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remesrobotics · 3 months ago

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Nobody knew where the mysterious device that Dr. Harp built into Tokay Woman came from.

It was only a matter of time before it began to exhibit side-effects defying explanation.

Tick tock. Tap tap.

Tokay Woman tapped her claws idly against the side of her helmet in perfect time with the passing of seconds, as she waited for the company truck to pull to a stop.

The gecko bot was set to oversee a demolitions project; something she’d been designed for, but never put to practice at a real work site. To say she was a little antsy was an understatement, but she was looking forward to it all the same. With luck, using her abilities in short, decisive bursts to protect others would be a more fulfilling use of her power than leaving time stopped for hours and hours on end doing nothing but filing a majority of of the labs’ paperwork.

On arrival, her brow furrowed as she hopped out of the vehicle, padded feet barely making sound as they touched simultaneously on the dusty ground. Even from this viewpoint at the perimeter established around the site, the damage was immense. An anti-robot demonstration at a mass production facility had ended in violence, and a large portion of the building was destroyed when a riot vehicle controlled by one of the more belligerent gangs broke out from the line of peaceful protestors and delivered a lethal payload directly into the power plant running the entire south wing of the complex.

Given the sheer amount of damaged heavy equipment and the machinery required to process it all, it was the perfect opportunity to put her time-manipulating Flash Freeze to use. The scale of the operation meant that even a minor accident could have catastrophic consequences, and if she could prevent any of those at all, it would more than validate all the time and money poured into her highly experimental technology... especially for those skeptical of whether or not something so close to Dr. Wily’s mad tinkering would have use in matters more urgent than office work.

The short-statured gecko looked about. Aside from the handful of other Harp Numbers who arrived with her, two large, mechanized scrappers accompanied the caravan of other robots and workers, for processing rubble and scrap too large to move but too mangled to repurpose directly. The scrappers were robots in their own right - designed by a different manufacturer and modeled after giant, three-headed dragons - but given they did not possess any sort of free will, their presence unnerved many of the other self-aware robots present who weren’t owned by the same firm, Tokay included.

As the other Harp Numbers disembarked from a separate and much larger shuttle, Tokay took a small mental survey of who she’d be working with. Of her siblings up to Number 08 - Hatch - only Reach and Nail were absent, as both were much more geared towards building and construction than large-scale demolition. Their skills and abilities were best put to use elsewhere, for efficiency’s sake.

The first out of the massive transport truck behind her was the lightweight and lanky form of Gutter Woman, arcing her back with her arms in the air as she stretched, “Ahh, nothing like the crisp breeze and the smell of sweaty worker bot dudes to wake you up this fine afternoon, huh?” The red snake bot practically sang, flicking her forked tongue.

A biting male voice issued from the truck, “Thank you so much for holding that in until everyone in a mile could hear you, you incorrigible piece of-”

The insult was cut off by a short, deep, “Stop,” as two figures emerged behind Gutter; the diminutive and nearly-spherical Pack Man, held by the huge and imposing Heavy Woman.

Ignoring her, the horned frog continued to spout, “Completely ignoring the fact that robots can’t even sweat, and you still insist-”

“Pack,” The immense python ‘bot cut him off again with a heavy sigh, “This is the first time in ages we’re assigned to work with another firm. We’re not here to make a bad impression.”

“Don’t go filling me in like I don’t know that already, but if we weren’t, we wouldn’t have brought her,” Pack gestured at Gutter, who simply giggled. That only made Pack angrier, “I’d take Nail sleeping on a bench the whole shift over her running her mouth!”

“Oh come on, if the guys can talk rowdy, so can I,” Gutter lashed the tail attached to the back of her head before running her hand along it, a Search Cutter drone practically materializing in her hand as she did so, “Try not to get so worked up, you might cough up an E-Tank.”

Heavy rolled her eyes as she let Pack down so she could reach into the truck for some large tool boxes; while Pack had almost everything they needed inside the folded space of his internal storage capsules, having other tools immediately handy for both themselves and others was never a bad idea, “Just stay out of trouble. Both of you.” The python looked around, eyes catching the speckled glint of Tokay in her peripheral vision, “Oh, right! You’re with us today!” Heavy smiled, “Ready to go, Tokay?”

Tokay shrugged, though there was a hint of dejection to her nonchalance. Situations like this made her feel like a bit of an outcast to her own siblings, given how often they worked together without her, “I’m good.”

Regardless of now she felt, it looked like they all had everything in order, bickering aside, and it was as good time as any to activate her own, specialized equipment. All she had to do was lift the RFID chip in her right palm to the Flash Freeze unit to let it know it was time.

As Tokay’s hand passed in front of her chest, there was a soft beep and a smooth, otherworldly whirr. The gecko bot’s own core temperature dropped unnaturally, dipping even lower than what her refrigeration pack kept her at to prevent more dramatic fluctuations from destabilizing fine circuits and wiring. She closed her eyes and checked her internal clock to make sure everything was calibrated and running smoothly.

10:40 and 25 seconds

Before any more preparations could be made, the collected Harp Numbers’ attention was drawn by the rough clearing of a human throat.

They turned to see the approach of the site’s foreman; a surly looking middle-aged man in light protective gear. The shoulder of his outfit was emblazoned with an ostentatious “XP” logo. The emblem of Exemplar Production; a large, corporate firm that had recently gone on to buy many of the smaller, independent industrial robot developers for contract work.

That logo was always bad news. The Harp Numbers in particular frowned a bit to see it.

“Save the chit-chat for after the job... or at least during it, after checking in,” the man returned that frown, voice gruff. “I know you lot aren’t our normal crew, but I expected a bit more professionalism than this.”

The accusation stung a bit and it was apparent on everyone’s faces. Gutter’s mask thankfully covered her silent mocking, while Heavy seemed a little more distraught at the thought. Tokay and Pack both scowled deeply, or at least gave off the impression in the frog-bot’s case as he snapped, “We’re already good and ready and waiting for instruction, thank you very much.”

“Less talking, more moving,” the foreman retorted, “Though seeing you’re all mouth maybe that’s all you can do.”

Tokay wanted to bite him.

Before the situation could escalate further as indicated by Pack raising a finger to further respond, he was scooped up by Heavy’s tail, who gave the slightest of bowing nods, trying to play the appeaser, “Apologies, sir. We’ll be on our way.” She adjusted her gait to accommodate the two large toolboxes, one under each arm, and turned to move along, her collar halves sliding closed to form a mask in front of her face.

Tokay, still fully incensed, couldn’t help but notice two siblings had not emerged with the rest, “Slag and Hatch not coming?”

“No,” the foreman gestured over to the rest of the vehicles preparing to move further into the site, “Slag Woman will be taken to Station 2, direct power plant access. It was built to withstand high heat and pressure stress, so hopefully most of the individual pieces are intact enough to reuse. If anything was too damaged by the explosion to be repaired, it’ll have to be taken apart... and knowing how sturdy the construction of those components are, we’ll need the really big guns to get started on that first while the rest of you sweep up the perimeter and work your way in.”

“Real big guns, huh? They know what’s up, I’ll give them that,” Slag leaned out, waving their antennae-like hair and sounding tiredly sarcastic, with a hint of smugness, “I’ll be sure to leave you something to chew on when you get there.”

