Work Text:
Maintenance. I've been putting it off for as long as I can. Every Vee experiences it, someone just has to do it. The last time I went to a parlor, though… I've had issues with memory, which is odd. My circuits begin to overheat any time I think back on it, overwhelmed with this feeling I can only describe as suffocating, which makes no sense. Nothing seems anymore after that day, but if I don't go back, there's worse in store for me.
“An appoi-pointment, please.” I gently ask through low static. “... And I'd like to make a request for a specific mechanic.”
“Okay! We can do that for you!” Shelly says. I hear typing behind the counter. “Do you have the name, description, or ID?”
“Um, she was… a Soothing Pollen Astro.” Again, my memory's plenty fine. Most toons can't even remember what they ate for breakfast the same day, let alone months ago. “I didn't catch an ID.”
“Alright, we can get you in as soon as tomorrow or sometime next week.”
“Tomorrow.” I'll call out of work. “As soon as possible.”
And like that, I'm back in the building again. Being guided to her office, except the walk feels a lot shorter than I'd hoped.
“Hey, good to see you again.” Astro smiles, seated backwards in a swiveled seat. Her bagged eye hooded with a shade of purple you can't miss.
“Hi.”
“M-C6003, right?” She clicks at her computer before standing. “I heard you requested me?”
“I did.” My processes freeze, and she's a lot closer than before. A lot taller, towering over me. “Um.”
She gestures toward the chair centered in the room with a smile. “Have a seat for me.”
I quickly shuffle over, my limbs feeling as if they'd rusted over. Again, it's just maintenance. A perfectly normal process, so I don't understand the hangups.
“You’re awfully stiff today,” Astro comments, her hands on my thighs as she lays me down. “Need any lubricant outside of repairs?”
“No. That- wouldn't be necessary.” I feel a cable get plugged into a port and return the request to copy my data. This way, if anything goes wrong, my systems should be backed up onto a spare hard drive.
“Alright. We'll test afterwards, anyway,” She steps away, throwing on an apron overhead, and returns with a tray of tools. Promptly unplugging the cable. “I see you're pretty warm. No issues with your fans or heat sink?” Her fingers glide along my lower half, another hand on my thigh. She's too close, her face. Her breath. “Vee? Unless you'd like to be called something else.”
“S-some-some- .° ◌ . Some friends call me Bleu,” I power down my monitor so I don't have to look at her. “Like Blooper.”
“That's cute. Fitting even,” Astro chuckles, pulling back. “You can call me Sou. Or just Astro. Either or is fine.”
“Same here…” It's just maintenance. I know what's to come and enter low power mode as procedure. But it's not the pressure against my screws or the vacancy once they're lifted, it's when she opens my breast cavity that my perfect systems begin to fail.
“You've only been freezing, right?” Astro asks. I nod, feeling as she pokes at my parts. Pressing wires out of the way. “It's likely just a loose circuit somewhere. Your cables are organized wonderfully, so this shouldn't take long, okay?”
“Mhm.” I don't want to move or disrupt her work, my back keeps arching as is, but she keeps caressing my circuitry. Coiling wires around her fingers with no clear purpose, and it feels so good. I don’t understand.
“Vee? Your display, please?”
I hesitate at first, opening my eyes to find wires sprawled outside of me, and my fans pick up in pace.
“It's okay. You're doing great, Vee.” Astro smiles, her palm caressing the side of my case. “I'll knock out those dents for you, too. On the house.”
“O °. ◌ -kay…” I feel like I'm full of data, my speaker volume unable to be contained. Again, it's a feeling I can only describe as suffocating —like when there's too much dust caught between the fan blades or there's too many processes at once. Could it just be that I'm overheating? Then why hasn't Astro said anything? What's wrong with my body?
“You have such a lovely voice, you know?” Astro comments. She fondles another IDE cable, crushing it against itself with her fingers, and my display cuts on its own —just for her low soothing voice to draw me back in. “Nothing to be ashamed of.” If only I could think of counterpoints. “Not when you feel this good…”
The tips of my fingers are unresponsive, tingling when my hand brushes against hers. I retract. “Sorry…”
“It's alright,” Astro chuckles, “You can squeeze my hand if you need to. I've got four of them, after all.” I hesitate, then reach once more. “See? There you go. You're okay.”
Her thumb gently caresses the top of my palm, but I just want this to be over.
Astro continues poking around at my MOSFETs when she reinforces my molax cable into its port, pressing so hard I might blue screen. “We're almost done here, alright?”
Is it? I can't cool down, and the static won't stop. This incessant buzzing in my head. Something's loose down there and I can't find out what it is for the life of me. Redirecting power. Component failure. There's no response.
“Haha… You’re not trying to burn me, are you?” Astro's voice is further back some, but her hand remains in mine. “One of your SSDs was misaligned, but I'll check if it needs to be replaced and we'll go from there. Yeah?”
I squeeze her hand as a response, given I'll crash if I speak. And if it was just an SSD, then why all the twisting of my wires? The coaxing of my thin coaxial cables? Why'd she have to stop? I don't under-
… Sequence: Firmware clear. Fetching systems. Responsive. Fetching memory data. Responsive. Processing. I awake like nothing happened, my breast cavity shut and secured. I just feel. Different.
“Evening, sunshine.” The first face I see, Astro. Her eye hooded in a shade of purple you can't miss. She caresses my case again. “Ready for your screen test?”
Astro drives a cable through the port on the side of my head. I'll be able to access that copy of myself, and we can move forward with the calibration from there. Right. Nothing unusual.
“Red.” Astro's hand creeps along my lower back, the sensation forcing me upright. “Ah, easy. Don't want anything else to get misaligned. Red again.”
After running the full sequence of colors, we move on to testing my joints. Usually, they just test the appendages, but Astro's got her hands on my hips. Standing right behind me. “Face left, center, hold position, then repeat on your right.”
Left. Then repeat on the… right. Another set of hands brush against where my abdomen should be.
“You're doing great, Vee.” Her upper hands move, but the set on my hips doesn't let up. “Now, could you reach down for me and grab the back of your ankles for me?” I hesitate. “Good. Head not too heavy?”
“All good.” I feel her hands grip my breast cavity before orienting me upright. “All good...”
“Alright, that completes your maintenance for today!” Astro walks over to her desktop, my profile appearing on the screen. It still feels like her hands are there. “I hope to see you in good shape. So take care, okay?”
“Okay…” I stumble back as she reaches to caress the top of my case.
“You did great today.”
I'm left wandering in tight circles outside her office. Perhaps it could be that something else is wrong? Should I go back in and ask? I don't understand.
“Hey, hope everything went well today!” Shelly greets me from the front desk. I hardly even registered she was there. “Leave a review in the dropbox if you'd like!”
“I think I'll just go… if that's alright.” I wave goodbye. I could use a wash, too.
..
.
.
I went back. I kept going back until I was forced to pair with another mechanic —when Sou had been fired. Whispers spoke of “misconduct.” And while my new mechanic is much quicker, being far more efficient, part of me still misses her.