Heaven's Door

MANiCURE

Days passed by, and with each day a new part of Ray's armor would come off. Admittedly, Ray started to feel lighter- and not just in kilograms. Leilani had explained, in mild passing, that it was due to her power cells beginning to focus on only one source- enough to keep Ray functioning and nothing else. The human girl also continued to develop the 'Superman of xels' for the bot as she learned more information from the armor. Mitch was able to find some xels in his magical warehouse of everything, so when a day of dissecting Ray ended early, Leilani would focus on the xels instead.

Speaking of xels, Ray hardly ever thought about having any nowadays- unless some was presented to her, then she would wolf it down as if it were the first time experiencing such a thing. It could have been due, in some small part, to Leilani regularly ensuring that Ray was being input with xels directly while working on her- similar to intravenous therapy. But it was the last thing that the bot regularly thought of while all the dissembling took place.

Ray was starting to contemplate how her relationship with the human had progressed -while at the same time calculating whether or not robots could get Stockholm Syndrome. There wasn't a lot of talk between them when the human started to concentrate, but when they did, it was mostly light conversations to ease the white noise. Small talk like the weather, or some info about the past bots Leilani helped. For example, if Leilani ever screamed bloody murder, one of the bots named Tribus would come immediately. Or, did you know that Troilus regularly sang praises of Leilani in front of Pyrogen while still keeping her main identity secret? How about Horus, the first bot that Leilani ever helped? His body was like a giant lightbulb and was currently acting as a tourist guide in some cavern or another in Virginia.

This had to be Stockholm at this point, there was no other way to explain it.

"Your helmet is coming off completely today." Leilani informed Ray one morning with a light smile. "Once it's gone, I'll be able to hook you up to my computer to finally begin the defrag."

"About time." Ray huffed. Leilani gave a small chuckle before turning her attention to Mitch.

"Is everything ready?" she asked him.

"Yes ma'am." he agreed with a grin. "Let's see if your favorite impatient patient has hair."

"Don't get too attached to the idea." Ray grumbled.

"Let's start." Leilani kindly suggested, to which the other two agreed. The girl then set to work, removing what was left of Ray's helmet. Ray closed her eyes about ten minutes in- this process was like having your head massaged by the hair dresser and experiencing ASMR at the same time. It was the perfect way to kill someone while they experienced nothing but total bliss. It didn't take the young genius long to finish off the helmet and hand the remains to Mitch for safekeeping.

"Can you sit up for me?" Leilani requested. "The inputs are located at the nape of your neck."

Slow and mechanical, Ray did so to allow the girl access. Working as quickly as a little spider, Leilani got a few cables that were connected to her computer and dexterously placed them in Ray's input hubs without even touching the bot. Then the girl went back to her computer to quickly enter multiple codes.

"Done!" she declared as she sent off the last line of coding to Ray. "The estimations place a rough 24 hours for the process to complete, but you can do whatever you want."

Ray scoffed. "And what am I supposed to do, besides sit here like I have been?" she questioned with a rather unkind glare.

"Well..." Leilani then said as her face started to flush a light pink, "I was thinking I could show you my house. Maybe even find some clothes for you that fit your new frame. Or... or I could still fix you, physically, I mean."

"Lei..." Mitch softly groaned. "This wasn't a-"

"Nip and tuck. I know." the girl agreed. "But..." (and she turned to look directly at Ray) "You could look even more pretty without all that armor on."

The look of confusion the girl got was equal from the other two.

"Is that my warning?" Mitch questioned to Leilani. Leilani looked back at him with a slight raise of her eyebrow.

"Do you want it to be?" she asked him, sounding a bit curious.

"No..." he admitted with a sheepish shake of his head.

"Then it isn't." Leilani told him with a small raise and lower of her shoulder. "I just... if you were going to be murdered in the dark from an unknown assailant, would you rather it be by a succubus or a zombie?"

"Succubi is the painless option, right?" Mitch playfully smirked. "Give me that instead of seeing my own flesh get ripped out by a brainwashed friend."

"Mitch..." Leilani groaned, a bit playfully, as she shook her head in disbelief. But Ray wasn't listening, not completely any way, as she thought the idea over.

Once, way too long ago, her creator once called her something greater than pretty; beautiful. He had called her beautiful. But the rest of her... was not. When he rejected her, she became a zombie- mindless, always killing, and... ugly... Ray had never any thought to actually consider what some other person looked like, whether or not they could be deemed 'pretty'. The very idea sent thoughts into Ray's head, just as the defragmentation reorganized said thoughts. She looked to Leilani, judging- was she pretty? Did others find her pretty? Did Ray, personally, think that Leilani was pretty?

Stockholm or not, the girl had proved to be nothing more than overeager to help. She had an idea, and she was going to stick to it. Human emotions and labels were trivial, but wouldn't this trait be deemed as 'pretty' to some?

"Fix me." Ray found herself saying out loud, gaining the surprised attention of the humans. After a look from them, she continued, "Physically. I want you to fix me physically. Can you do that?"

Leilani looked at her, honestly surprised at the turnaround but also excited. "Y-yeah!" she sputtered in awe before turning to Mitch. "Mitch, can you find me a xel graft Type V at the warehouse?"

"I can find anything." he affirmed. "Do you want it split, full, or composite?"

"Definitely full." she informed him firmly. "Also locate some extra iris sockets coded #0FB7FF, and kanekalon hair coded #60A61B. About two yards should do, leaving plenty of extra in case I botch sewing the wig."

Mitch nodded. "Got it." he affirmed. "Be back in a few hours." and with that he was gone in a flash. With him gone, Leilani then turned to Ray brightly.

"Would you like a tour of my house Raychel?" she then offered. "He's going to be awhile."

Ray thought about the idea, remembering her old plans of looking for escape routes, found herself reassessing the idea with renewed interest.

"Sure." she agreed in a slow, dull tone. "Show me how an underage robotist lives under the law's radar."

Leilani gave Ray a bright, excited smile.