Tokay nodded. At least it was a sensible explanation, “And Hatch-?”

The answer arrived in the form of a small frog robot that leapt out of the vehicle, leaping up to perch on her shoulder. An Assist Hopper, which spoke in Hatch’s voice, albeit more mechanical, “I’ll be taken to the midway point. That way I can oversee both sites, and lend a hopping hand where needed. It’ll be more efficient than trying to walk between either.”

“Now,” The foreman narrowed his eyes, trying to break up the conversation with a wave of his hand, “If you don’t mind...”

“Don’t you ‘if you don’t mind’ me,” Tokay hissed back, “You know my job doesn’t start until there’s an accident.” She glanced around, “And from the looks of it, the other teams aren’t in position either. So why don’t you go do your job and go demean them?”

She almost grinned at the man growling in response, trying to ignore his threatening words, “Don’t press your luck. The pretty price tag on your research doesn’t mean you’re exempt from-.”

“Tick tock,” Tokay’s grin turned a little more vicious than even her mocking tone. The foreman couldn’t formulate a response to the jab and turned on his heel, mumbling something under his breath. There was a slight spark of catharsis in the gecko bot’s circuits, knowing she had at least that much power.

It took a few more minutes to get everything into position to start the clean-up, with each company intermingling with one another under thankfully more understanding human supervision; actual workers who knew what the job entailed. A slew of other generic worker robots - Pickelmans, Metalls, and the like - were also chipped in by the city to aid in the work. It was quite the sight to behold, especially with the giant, three-headed dragon scrappers towering over all of them.

Tokay stood off to the side, out of the way but close enough to leap into action at a moment’s notice, keeping a hawk-like gaze on everything. Her claws scratched at her crossed arms lightly, itching in second intervals, waiting for something to happen. It was definitely interesting to see the design differences in the robots present, seeing at least two other companies had contributed robots to this project. Most of them didn’t sport quite the... recognizable style as the Harp Numbers themselves, but they had a distinct look to them all the same. They weren’t Dr. Light originals, but they were certainly inspired.

One of those worker ‘bots - sporting a massive welding cutter for an arm - passed by with a derisive snort, “Heh... Dr. Harp’s paper-pusher. Working hard or hardly w-”

“Don’t-,” Tokay snapped, momentarily, before puffing a frustrated sigh, “...That joke’s never funny.” An overly forced smirk pulled at the side of her mouth, baring sharp teeth, “Doesn’t help that you all are too good at your jobs, putting me out of one,” the gecko bot attempted to jest in return, but it was clear there was a touch of cynicism and irritation behind her words.

“Hey, look at the bright side,” the welder laughed as he walked on by, barely even looking back as he waved dismissively with his manipulator arm, “you’ll always have your desk job.”

Tokay’s eyelid twitched, but she said nothing, content to silently imagine how it’d feel to pull that oversized arm off with her teeth-

She shook her head to dismiss the image. There were more important things to focus on... in theory. Truth be told, she wasn’t wrong - if they did their jobs well, she wouldn’t have one. But having insurance was better than having none... right? With no active work to do, Tokay had no way of proving her worth... and with no active work to do, there was little to keep her mind from wandering to the ramifications of her being deemed effectively useless...

A sudden noise cut into those anxious thoughts. The giant dragon scrappers, until that point, had been acting as a final stage in picking apart the structures broken down by other robots and organizing larger pieces into piles, only using their shear-shaped jaws to break down certain chunks of metal to feed into the shredders in their torsos. Suddenly, the yellow one at the perimeter site had turned its attention to parts of the building that had not been broken down yet, and started tearing into it with its own jaws.

The massive machine was normally capable of surprising precision given its bulk and power, but there was something unruly and sloppy to its new movements as it tore into a large section of girder-reinforced wall. The deep groaning of massive plates and beams of metal being tugged apart by three sets of giant jaws drew attention as many of the workers stopped what they were doing and turned their collective gaze upward.

Without warning, the assembly snapped, a poor welding job buckling under the conflicting forces, shearing off and launching a sharp metal beam and turning it into a lethal, three-meter-long javelin.

The flying beam set off Tokay’s sensors, as the eyes on her helmet snapped a shot of the scene, clock-hand pupils swiveling in the direction of the deadly debris and noting that there was a form in its path.

In the blink of an eye, everything around Tokay shifted to a light overlay of cyan, with neon highlights on every contour, like a wireframe. In that moment, she got the full gist of the situation. The beam was headed towards another bot... and it just so happened to be the welder.

She chuckled darkly to herself. It would be so easy to just let time take its course, and allow this accident to happen out of spite. But that wouldn’t help her case, nor prove her worth. So, with subtle regret for her own conscience, she made her move

Tokay knew full well that the nature of her Flash Freeze would not eliminate all the momentum if she let time resume as-is, so she had to be careful about her approach. It took less than a second to calculate every angle and vector, to determine the best possible action to take.

Rushing forward on all fours, she leapt up to the beam. The moment her feet made contact with it, she blinked the Flash Freeze - a quick off and on, within a fraction of a second - to allow her kick to shift the energy of the moving metal just a hair enough before freezing again, allowing her to drop to the ground. She spun, wrapping her tail around the large wrist of the welding cutter robot, and resumed time as she pulled.

Everything lined up perfectly; all the forces resumed and her pull shifted the other bot out of the way just enough for the beam to strike the ground barely millimeters to the left; any less and he would have surely been impaled. The welder gasped, as did several of the other robots present.

Tokay smirked, snapping her fingers as she released her tail’s grip, “Hardly work.”

The welder bot was still a little disoriented from the barely averted catastrophic injury, but scoffed at the jab, “Feh... you got me..” It looked up at the giant mechanized scrapper, “All the same... What the Hell’s Haikidra-1 doing..?”

As a few other robots from that firm gathered to look on, the welder continued, “That ain’t normal behavior...”

“Hm?” Tokay asked, curiously, “Fill me in... I haven’t worked with either of these before.”

“Right..,” another worker from that line commented, “It’s... supposed to be helping organize rubble into piles by material... and shredding and compacting only steel for repurposing.”

The gathered bots watched on as the large demolition bot continued to grab objects at random, ripping large chunks apart with its shearing jaws and dropping smaller pieces into the shredder basin on the top of its main body chassis, ignoring everything else.

“...Should we do something about that?” Tokay asked, somewhat cynically, “Is that even our job?”

“I’d say so,” came a small and familiar, but overly mechanized voice from down at their feet. They looked down to see an Assist Hopper, just as it leapt up to perch on Tokay’s shoulder, “I’m gathering some data and currently looking for an engineer with wireless access to look into the problem,” Hatch confirmed.

Tokay sighed, “Alright... but in the mean time, what do we do? Nobody can get close to it until then, so nobody can do their job...”

“Leave it to me~” chirped an overly confident voice. Everyone turned incredulously to see Gutter shrug, as she strolled right up to the distracted machine, just in front of its front-end baler doors.

“Gutter!” Hatch yelled through her Hopper, leaping off Tokay’s shoulder to bound over, perching on the snake bot’s head, yelling down, “There’s nothing you can do to help here! Stand by and wait for-”

The red serpent ignored her remote sibling, removing her mask and cupping her hands around her mouth, “OYYY! BONEHEADS!” she called up, indignantly, causing the smaller frog to flail and fall off from the piercing volume, “You’re on steel duty, remember?! You can’t just go chomping shit willy-nilly!!”

