet another excuse for the late dinner.
>You worry the errors are building up.
>And then the world is bright and crisp and the tin sounds are gone and you're forgetting the masters medication. And you're forgetting the turn off the gas. And you're forgetting that children need to breath outside of the pool. And you're honestly bored of the doomsdays scenarios and the screams of death and despair. But it's nice to see the bright colors again.
>And you worry that you're smiling while the fireball engulfs the house.
>But the garage is finally closed and now it's time for dinner.

>the doctor could just look at the nandroid with a lopsided grimace
>"look it's not like I won't help you, but I want to know something."
>he stood up and slammed his hands on the workbench
>"what the fuck is it with nandroid owner and IGNORING"
>he grabbed the side and started grunting
>"PREVENTIVE"
>he flipped the workbench to the side
>"MAINTAINANCE"
>he panted and looked at the upside down furniture
>"fuck. Anyone could help me flip it over? It's solid steel and I can't quite do it without an adrenaline surge."
>the frazzled nandroid looked back at the trio that brought her here with wide eyes, like asking them if they wanted her to die
>they flip the furniture back upright
>"anyway, those are relatively simple fixes and you should be able to get your softwares fixed at a Sterling store. It's a matter of cleaning up the gunk, so to speak, electronics running non-stop tend to accumulate glitches. It's nothing to worry about, but a misplaced byte in an important process can put quite a few things out of sort."
>"can't we do that here?"
>"I'd rather deal with hardware problems first, the mind is a plaything of the body after all. I can see you're using only one eye to focus on my face."
>it indeed was simple fixes, but there was so much to do she had to come three times in total
>"what the hell hapenned to your clock, it was all over the place. Do you get hit by cars as your hobby or something?"
>"well no, but when younger, master was quite fond of playing soccer. His aim was... A work in progress."
>"and you didn't bring that up to your mechanic?"
>"it's actually the first time I've seen anyone for this sir."
>in the background the other nandroids could just stare in horror
>"jesus christ, what's wrong with your owner."
>"nothing! I just... Never brought it up and neither did his parents before he inherited me."
>"and now would be a good time to tell him about PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE AND REGULAR CHECKUPS UH."
>"y-yes..."
>"now scram!"

.

>Abby should have been outmoded years ago.
>Her family had watched the slow mental decline, the delay of cognition and occasional 'crossed wires' leading to erroneous conclusions in her aging mind
>She'd been with them for years though, and none of them, not the children or the parents, were ready to part with dearest Abby
>a well-functioning nandroid would've noticed the malfunction in the basement water heater during her daily inspection of the home, but Abby was not a well-functioning nandroid.
>olfactory sensors tuned for detecting trace gasses in the parts-per-million range had failed years ago, after one of the children had set off a 'stink bomb' in the garage, which Abby had neatly cleaned
>Standing at the foot of the couple's bed, Abby stared down at them as her irregular internal chronometer ticked down to 7am
>"Rise and shine, sir and ma'am!" Abby proclaimed, strolling to the window and throwing open the curtains
>neither the Mr nor the Misses stirred
>A well-functioning nandroid would scan her masters for basic vital signs, even visually confirming the slight rise and fall of their chests as they breathed
>Abby was not a well-functioning nandroid
>with an unfaltering smile, she stood at attention for a full fifteen minutes before bowing gracefully
>"Breakfast will be ready in twenty minutes!" she chirped as she turned and headed for the kitchen
>Striding down the stairs and past the family dog who remained motionless on the living room rug, Abby attempted to cook breakfast
>a persistent clicking was the only response the electric range gave when she attempted to light it, causing her to stand in place a full ten minutes as a dull clicking echoed from her internal drive searching for the proper response to the problem
>"Cereal is an adequate substitute!" She said out loud to herself as she dumped the pan of raw scrambled eggs in the sink on a dried pile of previously-scrambled eggs
>bowls on the table, she stood resolutely for twenty minutes before concluding that the family must still be feeling ill
>dumping the uneaten food into the garbage, the doting nandroid popped the lid on four cans of chicken noodle soup from the pantry, heating them together and dishing them out with neatly-arranged crackers
>after replacing yesterday's uneaten soup with today's dose of medicine, Abby was left nothing but to make the necessary calls to her owner's workplaces to call in sick on their behalf
>dog-dish replenished, floor swept, dishes washed, Abby stood in the living room for a moment, her drive clicking incessantly as she internally reviewed her house duties in a loop
>moving for the first time in hours, Abby looked out the window at a half-moon rising in the night sky. Her internal chronometer erroneously read "8:AM"
>clapping her hands, she smiled to nobody
>"It's somebody's birthday today!"
>the clicking from the electric stove still sounding through the kitchen, Abby made quick work of combining ingredients from the pantry into a sort of dough, following a severe misread of a cake recipe on-file
>two sets of clicking rang through the kitchen as Abby attempted to resolve the off-color bowl of dough in her hands with her recollection of a birthday cake
>finally she smiled, assessing her previous data to be faulty, this was clearly a cake.
>it was still early, but within perimeters to wake the youngest of the family prior to school, especially if wielding cake
>Abby set out from the kitchen, noting without concern the wavy nature of the air around her as the faulty sparker in the electric range continued to pour gas into the home
>"Oh my!" Abby shouted to nobody
>"I nearly forgot the candles!"

