Heaven's Door

I Believe You

The only sound in the lab were of the sparks flying off of Ray's body as Leilani prepared to place her weapons online again. Both of them were silent, refusing to speak for numerous reasons. But Ray had an itch, a different kind from earlier that was born from curiosity and the nagging feeling of wanting to know more about this child and her adamant thoughts on trying to fix her.

"I'm not the first robot under Cherry Dynamics to meet your... acquaintance?" Ray asked. Her tone was vague, and her expression was unreadable. It didn't stop the girl from working though.

"No, you weren't." Leilani agreed with a shake of her head. "CDN 67-8.72.18, nicknamed Troilus. He runs completely on petroleum and he's even able to produce his own. Despite the serial number, he was actually the second generation of bots to be produced under CherryDyn's patents- if you want to consider the CDN 12XX line as the first generation, of course."

"Sounds familiar..." Ray faintly mumbled.

"He's an official contender in the Battle Colosseum." the girl explained. "The most popular rivalry in general is between Troilus and Mighty Number One, Pyrogen. Some of their fights had to have special security terms due to some rather lethal issues. It gets really, really ugly from what I've heard."

Ah yes, now she could remember it. The girl was right, those battle got ugly, and it wasn't from the contenders themselves. After one of those fights, Ray almost always overheard a conversation where some sucker lost a house or something due to one side winning, or the bots coming to a draw. She snickered at the thought, earning her an odd look from Leilani. But the human quickly ignored it. Ray wasn't done talking yet though.

"If... you could," the bot started to say, drawing her thoughts out slowly and carefully, "What would it take for you to run a defragmentation on my system? It's been awhile, and as it seems, I can not begin the process on my own."

This made the human girl pause.

"It would be similar to the process of taking the bug out of your system," Leilani informed her. "Due to attempting to reach your core, which is buried under layers of overpowered armor. Without a pathway to the core, there isn't a pathway to do anything with you cognitively. Why?"

"I want a defragmentation." Ray repeated with a bit of a haughty undertone. "Is there a problem with that? Or, with all your talk, can you not do such a basic process?"

The human girl looked at Ray with a slight raise of her eyebrow. "I can do it." Leilani affirmed. "But like I said, I'm going to have to take you apart to get to your core. Are you sure you want me to do that? It could take a week, at least, maybe even a month."

Ray glared at Leilani. "I'm going to repeat myself." the bot told the girl darkly. "I want a defragmentation and you're going to do it for me, got it?"

The only answer Leilani could give was a look of near surprise. Then the girl got up and got a different set of tools from a nearby toolbox.

"It might hurt." Leilani warned. Ray gave a snide smirk in retaliation.

"You'll find that I'm very resilient to pain." came the very boastful answer.

. . .

"What parts do you intend to supply me with as you rip apart my armor?" Ray casually questioned as Leilani effectively worked on removing the bot's boots.

"SP build Omega, possibly the rarest parts of Cherry Dynamics' original robot lineup." the girl informed her with a casual roll of her shoulder. "It's even rarer than SP build Alpha- the very parts built to create CDN 1201, Trinity. Some say that one of those Mighty Numbers over at the Battle Colosseum has SP Alpha bits too. Personally, I think it's the youngest one- Number 9, which is why he isn't usually seen competing."

"Predator..." Ray realized as her pupils shrunk at the mention.

"What was that?" Leilani asked, peering a bit to see Ray's expression- she didn't have much luck though.

"Nothing." the bot immediately dismissed, training her eyes up to the ceiling. "Nothing but a thought."

"Alright then..." the girl agreed with a slow nod before getting back to work.

"Your friend that was supposed to come over," Ray then spoke up, "Was he the one that dropped off the parts?"

"Yeah." Leilani agreed. "He works at a warehouse that houses a lot of old robot equipment. He knows the place like the back of hand."

"His name was Mitch, correct?"

The human paused. "How did you...?"

"Even offline, I still have some degree of awareness." Ray quickly informed the girl, telling a mild lie at best. "He seemed older than you."

"Only by two years." Leilani sheepishly admitted. "We started dating a year ago, if only to give our relationship a name that would satisfy everyone, since, you know, we weren't siblings or anything."

"Human emotions and labels are trivial." Ray huffed. "You could have done better than that."

"Am I hearing this right?" Leilani questioned with a small laughter, "Are you jealous?"

"And for what reason do you have to think that?!" Ray immediately snapped, earning another light laugh from the human girl.

"Well, it certainly doesn't seem like nagging." came the warm reply. "And I highly doubt you meant it to be nurturing either. So, by Freud's process of elimination..."

"Are you going to remove this armor so you can commit a defragmentation or not?!" Ray roared with anger. "Quit stalling and do the thing I commanded you to do already!"

To the bot's annoyance, the girl couldn't help but let out a laugh. "What ever you say Raychel-hime." Leilani chuckled as she continued to work. Ray was not amused.

. . .

5KY51R3N: We're defragging!!

NullVoid00: so help me, even tho i no what u mean, i thought of something else

NullVoid00: raychel wanted to go through a defrag?

5KY51R3N: Yes!

5KY51R3N: I told her it would take a week.

5KY51R3N: A day for each limb and then some.

5KY51R3N: I can still learn about her.

5KY51R3N: I can still sort through her coding for that bug.

5KY51R3N: Maybe...

5KY51R3N: Maybe she'll let me fix her too after.

NullVoid00: L...

5KY51R3N: I said maybe.

NullVoid00: but u can't save everyone

5KY51R3N: I can try.

NullVoid00: L

NullVoid00: i'm coming over tomorrow early

NullVoid00: is that alright?

5KY51R3N: Sure! I'll need an extra hand anyway.

NullVoid00: remember L, just a defrag

NullVoid00: not a nip n tuck

NullVoid00: alright?

5KY51R3N: Alright...

5KY51R3N: See you tomorrow then?

NullVoid00: yep. c u

NullVoid00 has signed out