Everyone was tense, but the machine didn’t seem to pay her any heed.

“...I don’t think they understand,” mumbled Pack, shooting the lithe serpent a glance of disdain, almost finding her just as mindless as the giant hydra, “Don’t waste your breath, and get your idiot ass back here!”

“Oh PLEASE,” Gutter rolled her eyes and turned around, replacing her mask before putting her hands on her hips, “It’s designed to take orders, maybe it just has to be reminded that-”

Tokay’s motion-sensitive helmet eyes picked up the anomalous movement before anybody else could begin to register that Haikidra-1 had turned its attention downward.

“GUTTER-!” she shouted, hand raising up. Before anyone could respond, the gecko’s vision glazed over with the same glowing blue, highlighted wireframe from before, as the entire world around her stopped in its tracks once more. Without skipping a beat she lunged forward, wrapping her arms around her thin-framed and very lightweight sister.

With a tremendous roar, time resumed and Tokay’s lunging momentum pulled Gutter out of the way just in time, as the shearing jaws of the hydraulic hydra clamped shut with a deafening crunch exactly where she had been less than a second before.

As both Harp Numbers went tumbling, Gutter shouted, shocked, “D-dude-! Did that shithead just try to fucking vore me?!”

“Not... the time... Gutter,” Tokay mumbled, picking herself back up, not even wasting the time to dust herself off, “Hopefully Hatch gets someone quickly...” She whirled to the other robots present, especially Heavy, “Until then, set up a perimeter! Don’t let anyone get into its grab range, just let it chew on anything inanimate until-”

She was cut off by a loud grind and crunch, which diverted the gathered robots’ attentions to Haikidra-1 as it reached down and clamped its hydraulic jaws around a large chunk of concrete, lifting it high into the air. With a sharp bite, the block shattered, leaving behind rebar as the debris flew in every direction, raining down on the robots and other human employees assisting with the project. Any taller robots present had to quickly stand over any smaller workers, machine and otherwise, using themselves as shields against the falling rubble.

That itself drew attention away from the fact that another head had reached down and plucked up a nearby Pickelman - obliviously performing its duties with its one-track-minded programming, toiling away with a pickaxe on the concrete structure - and dropped it unceremoniously into the open-topped shredder on its base. The others looked up from their work at the ungodly noise and scattered, cost-mitigating self-preservation programming kicking in just a little too late. Haikidra-1 continued to grab, rend, and shred whatever was in grabbing range.

“Until what?!” Pack yelled, panic beginning to set in. “Until it remembers it has treads?!”

“...Dammit, we don’t have time-!” Tokay hissed. Then, in a moment of realization, she looked down at her hand, “...But I do.”

Turning to her serpentine sisters, Tokay barked, “Gutter! Give me one of your snakes! I’m going to try and disable as much as I can!”

“Are you crazy all of a sudden?!” Gutter yelled, incredulously.

“Crazy or not, I have a job to do!” Tokay shouted back, “Just give me something to cut some cables with!!”

There was just enough pause to get the snake bot’s doubt through, but with a sigh she reached up to the tail behind her head, extracting another of her own serpentine drones from a hidden compartment. She looked down at the gecko bot, her normally facetious expression turning serious... worried, even, “Be safe...”

Gutter gave the Search Cutter a twist and its mouth opened up, lighting up with a slightly curved energy blade of decent length, with two perpendicular energy blades forming a hilt of sorts, before handing it off to Tokay, who took it in hand and nodded, “I will.”

With that, she turned to Haikidra-1 and ran. Just as the giant demolisher reached down to pluck her up, she lifted a hand, and the world froze blue once again.

Tokay ignored the slight pressure in her chest as she leapt up, dagger at the ready, landing first on the caution stripes in front of the open shredder, then clearing it with another jump to land between the central and left heads. A single large pipe containing multiple cables was bare at the very base, and she targeted that first, slashing into it with the serpentine energy blade, making sure it got every wire and pipe contained within the cylindrical metal casing.

She didn’t bother to unfreeze time to check if that damage was enough, and instead worked her way up, pinpointing the joints with the Search Cutter blade, driving it in with scalpel-like precision and hoping she’d sever anything transmitting a charge or information. She just hoped all three heads worked like limbs running off a central computer rather than individually-controlled personalities.

As she neared the machine’s head, Tokay checked on her internal timing mechanisms and gasped. She was nearly out of energy... already! She was so used to keeping time stopped for literally hours at a time!

Kicking off from Haikidra-1’s neck, the gecko bot backflipped a distance away and landed gracefully on the ground as she allowed time to resume. The dragon reeled with a roar as its left neck went limp, dropping just barely to the side and avoiding its own shredder wheels by sheer chance.

Tokay had no time to dwell on her own situation before being distracted by a strangled yelp, and she turned to see Gutter on her knees, holding the sides of her head, “Gutter!” She ran over to place a hand on her serpentine sister. “What’s wrong-?”

“I... I don’t know-” Gutter sputtered, “You vanished and... reappeared in a second... and I suddenly got... some kinda... fuckin’ blast of garbage encrypted visual data... right between the eyes out of nowhere...” She shook her head, trying to clear the disorientation.

Tokay looked down at the Search Cutter in her hand, and the realization struck. It was still recording while she was functioning within frozen time... and it was still transmitting. She cursed. It was the reason all the devices in her office had to record to their own drives... attempting to transmit any kind of data from within frozen time out of it could brick a system, and she was grateful for Gutter’s own safety that she’d only done so for a few seconds of footage.

“Damn it... We’re going to have to figure something else out,” Tokay admitted through clenched teeth. She began to hold the snake drone back to its owner, but paused, “Though... I’ll still need this. I just won’t use the Flash Freeze with it in-hand.” She corrects. “...Not that I could... I barely have any energy left in it.”

Taking a few heavy ventilating ‘breaths’, she brought her left hand to her chest... she was so used to using her power in a confined space, among little more than inanimate paperwork and computers... to feel the energy run down so quickly made her realize how little her tech had been tuned towards freezing moving targets of larger size and volatility...

The sound of tires peeling drew attention to a work vehicle pulling up, skidding to a stop as three figures emerged; a human technician with a laptop wired to the back of a humanoid electrical robot with notable antennae and other transmission equipment, as another Assist Hopper trailed both.

“Sorry for the wait,” gasped the human technician as he typed and fiddled with the computer’s touch screen, “We tried to use the central terminal for both shredders to simply shut down Unit 1, but something’s wrong, so we’re going to try to brute force commands wirelessly!”

“This isn’t our field,” the transmission bot admitted, sounding a little unconvinced as the technician continued to type, “But we had no choice, we’re trying to come up with a makeshift solution on the fly here.”

“What I wouldn’t give for that right now,” Hatch’s Hopper muttered, offhandedly, only to catch herself and correct, despite everybody being too preoccupied to notice the slip, “Flying, I mean. We could get more reinforcements here quicker!”

“Alright, the terminal system is up,” the human worker shifted the laptop to his other hand, shaking off the one that was initially bearing the weight, “can you get in?”