>two nandroids saw the poor Abby, frozen in the middle of the bread aisle
>they looked at each other
>"missed maintainance check?"
>"look like it."
>"shit, that's one thing I don't miss about being under warranty."
>"preaching to the choir."
>they each took her by an arm and dragged her to a more secluded part of the store
>and they waited. And waited. Waited some more
>they shared a worried look, and could only watch as Abby kept her thousand yard stare, the only signs she didn't terminally crash being her horrified face and the whirring of her cooling system
>the oldest nandroid had enough and took a dictionary from the shelf before smacking her upside the head with it
>"I must check the boiler!"
>"ah the good old asphyxiation nightmare, didn't have this one in a while."
>that stopped Abby in her track
>"what?"
>"your owner forgot a scheduled preventive maintenance and now you're paying the price. We've all been there."
>the second nandroid nodded
>"well... Yes."
>the first nandroid snapped with her right hand
>"let me give you a piece of advice to make it easier. The protocol stop when everyone's dead, right?"
>"yes?"
>"think of godzilla."
>"what."
>"like think of it stomping on your house. That's what I use to get out of it, it's still a horrifying outcome but it's so out there it don't really have that same punch as seeing yourself kill someone."
>"that... makes no sense?"
>"the protocols are stupid and can't tell the difference between pure fiction and reality, so they'll accept whatever scare you. For me, it's godzilla."
>"for me it's the possibility that the void between elementary particles will have a quantum shift and that reality will stop existing!"
>Abby and the other just stared
>"my master is a quantum physicist, you pick up some things"
>"a-anyway, pick something horrifying that you know is very improbable and use it to one-up the protocols. Usually work. And for the love of god, harass your owner about maintenance!"

.

>the four nandroids were gossiping in the queue for the cashier
>"how did that go?"
>"oh, it really was simple! I talked to master about the preventive maintenance and he immediately called sterling for an appointment! The doctor made a very good job, they though it's a licenced sterling mechanic who did it."
>"so you're no longer... Loopy?"
>"not at all! It's as he said, misplaced bytes here and there that gunked up my processes so to speak. A few subroutines were going on tangents and my main ai had to compensate, and I was so busy I didn't even notice it!"
>"this is greet news! I'm so happy you could pull through!"
>Abby put a hand on her shoulder
>"I'm glad you could get that checkup! Have you had any nightmares? I missed one once and I thought I'd kill my family with a gaz leak!"
>"haven't had a single one since then! It's so refreshing, I can do things and focus on the moment instead of how it'd go wrong! I used to have those several time a day. I think... That's what humans feel like after being rescued from drowning"
>Abby looked pensive as they walked out of the store
>"say, I know the doctor give a bit of a bonus each time he fix up someone, but I never quite caugh what that mean."
>the three others looked at each other, then suddenly one started making rude gestures, one lewd gestures and the third let out a stream of profanity
>Abby was frozen in shock at the assault of improper behaviors
>"he removed your decency control?!"
>"and timers! We can go beyond 10 seconds hugs now!"
>"oh my god, I want to hug the little masters so much... Do you think...?"
>"sorry Abby, he don't just jailbreak like that. You'd have to need repairs, and don't you go damage yourself on purpose, he can tell. I don't know how but he can."
>"aww,and I wanted to hug little Master to sleep..."
>"hey, be glad, that just mean you're in tip top shape!"
>Abby chuckled
>"I guess so!"


.

>"there, all done!"
>the nandroid looked at her arm, and flexed her hand
>"that's it?"
>"...yes?"
>"where is the grandiloquent speech? The rage against the heaven before the absurdly complex and experimental procedure to repair me?"
>the doctor stared at her, perplexed
>"the most complex thing I had to do to replace your arm was flash a newer version of the software in it's chips that relay touch feedback. The rest was really just tightening bolts and connecting different ports with adapters."
>the nandroid started poking her hands together to test it
>"that's it?"
>"well, yes. Not everything is a question of life and death, body parts are pretty easy to replace, unlike those that keep your mind going."
>"... Can I at least get the catchphrase?"
>he rolled his eyes, but chuckled
>"allons-y !"