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Description
An hour later they were talking like chums. Renee took pieces from the drained generator to repair what she could, replacing wires and such. Her soldering iron sent acrid smoke up to the ceiling. Nos sat patient and grateful on the stage where she worked. Her hands worked with the tool box and car repair kit like magic, buffing out deep dents that in turn relieved the vampire's crushed internal machinery. She picked rocks out of his lower body, which seemed to have the least damage. On the areas that had been cushioned by now leaking pipage they used the ultimate tool- ductape- to close off little punctures and severed servo-pipes. "Ductape seems so unsteady," Nos rapped on the wall of pipes that Renee had torn the metal cover from painfully. "And yet it works so inexplicably well."
"You should never judge a book by its cover." She said without looking up. If I look up she thought easily He'll see me sitting here and grinning at him because it's such a moronically ironic thing to say.
"I suppose that's true." He said, gripping his chin with the one arm. She would reattach the other one tomorrow, she had said, but first they had to get all these repaired parts back under his hood and into a protective casing. Such a casing seemed less like a necessity and more like a need if he kept getting injured like this. Right now pipes and wires and metal packages of who- knows- what circuitry lay sprawled on the floor like so many guts and innards. He was almost sickened at the sight of it all. Of course any bot saw plenty of raw machinery all the time, especially Nos with his line of work. The reason it was sickening was that there was so much of him lying on the stage there, and so much of it was missing.
The damage had been far more extensive than his motherboard had been able to process; so much that he had very literally blown a fuse. Most of his chest cavity had been shredded, probably tossed into the galaxy's incinerators by now. Among the essential parts that were missing was his randometer, which could probably never be replaced. In fact he learned from this internal search deep into his circuitry that a family of mice had taken refuge there and done serious damage to his innards. At the thought of teeth gnashing across wires and pipes, he would have puked if it was physically possible. He almost made it happen when Renee dragged a dead mouse out of one of the wider holes.
The alien sand papered, polished, and waxed without tiring for hours and they kept up the steady conversation even when she got to repacking and covering every bit of outer- layer machinery with a thick coat of rubber. She gently painted over what she could, evening out his color scheme to some extent after replacing a few metal sheets around the skeletal housing. "This is so much better." He sighed when she finished, feeling the immense weight of imminent but slow death slough off his shoulders. She had not bothered with his cape but simply cut the rest of the scraps away and tossed his button into her bag. "I almost feel as if that explosion had never happened!" It was true- no need to lie now- he felt somehow cleaner than ever before, excluding those first few hours after coming online.
"Well, I'd personally like to know how that explosion even happened." Renee said coolly, abandoning him still powerless down on the floor with his insides still partly spilled out to work on the droid for a few minutes. "It seems to be the only tale you've neglected me."
That was true. He had spun out his life story, excluding a few events, to the girl and they had traded stories to pass the time. "It's really quite unbelievable." He whispered reflectively.
"Try me."
By the time he finished relating his latest attempt at revenge that had landed him here it was almost 9:30. "Oh gosh!" Renee yelled suddenly after glancing at her phone. "I've got to get home! See you tomorrow, Nos!" He waved her quickly out the door, not getting up because he was still mostly immobile.
He dropped backwards into a laying position. "I'm losing my mind." He said in the darkness at no one imperticular. "Why else in the universe would I let her live?" He wondered about this.
~~~~
Alan was upset. He had been afraid Renee had been hurt- or worse- at the theatre. But she had "Only been consumed by her work."
"More like devoured." He mumbled.
Her reheated dinner was slow and quite. Fish sticks. Yay. As she went up to bed soon after finishing and packing away her things for the day. The telltale sounds of a movie were sweeping out of Alan's room. He was watching a filmed performance of "Bats in her belfry". What a coincidence.

Description
An hour later they were talking like chums. Renee took pieces from the drained generator to repair what she could, replacing wires and such. Her soldering iron sent acrid smoke up to the ceiling. Nos sat patient and grateful on the stage where she worked. Her hands worked with the tool box and car repair kit like magic, buffing out deep dents that in turn relieved the vampire's crushed internal machinery. She picked rocks out of his lower body, which seemed to have the least damage. On the areas that had been cushioned by now leaking pipage they used the ultimate tool- ductape- to close off little punctures and severed servo-pipes. "Ductape seems so unsteady," Nos rapped on the wall of pipes that Renee had torn the metal cover from painfully. "And yet it works so inexplicably well."
"You should never judge a book by its cover." She said without looking up. If I look up she thought easily He'll see me sitting here and grinning at him because it's such a moronically ironic thing to say.
"I suppose that's true." He said, gripping his chin with the one arm. She would reattach the other one tomorrow, she had said, but first they had to get all these repaired parts back under his hood and into a protective casing. Such a casing seemed less like a necessity and more like a need if he kept getting injured like this. Right now pipes and wires and metal packages of who- knows- what circuitry lay sprawled on the floor like so many guts and innards. He was almost sickened at the sight of it all. Of course any bot saw plenty of raw machinery all the time, especially Nos with his line of work. The reason it was sickening was that there was so much of him lying on the stage there, and so much of it was missing.
The damage had been far more extensive than his motherboard had been able to process; so much that he had very literally blown a fuse. Most of his chest cavity had been shredded, probably tossed into the galaxy's incinerators by now. Among the essential parts that were missing was his randometer, which could probably never be replaced. In fact he learned from this internal search deep into his circuitry that a family of mice had taken refuge there and done serious damage to his innards. At the thought of teeth gnashing across wires and pipes, he would have puked if it was physically possible. He almost made it happen when Renee dragged a dead mouse out of one of the wider holes.
The alien sand papered, polished, and waxed without tiring for hours and they kept up the steady conversation even when she got to repacking and covering every bit of outer- layer machinery with a thick coat of rubber. She gently painted over what she could, evening out his color scheme to some extent after replacing a few metal sheets around the skeletal housing. "This is so much better." He sighed when she finished, feeling the immense weight of imminent but slow death slough off his shoulders. She had not bothered with his cape but simply cut the rest of the scraps away and tossed his button into her bag. "I almost feel as if that explosion had never happened!" It was true- no need to lie now- he felt somehow cleaner than ever before, excluding those first few hours after coming online.
"Well, I'd personally like to know how that explosion even happened." Renee said coolly, abandoning him still powerless down on the floor with his insides still partly spilled out to work on the droid for a few minutes. "It seems to be the only tale you've neglected me."
That was true. He had spun out his life story, excluding a few events, to the girl and they had traded stories to pass the time. "It's really quite unbelievable." He whispered reflectively.
"Try me."
By the time he finished relating his latest attempt at revenge that had landed him here it was almost 9:30. "Oh gosh!" Renee yelled suddenly after glancing at her phone. "I've got to get home! See you tomorrow, Nos!" He waved her quickly out the door, not getting up because he was still mostly immobile.
He dropped backwards into a laying position. "I'm losing my mind." He said in the darkness at no one imperticular. "Why else in the universe would I let her live?" He wondered about this.
~~~~
Alan was upset. He had been afraid Renee had been hurt- or worse- at the theatre. But she had "Only been consumed by her work."
"More like devoured." He mumbled.
Her reheated dinner was slow and quite. Fish sticks. Yay. As she went up to bed soon after finishing and packing away her things for the day. The telltale sounds of a movie were sweeping out of Alan's room. He was watching a filmed performance of "Bats in her belfry". What a coincidence.