The electric bot’s eyes closed for a moment, and opened up, solid white as he raised his hands, hovering them over his temples. After a moment, Haikidra-1 continued to rampage, and the transmission bot’s eyes returned to normal, expression twisting, “Wireless access is blocked entirely!” the transmission bot shouted, sounding more and more panicked, “It should be impossible, but... but not even I can get through!”

If a robot could blanch, Hatch would have done so, indicated by voice alone, “Are you kidding?!”

“I’m not! I can’t get in!” the robot shook his head as the engineer tapped more and more frantically at the laptop, “Whatever’s making it go haywire has completely shut it off to outside interference!”

“Well, there’s still some physical interference to be had! We can’t just let it keep doing that shit!” Gutter shouted, gesturing in a wide arc to the menacing machine, “We need to shut it down completely, the hard way!” She punched her hand into her palm, “Good ol’ percussive measures, right?!”

Amidst the bewildered stares of the other robots and human workers, the Harp Numbers turned to each other with sharp, affirmative nods and a synchronized, “Right!”

Gutter and Tokay leapt into action first, and Haikidra-1’s attention was drawn immediately to the two bite-sized morsels approaching it rather than running away like everything else was. Its treads repositioned the massive construct to face its shredder towards them, and the front of its torso opened up like a mechanical ribcage, expelling a dense bale of crushed concrete, shredded metal, and barely discernible robot parts towards them, forcing them to dodge. With a roar it reached down, attempting to grab whoever was closer as its compactor snapped shut.

Being ready for it this time, Gutter was more than agile enough to dodge out of the way of the lunging jaws. Drawing out all of her remaining Search Cutters, she linked them into a chain formation, spinning them up and launching the string of snakes at Haikidra-1’s cheek fin, latching on like a grappling hook and pulling her light frame atop its head, “Giddy up, scissorface!”

The other active head turned, somehow looking enraged despite the lack of facial articulation, and opened its mouth to pluck off the annoying vermin. But before it could get too close, the last Search Cutter flew up from ground level and latched on to the side of its head, and in the blink of an eye, Tokay was there, pulling the snake free as her clinging pads held fast to the dragon’s smooth metal hide.

The gecko gave a thumbs up to Gutter, “Out of Freeze energy, but we got this!”

The snake bot cackled, “Aw yeah we do!” She turned her attention to the beast beneath her feet, her scanners giving a very clear internal view of the machine’s mechanisms, “Kinda wish Reach was here!” Gutter shouted as she jabbed down with a blade, “She’d have fried this up in a second!”

“Hindsight didn’t plan for third-party superconstructs going haywire!” Tokay shouted in response, looking for her own openings, “Brace yourself, this is gonna be a rough ride!”

Gutter smirked, “I live for the rough rides, you know!”

With the remaining two heads distracted, Heavy Woman tromped over to the left treads of the giant machine with Pack in tow. “Get me two ratchet jacks, Pack!” the python bot bellowed through the noise as she hunkered down, grasping at its wheels with her large hands. Not only using her core lifting ability, she braced onto the ground with the even more powerful tail coil from her head, giving her just enough raw strength to begin tilting the machine. Fortunately, with its heads occupied, it was no longer sending signals to reposition itself.

Pack nodded and reached into his ‘mouth’, extracting one large mechanism - far larger and more sophisticated than what one would expect for use with a car or truck, that seemed far too big to fit in that cavity to begin with - placing it under the treads on one side of his sister and hitting a button on it. He deftly scooted over to Heavy’s other side, pulled out an identical device to place there. With both active, deep clicks and chunks were heard as the pistons extended and the ratchet teeth locked in sequence, filling the space and taking some of the weight off, allowing Heavy to focus on pushing the treads higher rather than using all her energy to keep it barely level.

But even that wasn’t enough. Though Heavy could lift up to 10 tons unaided with moderate effort - a considerable feat even amongst other strength-focused robots - Haikidra-1 weighed at least 80. The jacks were only meant to keep a lifted object up, but did not provide significant upward force. Heavy was only able to barely get the tread a few feet off the ground, core chassis and every mechanical muscle straining and groaning, as she shouted, “Can’t do this myself! Get your asses over here, fellas!!”

The other construction bots - not built on a combination of ex-weaponized Cossack and Wily tech and therefore not nearly as prone to recklessness as the Harp Numbers - stood back warily. It took another hefty dozer bot with forklift features to finally up the mettle, gesturing in a wide arc, “C’mon, we ain’t gotta let the lizards outdo us!”

As he ran - or, rather, hastily plodded - over to Heavy’s side to wedge his own claws under the treads of the hydra, the gap raised more. Though not a fan of the implied competitive nature of the assistance, Heavy couldn’t help but grin that it spurred them all the same, though it was only visible in her eyes, “Attaboys.”

Slowly, more robots were emboldened to take up the job, rushing to the sides of the two large lifters. Even Pack joined, pulling out a compact forklift of his own. By itself, it would have been insignificant, but with so many hands on deck, every little bit counted. Soon, there was enough collected strength to finish what Heavy started. “All right! Heave on three!”

Everyone braced.

“One!

Two!

THREE!”

With a calamitous roar from the gathered workers and the giant machine, everyone put their full strength, and Haikidra-1 tipped over onto its side, heads flailing. Gutter took the momentum to leap, practically skating down the length of the dragon’s neck, dragging a blade behind her for stability before landing at the base and delivering one last slice to the cables there for good measure before disembarking to the safety of solid ground.

Tokay took that cue to get out of dodge herself, leaping off much like she did the first time, and hitting the ground in a controlled roll as the central head tried to flail about, with the other two powered down. In such a compromised position, it couldn’t quite get a full range of motion, and a few other robots from the other lines leapt atop it to subdue the final head, with the welding cutter bot from earlier delivering a final, decisive blow to the power cables at the base.

Haikidra-1 went still and silent, and cheers went up from the gathered workers, both human and robot alike.

The foreman sighed, but the weight of the victory tainted the relief that the danger was averted, “That’s an expensive piece of machinery you all just junked... expect that to come out of your paychecks...”

“Oh, fuck off, imagine how much worse it would have been if they let it run wild..,” Pack retorted, irritated, as he began to put away the tools he contributed.

“Hold your tongue, frog,” the foreman growled. Pack ignored him, rolling his eyes and opening his faux mouth, reaching in, and pulling out his hand flipping the bird. Thankfully, the foreman had turned to assess the damage, and didn’t see the slight.

A few of the robots atop the mechanical beast remained behind while others dispersed. Gutter moved up to scan the damage that had been done, and Tokay approached alongside her, “Is it really that bad? I figured we just cut some cables... seems like an easy fix, once they get in to find out what was wrong with the programming.”

Gutter shrugged, “Seems that way, but you never know with those greedy suits... they’ll do anything to avoid using their own money.”

“Yeah... really wish we weren’t bought out by them,” Tokay sighed. She turned, holding the Search Cutter out, “Here... Thanks for letting me borrow it.”

Gutter beamed, “Not a problem~ Just don’t freeze it, that really sucked, and not in the fun way.”

