Heaven's Door

Hospital Beds

"You're not the first robot patented under Cherry Dynamics that I've worked with. Creating the general substance was easy- but for your body to accept them became the hard part. When I removed your weapons, it also effected your power. I was able to take this bit of knowledge to make the energen fragments be accepted by your power core. It's really not that hard when you know what you're doing."

Ray would have never thought she could be able of believing what this child was saying. She knew her salt though, that's for sure.
"A part of the problem seems to lie in your armor," the girl went on. "I might need to remove it to keep a better idea of what I'm looking for."
"How about no?" Ray challenged with a grimace. "You were able to turn me back on, big whoop, your job here is done- give me my weapons back and we can be back on our merry way."
"It's not going to be that simple." Leilani informed the robot with a shrug. "It took nearly a whole day to safely remove them, it will take a whole day to put them back. Regardless, the damage in your system is beyond critical- someone has to help you or you're going to die." The girl paused for a moment before adding, "You'll be more than a brain in a jar. Promise."

"I said no." Ray growled.

"I can help." Leilani calmly persisted, putting a careful hand on the bot's arm. "Just trust me."

Ray was appalled. First of all, this child insists on having Ray trust her when she essentially kidnapped her, then gave the premonition of allowing her to invade Ray's personal coding to make illegal changes. Secondly, she touched her. This child -this 14 year old child who is illegally aiding robots without a robotics license- touched Ray without permission as an attempt to assert domination. No. Just... just no! Without her main weapon system in function, Ray turned to the only defense mechanism she had left: her teeth. Ray didn't have many, as the aesthetic wasn't truly needed while she was on her own, but it was with enough force that it broke through the human girl's skin. Leilani immediately pulled her arm away, letting out a yelp of pain.

"You bit me! A robot bite me!" she even cried out in surprise. But then she paused for a moment before saying, "Truthfully, I don't know how I feel about this..."

"You should be terrified." Ray spat. "Put my weapon system back online or I'll do it again."

"I'm not going to do that." Leilani insisted although she attempted to keep her voice calm. "You need to be fixed, and I'll be damned if you leave here still with that itch. You know what that itch is, don't you? It's a bug that causes you to feel pain equal to being slapped in an electric chair if you're low on xels. Your creator abandoned you because this bug is nearly impassible with all that padding on your main frame- for some reason, he didn't feel like taking apart everything to fix it, so he left you to rot!"

"How do you know that?" Ray snapped with a growl.

"It's in your coding!" Leilani shouted back before whipping around to get a printed sheet from the desk behind her. The sheet was roughly three feet in length and it was shoved directly into Ray's face- a quick note that some sections of the printed words were highlighted, to show interest.

"It's right there," Leilani pointed out, sticking a finger at a line of text somewhere near the middle of the document, "Error in XelProc.batch; Author's note, can not access to fix."

"So I have a bug." Ray grumbled, looking at the human- who seemed to be no less annoyed at the situation. "That doesn't prove he didn't try. It doesn't prove that he abandoned me either. All this proves is that you think you're better than him when you're not even legal yet- is that it? You feel empowered because of your closeted hobby? What do you have to gain from holding me here and demanding to change the very root of who I am? I lived without you or your proposed bullshit for long enough- why should I change my way now, I was perfectly fine!"

Leilani's lips pursed together as if she intended to say something, but forced herself to not say it.

"Fine." the girl finally said. "I have a friend coming over later any way. I'll start working on placing your weapons back after he leaves, deal?"

Ray gave the girl a rather smug smile. "Deal." she agreed.

. . .

The doorbell rang seven times before Leilani was able to answer it.

"Hello Mitch." the girl greeted in a dull tone, still miffed about her talk with Raychel. Hiding behind a medium sized crate that looked a bit heavy, Mitch, her 16 year old boyfriend, was roughly a fourth Indian and a third Italian. But at the moment he was 100% concerned.

"First you request for rare parts that took a decade to find," he complained, nearly dropping said parts that he had placed in the crate, "Then you ignore my texts on why you need them? Lei, what the heck are you hiding and why is it so important?"

The girl shook her head, not wanting to talk about it, but Mitch knew better.

"What's up Leilani?" Mitch kindly inquired as he set the parts down inside the door so he could enter the house. "Did the new body end up being a dud or something? You know you can't save them all Lei, but I'm still here if you need the help."

"Let's take the parts down." Leilani told him, acting as if she were ignoring him somewhat. Raising an eyebrow at her strange behavior, Mitch complied and picked the crate back up to lug downstairs. Leilani followed close behind to make sure he didn't have a serious fall.

"Wait." she requested when the reached the door that led into the basement room. Taking the opportunity, Mitch set the crate back down and took a breather as the girl checked a panel on the wall. "She's offline." the girl sighed, "We have to be silent so she doesn't wake up."

Mitch nodded as he started to get up again, grunting when he had to pick the crate back up- this time Leilani helped him as she took a side and guided them into the self-made lab. They set the crate down safely near a standing tool chest. Leilani waited for Mitch to catch his breath before carefully taking his hand, signaling for him to be quiet, and led him to where Raychel laid. It took all it had in the teen to not yell in surprise.

"She... she's..." he stuttered, unsure of what to say.

"Now you see the problem?" Leilani questioned before she led him over her computer. "She doesn't even want help, I can't believe it. But just look at her specs Mitch- they're so intricate, so beautiful, so unique. And that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of all the data I've collected so far!"

"Am I going to have to worry about you running away with a robot?" Mitch asked her with a raise of his eyebrow. "If so, I need a good warning before you decide that you like robotic women more than men... or me."

Leilani looked at him with a rather confused glance.

"Why would I do that?" she inquired. With a shake of his head, he refused to answer her.

"You can't save everyone Lei." Mitch instead reminded her. "But for curiosity's sake, what were you planing to do to her?"

"I wanted to strip away everything at the legs and arms first. But the main priority would be getting the head uncovered and possibly fixed up as well. Other than that, the torso, neck, and head are going to be the most problematic."

"Which was why you needed the parts?" Mitch asked, seeing where she was going with this. "To give her some form to sustain on while you analyzed the armor?"

Leilani nodded. "Exactly." she agreed. Mitch nodded as he understood.

"You tried Leilani." he said to her, hoping that he was being helpful. "Maybe we can look over the designs with some ice cream or something? Come on."

Thinking it over, the girl agreed to this and together they went back upstairs. What they didn't know was that Ray had heard every word and was now having second thoughts about the whole ordeal. Maybe it was time for a patch after all...