IshiMondo Collection

‣ major malfunction [part three]

Mondo was unapologetically late to work the morning after he drank himself into yet another blissful almost-coma. Right away, he noticed that Kazuichi was acting even weirder than he usually did.

"Explain yourself," he demanded. Kazuichi didn't bother to deflect.

"...Boss had Miu and I make some adjustments, like we talked about..."

"And?"

"We upped Taka's strength last night. He's supposed to help us move stuff and do the heavy lifting now."

"Oh." That made sense, Mondo guessed. Kiyotaka couldn't exactly throw his back out. "So what's your deal? What're you all jittery about?"

"I just feel like there must be a reason that they don't usually do that to the units, you know? Especially since Taka works kind of weird. There's no telling what kind of shit his hardware could get up to. There's metal in there."

Weren't you the one who wanted to tinker with him in the first place?

"I guess you have a point. But it'll probably be fine," Mondo said, and his tone was even less convincing than he had expected it to be. He had a bad feeling.

Mondo's gut feeling was quickly vindicated. By the afternoon, Kiyotaka had caused noticeable damage to the hulls of several cars in the forms of scratches and bumps and even a broken taillight. He bowed as low as he could over and over again, profusely apologizing for his error all the while, as their boss assessed the level of destruction and berated him. That was going to come out of their pockets somehow.

Taka had a wonky system, alright. Fujisaki had said something about that. The persecom couldn't control his own strength with the artificial barrier in his programming removed. And once it had spiraled out of control it had really spiraled, like a falling line of dominoes.

"Shoulda left you in the garbage heap," Boss-man spat, slapping the roof of the car that Taka had nearly totaled. "You've been a hell of a lot more trouble than you're worth!"

"You don't have to be such a dick about it," Mondo retorted, like a reflex. He shouldn't have said anything at all, but it was too late for that. Boss-man's head snapped in his direction.

"What did you say?"

"He's right!" There was an edge of fear to Miu's voice despite her attempts to look unfazed. "I mean, Kaz and I DID warn you that there was a risk to rolling out new hardware settings so fast, but you just couldn't pass up the opportunity to fire a guy or two and replace them with a—"

"Enough!" Their boss literally threw down the towel. The one he'd been using to uselessly wipe at grime as if that would fix a crumpled hood. He stomped in Mondo's direction, even though it seemed that his anger should have been directed at Miu instead, and jabbed a finger into his chest. "If you two are so hell-bent on standing up for the fucking robot, then I'm sure you won't mind cleaning up its messes, either! ...Fix the damn thing. And clean up this mess. Just get it done."

He stormed out, slamming the door behind him. Kiyotaka flinched. He shouldn't have flinched. What could he possibly be afraid of? Did he know fear? He looked scared.

The sun was setting and Mondo wanted to go home, but he couldn't. He had to finish the repairs. Make a lot of unpleasant phone calls. Miu and Kazuichi had to reverse their mistakes, revert Taka to normal. Or, at least, to whatever he was before.

"I'm sorry," Taka said again when Miu approached him, quieter this time. Kazuichi interrupted him when he tried to say it again. Something about how it would be more comfortable to do this in the other room and Mondo needed privacy with the customers. When Taka tried to apologize a third time, he was hushed, and then he fell silent.