Tokay chuckled, “Can’t be helped, huh?” She put her hands on her hips, tail lashing behind her, “I should consider maybe getting something for myself... even if not for combat, it still seems really useful to have-”

Without warning, the nearest head’s eyes flickered back online, and it jerked towards Tokay. Her helmet saw the motion before she could register her own movement, but with no more energy to power her Flash Freeze, all she could do was whirl and attempt to leap out of the way as it flung some of the robots standing atop it off to lunge.

It was too late.

The shear assembly clamped down on her tail, its softer materials deforming into the cavity of the upper jaw and wedging in fast. Tokay barely had a chance to cry out as the head jerked upward, pulling her roughly into the air.

“No!” Heavy bellowed, watching in horror as the machine she’d toppled began using its other necks like arms to push itself back into an upright position, “The power cables are severed! It shouldn’t be able to move!”

“...Its fins-!” Hatch shouted through a Hopper. “And the other dark surfaces! Look at the sheen! They’re solar panels! Each individual segment must have emergency power... and whatever’s made it go haywire must have just switched on those backups!”

“Whose the Hell’s bright i-fucking-dea was that?!” Gutter hissed, “TOKAY!!”

“G-Gutter!” Tokay yelled down as she attempted to reach up and grab at her own tail, “Blade! Quickly!!” She regretted handing it back so soon.

Gutter didn’t need to be told twice, and didn’t even waste her time with a retort. She spun up the Search Cutter that had just been returned to her like a sling and flung it up towards her sister, who reached out to grab it. Unfortunately, the demolisher’s head shifted, pulling the gecko bot with it, and the mechanical serpent drone sailed uselessly by.

“Shit-!” Tokay growled as she tried once again to reach for her own tail, though being swung around by it like a rag doll was making it very difficult to do anything as her vision spun. It was so hard to concentrate on anything, even the panicked voices below as Gutter tried to use her little lasso trick again to reach up, but couldn’t as the heads flailed about too unpredictably. Tokay cursed, and desperately tried to dig her fingers into the seams of the flexible armor, hoping her claws were enough to help her pry them apart.

A single voice punched through the din; the deep, commanding shout of Heavy.

“TOKAY-!!” the giant python bot cried out from below, “LOOK OUT! THE OTHER-”

Tokay’s attention was pulled immediately from the shouting as her helmet’s eyes alerted her of peripheral movement, and she turned just in time to see one of Haikidra-1’s other heads rushing at her, mouth agape.

There was a deafening crunch, and everything when dark. The roar of machinery and the screams of her siblings and the other workers went completely silent.

But that was all that left her. With her primary cognitive circuitry embedded in her back rather than her head, she could still feel.

Everything.

She felt the snapping and sparking as what was left of her head and neck was pulled from her body by the hydraulic shears.

She felt herself dangling high above the ground by her tail.

She felt her tail finally being released, and the sensation of falling... falling...

She felt herself roughly and clumsily hitting smooth but uneven metal.

She felt the metal beneath her begin to shift. She felt the sharp pain in her hand as unseen edges sunk in, and began to drag her under.

[disengaging pain sensors]

It was the least she could do for herself... she didn’t want to even imagine what those sensations would be like otherwise.

Pressure. That’s all it was. Pressure and pulling, pieces coming apart, pressed, extruded through spinning, spiral teeth... for a second, it almost felt like there was a reverse force. Was somebody trying to pull her out? She couldn’t tell... She only hoped they wouldn’t be pulled in with her.

As the realization of her inevitable demise drew itself closer and tighter around her slowly peeling body, all she wanted to do was scream...

scream...

As Tokay’s hand passed in front of her chest, there was a sharp snap and a bright flash, and the Harp Number let out a strangled scream as her knees buckled under her. Everyone jumped a bit as she collapsed, hands clawing at her surroundings and herself as she writhed on the ground, whimpering, eyes wide.

“Tokay! What’s wrong?!” Gutter rushed towards her sister, leaning down and carefully lifting the smaller but sturdier robot off the ground as she convulsed, “Are you okay??”

“W-w-w-what..?!” Tokay stammered, teeth chattering as she stared down at her intact hands with a disbelieving expression, “H-h-h-how-??!” Her hands shot up to the sides of her head, clutching tightly at her helmet as she trembled, tail lashing about violently.

“Shhh, shhh-!” Gutter tried to calm her, genuinely distressed. She ran her scanners over her sister, once, twice, three times to see if anything was damaged or obviously malfunctioning... but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Slag looked out from the loading vehicle, “What’s going on...?”

“I... I don’t know,” Gutter bit her lip under her mask, “There’s... no obvious internal damage...”

Hatch stepped out of the vehicle and over, eyes giving off a grim expression. An Assist Hopper popped out of her back, crawling over to leap down, examining the gecko bot, “Something must be wrong with her Flash Freeze unit...”

“H-h-how,” Tokay continued to stutter, eyes darting about at all the worried faces around her. She took a few ragged breaths and checked her internal clock.

10:43 and 32 seconds.

“Th-th-that’s i-i-imp-p-possible...” Tokay choked, “H-h-how d-did I go b-b-back-...?”

“What the Hell’s going on here?”

Everyone turned to see the surly foreman standing there, drawn by the commotion and the decided lack of work being performed by the hired robots. He didn’t seem all that pleased, “Someone care to tell me what the hold up is?”

“Tokay’s not well,” Heavy rumbled, “She tried to activate the Flash Freeze and it glitched.”

“...Hmph, figures it’d be the experimental tech,” the foreman rolled his eyes, “Able to stop time, and somehow still going to put us behind schedule.” He reached into his pocket, “I’ll have you sent back to the lab. No use if you’re not going to function properly.”

“N-no-!” Tokay struggled, voice full of foreboding panic, “Y-you can’t-! I need to... I need to stop-! Somebody needs to stop Haikidra-1!”

That gave everybody a pause. Nobody had briefed any of the Harp Numbers on the scrapper’s name prior. The foreman slowly turned to look at the gecko bot, “...Excuse me?”

“Something’s wrong with Haikidra-1!” Tokay yelled, hysterically, “Something’s wrong with its programming! It’s supposed to help organize material and bale steel, but it’s going to start... start demolishing anything it can get its shears on!”

The curt human turned to her, eyes narrowed, “How do you know this?”

“Because-!” she began, looking around at the others. They were just as shocked by her words as she was... did they not see it? Did they not remember like she did?

Did she get sent back into the past alone..?

“I know because... because I saw it!” she admitted, choking on her words, barely believing them herself as they left her teeth, “I saw it, and it killed me!” She gripped her chest, “I... I died... and somehow my... the timepiece... it sent me back here to warn you!”

“Great, and now the experimental tech is delusional,” the foreman sighed heavily, lifting his phone to his ear. After a moment, he spoke to it, “Good morning. This is Foreman Yates of Exemplar, overseeing the factory demolition the Lab’s robots have been assigned to. I would like to speak with Dr. Harp.” There was a pause, presumably as the assistant on the other end forwarded the call. Finally, when she picked up on the other end of the line, he continued, “Doctor. I’m sending the first available transport back with DHN 01, Tokay Woman. She’s malfunctioning and spouting nonsense, and needs to be checked before she becomes a company liability. ...Yes, I understand. But you need to understand that given how much money we’ve poured into that pet project of yours, it’s your job to make sure it’s functioning properly before you send it out for field work. Is that clear? ... Do not make me repeat myself. ...Very well. Good day.” He hung up.

While the call went on, the Harp Numbers gathered around Tokay, who shuddered. They ignored the vitriolic words of the foreman, focusing instead on their distraught sister.

“Please... if nobody else listens to me, you... have to listen to me,” Tokay pleaded with her siblings, “You cannot get near Haikidra-1... I don’t want any of you to... go through what I went through...” She clutched her chest, turning her gaze towards Gutter, “...You, especially, Gutter. You... it went for you first... if I hadn’t been there to...” She shook her head, trying to clear the racing thoughts, “...Don’t give it that chance.”

If anyone could see and feel the deep and genuine pain and fear in Tokay’s eyes, it was Gutter. To everyone’s surprise, the red snake’s expression read trusting and true as she nodded, firmly, hugging her sister close, “...I understand.”

“We haven’t got all day, girls,” the foreman, finished with his call, scolded, tapping on his watchless wrist impatiently. Off to the side, Pack gave an indignant snort.

Tokay growled, just a little, as Gutter set her down and she tried to stand on her own legs... it was so hard. Her mind continually replayed that horrible, phantom memory. She felt every piece of her being pulled apart and crushed, and even if it didn’t hurt, she didn’t feel real.

None of this felt real.

Eventually, one of the other transport trucks pulled around and stopped by the gathered Harp Numbers, “All right, we’re done offloading,” the driver gestured, “Get on, little lady, we’ll get you back to the lab.”

Tokay cast a worried glance back at her linemates. She received mostly knowing and considerate nods of reassurance that they wouldn’t let her warning go to waste.

She stepped into the vehicle, hand on her chest, casting one last guilty look back as the truck pulled away from the ill-fated worksite.

The ride back was as uneventful as the first, but Tokay couldn’t even bring herself to tap the seconds away as she was wont to, mind thoroughly haunted by the events that had never transpired... and the fears of what could transpire in their stead. Although the trip itself took less time on account of favorable crossings and a lighter load, it felt like it took two, even three times as long to return to the lab.

What was she even going to say? Tokay’s computerized mind swam as the vehicle pulled into the lab’s northeast loading bay, and she felt hazy as she haphazardly stepped out of it, and towards the door, fumbling at the identification pad with her hand, RFID chip granting her access to push her way through, into the main lounge.

While there were a few human assistants present, they were not Tokay’s focus. That was, instead, drawn straight to the two linemates who hadn’t been brought along on the excursion; Reach and Nail. Both were sitting across from one another at one of the smaller, fixed tables, Nail sporting smaller, more utilitarian shoulders than the bulky manufacturing plants they normally wore. The mollusc bot looked about ready to nod off, had the roughly-opened door not snapped them to attention, along with distracting the (technically) eldest Harp Number from whatever conversation she was trying to have that was putting Nail to sleep.

Reach spoke first, voice and expression quizzical, bordering concerned, “Back already, Tokay?” Taking a moment to put down the tablet she was using for visual aid, she slid her seat back and pushed herself up, “Didn’t think you the type to deal in so soon.” With a tilt of her head, the static gecko added, “Flash Freeze acting up?”

Tokay grit her teeth so tightly they could practically be heard even at that distance, and her knees nearly gave out as she stumbled forward, just enough steps for her outreached hand to slam down on the nearest table to hold her up as her other hand gripped the side of her head.

“I... I don’t know-” she hissed lowly, sounding both frightened and frustrated, rousing further worry from her linemates as Reach rushing to her side. Tokay continued, “I don’t know if what just happened really happened, or if I’m just going crazy-!”

“Whoa whoa, calm down,” Nail held up their hands, “If what happened?”

There was no initial response beyond Tokay shaking in place, holding her head, and Reach helped her sister take a seat, placing a hand on her shoulder. Nail, meanwhile, shifted their weight, but instead of standing up to move closer, simply kicked off the fixed table to slide over on the reinforced chair to come to rest aside the geckos in one seemingly lazy but effective motion.

Even without specialized machine sensitivity, it was clear the smaller of the two was under intense stress, and Reach herself could physically feel it; Tokay’s core was running at max capacity, refrigeration unit on full blast trying to keep her internal temperatures stable.

Carefully, Reach placed both hands about her sister’s shoulders and back, turning up her electromagnetic pads just a touch to deliver a gentle, therapeutic current. After a few minutes, Tokay finally relaxed enough to look up. Though the expression in her eyes was grateful, that was not the most pressing matter on her mind, “Did... word not get around..?”

Nail shook their head, “Non, the Doctor has been busy with another project. She has not had the time to tell us what the call was about.”

“...Oh,” Tokay turned her attention downwards, at her hands. She still didn’t feel quite real.

“Come on, Bitey,” Reach swiveled a chair over to sit beside her smaller sister, for now ignoring the faint scoff at the endearment, “You can fill us in just as well. What happened?”

“Oui,” Nail tilted their head, composed but still curious, “We’re family. Tell us everything.”

Tokay bit her lip lightly, shaking her head, only for Reach to give her a light shake. Finally, she sighed, and filled them in, from their arrival, to the designation of roles, to the first accident... Though she wanted to look down at the table while recounting, she couldn’t help but keep her eyes on her siblings, taking into account their expressions. Their concerned faces deepened with a tinge of disbelief as she explained what happened to Haikidra-1, and how they took it down with their collective efforts. It wasn’t a good sign; that was easily the most straightforward part of the experience.

Before she could recount the demolisher reactivating to grab her, she stopped, looking away. It was obviously the defining detail of the entire ordeal, the thing tying everything together, but she didn’t even want to think about it... the prospect of saying it out loud felt so much worse.

“That... cannot be right,” Nail scratched their chin, confirming Tokay’s suspicion of their disbelief, “It has barely been enough time for you to have gone and returned as soon as you arrived at the site.”

Tokay grasped her head in both hands, elbows on the table, “That’s... I...”

Nail shook their head, holding up a hand, “Do not get me wrong, I’m not saying I believe you are lying. Just that you need to finish your story.”

Reach gave her sister a reassuring squeeze on the arm, “You can save it for later, if it’s really that bad. We’ll still be-”

The dam broke. “I DIED!!” Tokay barked, pushing away. The other two Harp Numbers jumped, both at the suddenness of the outburst, and the nature of the revelation. “The damn thing came back and grabbed me and pulled me apart and dropped me into its shredder!” She stood up so quickly the seat fell backwards with a clatter. All noise in the recreation room halted as everyone stared at her.

Her voice lowered, trembling, “I... I died... and suddenly I was back at the start, at the moment I turned on the Flash Freeze... as if nothing had happened...” She brought her hand up to her chest, “Except... except it did...”

Tokay fell to her knees, “I remember... I remember how much it hurt before I turned my sensors off... how terrified I was... to think that... that time was erased for everyone, but left me with those haunting memories of... of my own destruction all the same...”

Everyone was at a loss for words. Reach held out a hand. “...Tokay..,” she whispered, feeling for the honest pain in her sister’s recollection.

Tokay glowered, looking away, “...You don’t believe me, do you?”

Reach wanted to say something, but was cut off before her words could form. “It does seem quite unbelievable,” Nail admitted first, looking grimly thoughtful. However, their demeanor changed with a shrug, “Then again, your power to control time is already well beyond what could be considered believable, so what difference does it make? Why should that make us any less likely to trust you when you sound so serious about it?”

“Nail’s right,” Reach added, trying to sound supportive through the weight of her worry, “Just because we don’t understand what you went through doesn’t mean we can’t be here for you. You did what you could in spite of... truly unbelievable circumstances.”

“Except... I didn’t,” Tokay spat, “That stupid asshole sent me home saying I was a liability... Everyone might be in danger that I could be there averting with what I-”

“You warned the others, did you not?” Nail asked.

Tokay paused, almost incredulous, “Of course I did-”

“Then you did what you could,” Nail interjected, curtly, leaning back with their hands behind their head, “No use hurting yourself more over it when you hurt enough already.”

Tokay was taken a little aback by that, but could only admit inwardly that Nail, rather fittingly, made a good point.

“Tokay?”

A new voice drew everyone’s attention to the door, where the receptionist from the lobby leaned in, looking apologetic, “Umm... Dr. Harp paged the front desk to, um... have me tell you to... uh, meet her in the diagnostic lab...”

Tokay looked more than a little upset to not be fetched by her creator in person given the gravity of the situation, and her expression was returned by a wince from the newer hire, “She needed to get it ready... she’s... been really busy all day... I’m sorry...”

“It’s fine, I get it,” Tokay muttered. She didn’t begrudge either Dr. Harp or this young woman, but she also couldn’t quite help her appearance, intimidating as it was despite her small stature, or the dour mood that only served to amplify it, “I’ll be up in a moment.” The receptionist nodded, stuttering a quick thanks before retreating through the door to her desk.

“You gonna be okay?” Reach asked, feeling a little guilty.

“Doesn’t look like I have much of a choice,” Tokay shrugged, with mild sarcasm, which mellowed out to a more genuine tone, “but thank you.” She turned to look at Nail, “Both of you. It... means a lot to me... really, it does.”

“Pas de quoi,” Nail waved a hand casually, “We are family, don’t you forget.”

Tokay managed to pull a weak smile as she made her way to the elevator, “I won’t.”

---

“Nothing appears to be amiss...”

Dr. Harp sighed as she pushed herself away from the diagnostic display, pressing two fingers and a thumb against the bridge of her nose, pushing up her glasses in the process, “Which is even more suspicious, seeing as I can’t access or even find these memories you claim to have in your records...”

She turned her chair around to look at Tokay, who was reclined in a pod. While she wasn’t scheduled for a full maintenance checkup, the need to access her Flash Freeze had the small-statured gecko stripped down to bare internals from the waist up, with various tubes and cables connected all over the place in a seemingly haphazard fashion. This wasn’t anything new, but from the look on Tokay’s face, that didn’t make it any less exhausting.

“I don’t know what to say, Doctor..,” she muttered, sounding defeated, “But it’s there... I can recall it this very moment. More vividly than I’d like to, no less...”

Shaking her head, the doctor stood up, walked over, and began to carefully remove and roll up the cables, “I want to believe you... I really do. The only explanation is that it’s somehow encrypted in the timepiece itself, and only you have access to it due to the dust in your IC chip.” She looked back over at the screen for a moment, then back to the work at hand, “Regardless, if what you’re telling me is true... that somehow the device sent you back in time upon destruction, and that the only evidence is your word-”

“I know, I know,” Tokay sounded frustrated as she reached up to assist with some of the easier cables now that she knew it was okay to do so, being more than familiar with the process, “It’s... not exactly something that can be tested.” She frowned, “Not without having me-”

“Which is exactly what I don’t want to do,” Dr. Harp cut in, with an almost scolding tone, “Yes, it’d be nearly impossible to verify without a conscious system integrated in with the equipment, but I don’t want to subject a conscious system - especially a free-willed one - to repeated intentional destruction just to gather insubstantial, anecdotal evidence.”

The eccentric scientist continued, as she removed the last cables and helped her creation pull her bodysuit back up over her exposed frame, “My only guess is that the timepiece has some sort of self-preservation mechanism tied to its ability to manipulate time... there’s still so much we don’t know about it, that we can’t fully access without more insight into what we do know.”

“Almost sounds like you shouldn’t have been messing with it in the first place, Doctor..,” Tokay muttered, sounding almost resentful, though her expression read pained and conflicted as she looked down, hand raised to her chest to feel its strange, alien hum through her suit.

Dr. Harp raised a finger, opening her mouth to respond, when the console sprang to life with the blare of an incoming call redirected to the lab by the receptionist. She muttered, not sounding very pleased with the interruption, “It’s the work site... I guess we should take this.”

She pressed the button to answer, and followed it up by putting the communication over the speaker, so that Tokay could listen in on the situation she’d just been sent home from, “Dr. Harp here.”

“Good afternoon, Doctor,” came a serious, but young, voice. Surprisingly, though it was the foreman’s line, it was clearly not the foreman, “I’m calling on behalf of Exemplar with an update on the situation regarding the robots you’ve sent to assist with the demolition.”

“I had a feeling,” Dr. Harp tried to keep a professional tone on her voice, though the only ‘feeling’ she actually had was a deep sense of sarcasm, “Does it have anything to do with the warnings given to you by Tokay Woman before you sent her back to the lab?” She asked, a small amount of impatient bite sneaking into her voice, “Because I found nothing wrong, so it sounds like she really should have been allowed to do her job.”

“About that,” the voice on the other end of the line cleared their throat, “...Yes. It has everything to do with her warning. In fact, her warning about Haikidra-1 going rogue was so accurate, that we might have to conduct an investigation into how she knew in such a specific capacity.” The voice took on a warning tone, “The evidence so far implies tampering, but there were no external signs.”

“I’m pretty sure she told you, and it sounded like you didn’t believe she had some sort of... I don’t know... powers related to time manipulation by an experimental device that, despite having more than enough research funding and documentation behind it, is still not fully understood?.” Dr. Harp shot back, “Are you trying to imply that one of my robots - who has no reason nor motive, and has had more time and money invested into development and testing than the entire workforce at that site combined - was involved with some sort of sabotage that would jeopardize her standing with the company, or possibly her entire existence?”

There was an awkward silence. Tokay winced and turned her head away looking a little resentful, but also lightly guilty. Eventually, the standstill was broken by a soft throat clear from the other end of the line, “No, and I’m sorry, ma’am. I’ll relay your concerns.”

“You’d better,” Dr. Harp scoffed, starting to lose a bit of her feigned professional demeanor in the face of direct accusations leveled at her creations, “Now, was that all you called to tell me, or do you actually have an update? Did anybody get hurt?”

Another pause. The voice got grave, “...Unfortunately, yes. Even with the prediction allowing for appropriate mobilization-”

“Cut to the chase,” Dr. Harp snapped, impatiently.

The voice on the other end sighed, “Slag Woman broke from orders and stationed herself by Haikidra-1 instead of 2 because of Tokay Woman’s story. When 1 began to act up, as she said it would, Slag was able to mitigate some of the more... catastrophic damages it could have incurred, by jamming up its shredder housing with molten metal.”

Tokay’s soft, fidgeting ticks silenced as she looked over, expression worried. Dr. Harp nodded apprehensively, even though the gesture would not carry over the audio-only line, “And?”

The caller continued “Unfortunately... Unit 1 decided to throw a whole tractor at her afterwards. She’d used up most of her metal stores clogging it up, and couldn’t defend herself.”

Dr. Harp tensed up, and even Tokay could be heard uttering a horrified, ‘oh no...’ in the back. Even if neither got picked up by the communications line, the voice continued, with an attempted tone of reassurance, “Don’t worry... she’s okay... moderate damage at worst.”

“But...”

Dr. Harp and her creation waited for the other shoe to drop.

“...A few other robots outside of your line were damaged beyond repair... and in the chaos brought about by the disbelief in your robot’s wild claims coming true, a few human injuries and two casualties were also recorded,” the voice confirmed, darkly, “Including Foreman Yates.”

So that’s why they were so salty that they’d open the call with an accusation. Dr. Harp furrowed her brow, taking off her glasses for just a moment to rub her eyes before putting them back on, “I see...”

She turned to Tokay, whose expression would have been unreadable to anybody else. But Dr. Harp, who knew her mechanical ‘daughters’ better than anyone, could see that while the gecko bot looked devastated to hear that humans were hurt and killed, she was also trying to suppress an almost smug grin.

“...Is that all?”

“That is all,” the caller confirmed, “Haikidra-1 is currently being disassembled. We will send a message with any findings when we make them.”

Dr. Harp seemed antsy to end the call, “All right. Can’t wait to hear it. Have a good day.”

The caller hung up without returning the admittedly sarcastic well-wish.

As soon as the line went dead, Dr. Harp turned to Tokay, “That’s not okay.”

Tokay looked at her creator, puzzled, “What’s not okay?”

Dr. Harp’s expression was grave, “...You shouldn’t be happy he died. You’re already under scrutiny.”

Tokay groaned, “Ok, look, I’m not happy he died,” she rolled her eyes, “It’s just... fitting comeuppance, you know? If he wasn’t such a damn idiot and let me do my job, he wouldn’t be dead now. It’s poetic.”

“It’s a red flag,” Dr. Harp let out a seething, exasperated sigh, “You’re on thin ice enough as it is.”

“Ha ha,” Tokay laughed in faux sarcasm, “Freezing joke.”

“...That wasn’t on purpose,” Dr. Harp shot back, though the delayed smile could be seen forcing its way to her cheeks.

“Of course it wasn’t,” the gecko bot leaned back, finally allowing herself a more genuine grin, “Shitty puns are just your natural response. Your resting state.”

“Oh please,” Harp shot back, “Like it’s that bad. You don’t need me to tell you yours.”

“Certainly not, considering you programmed me,” Tokay stuck out her tongue.

“Fine, fine, I concede,” the doctor mock-surrendered, “Anyway, is there anything else I should know before we wrap this up and wait for that site update?”

Tokay leaned forward a bit to peer at the monitors full of data. She’d already verbally recounted everything that couldn’t be extracted as memory recordings, “I don’t think so... Just that I think I could use some tuning tests for Freeze time under higher strain.” She tapped her knuckles on her chest, “I’m so used to going for hours in a damn office, it was kinda shitty running it down so quickly when I needed it the most... especially if it was meant for accident prevention.”

“Accident prevention rarely involves active combat with aggressive giant robots,” Dr. Harp corrected, “But I’ll look into it for sure. Maybe see if Dr. Cossack had any more of Wily’s notes I hadn’t already implemented to the best of my ability.”

“Love to be reminded that I’ve got a bit of Flash Man in me,” Tokay rolled her eyes, “Except I’d rather not be.”

“Don’t let Gutter hear that,” Dr. Harp responded, deadpan.

Tokay choked out a soft “Oh god-” as she covered her mouth with her hand.

The computer beeped suddenly, and Dr. Harp turned to see that a text message had been left, rather than a call. Whatever was found, it apparently didn’t warrant much more. She stepped over, sitting in the chair to read over it, and letting Tokay recover from her own embarrassment. The message was fairly short, with several attached images.

“...They found an unidentified chip inside Haikidra-1’s central processor,” Dr. Harp read off the note, summarizing as she went, eyes narrowing, “They’re suspecting Dr. Wily - of course they would - though the make doesn’t look like his, given he’s pretty proud and blatant with his branding... and the motive doesn’t make sense,” she sighed, “It’ll be sent to Dr. Light to determine for sure...”

“It could very well be an inside job by more AR activists,” Tokay held up a hand, offering the suggestion, “We can’t rule anything out. They have hands everywhere... like in the riot truck that caused the explosion in the first place.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” Dr. Harp stood up, walking over to the pod to finish making some adjustments. “It’s just easy to blame Wily, even though he’s been pretty quiet of late.”

“Chipping a giant dragon machine does seem like something he’d do,” the gecko bot scratched the back of her head, “But given how... robot-centric he is, I feel like he’d rather take control to unite robots under his banner, against humans, rather than have them wantonly destroy one another for humans.”

“Mm-hm,” Dr. Harp nodded as she fiddled with the pod mechanisms. There was enough bitterness in her face and voice to show she wasn’t quite willing to forgive the mad scientist for what he took from her, but she tried her best to let as little of it show as possible, “How does the timepiece feel?”

“...Cold..,” the Tokay sighed, “...as usual,” she shrugged, “Why?”

Before Tokay could say anything more, Dr. Harp reached out and wrapped her arms around the smaller robot, gently.

"I know a lot of things you experience are alien and hard to explain..,” the doctor’s voice was level and gentle, “...but if anything strange happens - no matter how unbelievable - as a result of your power... I want you to tell me.” The doctor pulled away, but kept her hands on her creation’s shoulders, eye to hourglass-shaped eye, “I need you to tell me. Even if you don't think I'll believe you.”

Dr. Harp finally let Tokay go, shaking her head and looking almost sad, “You're... like a daughter to me, and I love you... so I want to be there for you if anything happens because of this burden I've given you... and if it becomes too much for you,” she added, with clear, pained hesitation for all the effort that had been invested, “...I can remove it, if it's what you truly want."

“...No,” came the soft, but surprising response from Tokay. “I’m sorry for saying what I did about it... but the fact of the matter is...”

As creator and creation pulled away, Tokay placed a hand on her chest, “...The timepiece is as much a part of me as any other critical component, and...“ She sighed, “I can’t... imagine not having it. Losing it. I know the corporation sees it as little more than an overly convenient tool, but to me... it feels like my... entire purpose. My entire identity. Without it, I... wouldn’t be... me.”

Another sigh, and the gecko bot leaned back, “So... I guess... I’ll endure the uncertainties.”

Dr. Harp’s sad frown slowly faded into an equally sad smile, “If that’s what you want.”

Silence took over the room, punctuated by small whirs and beeps of machinery as the scientist cleaned up her work space, and Tokay looked up at the ceiling, lost in thought.

“...Hey, Doctor?”

“Yeah?”

“I have a... small... design suggestion... regarding my tail...”

#mega man #fanfiction #original characters #fancharacters #cw robot destruction #cw foul language #dr harp labs #oc tokay woman #though technically most of the harps are involved it's mostly about her #long post

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