For One More Day With You 4

Félicité held Joie's arm as the latter was led to the nearest walk-in garage of Four-Four. He was not speaking and Joie could only assume that this was a testament of his anger. He truly felt terrible for what he had put his shiny new friend through but that did not stop him from feeling anxious. He was going to a maintenance worker who was not from his own town. He might not have the required identification! How was he going to pay? He sure as hell did NOT want Félicité to pay for his "something to do."
Before he could even realize that he needed to begin clearing his thoughts, the two were in front of the garage.

"They're open." Félicité spoke at last, but that was all. With his hand just firmly on Joie's elbow, Félicité stepped forward and allowed the door to open to the pair.
They were less busy than Félicité had thought they would be. Only two cubicles were up and no one was seated waiting. Félicité went to the receptionist with Joie, at her little island style work station in the middle of the room near the entrance. Before Félicité could speak, the female spoke to him.

"Good morning and why are you here today?" Her vocalizer produced a gentle and pleasantly higher pitched voice. Félicité had not expected her to speak to him first. Joie began to click and sputter so he needed to speak quickly.

"Harmful nano-bots were somehow introduced to my friend's system. I was able to remove them but I damaged him because I was unsure as to how to create an appropriate exit point." Félicité indicated the rag, now secured with a wire, still lodged in Joie's hip. The receptionist got a good look, seemingly either surprised or alarmed. But her voice was still pleasant.

"You said they were "somehow introduced"? Well it doesn't matter, I don't need to know. You can tell the machinist when he or she can see you…?" The receptionist was now looking at Joie.

"Joie-6-51-223." Joie said awkwardly. The receptionist flicked her head slightly.

"Joie. You will see the machinist alone if that is alright."

"That is fine." Félicité said and Joie nodded quickly.

"Very good. I will put you in the queue and I doubt you will be waiting for long." She said, working her station a bit. Félicité nodded to her and led Joie to the benches on one side of the entrance area.

As they sat, Félicité inspected Joie's tourniquet and then looked at him personally.

"Okay, you need to remember what I'm going to tell you quickly." He said calmly. Joie wanted to apologize to him but he just kept quiet and nodded. This was more important.

"They're going to ask you how what happened to you happened. What do you remember of that?" He asked. Joie looked down momentarily.

"I bought some nano-bots from Servos…you were right, by the way, they were type; midichlorian. And um…I did that thing with the vial once I got back to the room."

"Introduced." Félicité quipped.

"Yeah, I introduced them to my inner system through the…" Joie indicated his collar bone region-though he had no actual bones to speak of. "The usual place. And then my, my extremities started to feel weird. And then I woke up with a warning coming from my hip and my base-the fan-and you looking…Félicité I'm really sorry. I really am sorry!" Joie sounded so young, technically he really was.

"I know you're sorry, Joie. I know, but I'm just asking you and doing all this stuff because we need to get you some help first. So that's what you did, here's what I did. You need to be able to tell them this." Félicité said. Joie nodded. "When I returned to the room in the late evening, I saw you on the recharge table all overclocked. I went and got the purge soft-ware and purged the nano-bots before I realized I needed to make some exit point for the stupid things. I pierced your hip with the syringe and after the nano-bots came out, your fluids started to come out too. That's about all." Félicité said. Joie nodded again.

"I think I can remember all that. You don't think we should lie at all?" He asked. Félicité touched his own face.

"Well, I still don't know WHY you put those nano-bots inside yourself." Félicité said sharply. It was the first time during this whole ordeal that he sounded angry.

"…I promise I will tell you later." Joie said, his vocalize noticeably shifting gears and his head tilting downward.

"I'm going to hold you to it." Félicité grunted, folding his arms. Just then, a somewhat tall and sleek white robot walked up to them. Like the receptionist, its face was of a different design from either of theirs – it had a rounded off top but a very angular bottom half and a large rectangular screen for the face with lights on either side. The lights were meant for observing patients.

"You are Joie, correct?" The machinist directed this question at the silver robot.

"Y-Yes." He said.

"Time to come back." The machinist stated. Joie stood, looked at Félicité, and then left with the machinist.

Joie followed the machinist to a collapsed cubicle. As soon as they were both within the perimeter, the walls rose though the ceiling was still visible. When it became somewhat darker, the machinist's side lights came on, like glaring head lights. Joie sat down on the table but the machinist beckoned him on his feet again.

"I'm sorry, but because of the location of your injury, I must first observe you as you stand." He said.

"I understand." The machinist knelt down in front of Joie and gingerly removed the now very dirty rag and wire. Gunky remnant of fluid was caked around the wound and, could Joie smell things like that he would have picked up the foul odor of rotting fluids. The machinist seemed to notice the smell as his screen displayed symbols denoting slight disgust. Seeing as how he was a healer, a therapist, it would make sense for him to be more aware of any ailments and their side affects.

"Well, that's not good at all. Something punctured your quite deep. You may need a very thorough cleaning of the rest of your insides." He said. His voice was a calm and somewhat soothing one, mature and gentle. Joie still cringed.

"My friend did this to me. He needed to create an exit point."

"Drahm mentioned something about nano-bots being used improperly. What all happened?"

Joie explained their predicament as best he could. He did not want to put Félicité in a negative light, but he'd told him to tell the truth so…

"Hm. Well, your friend may have protected you from serious harm. Still though, this will take some time. You must be completely cleaned before I can begin to repair you. Lay down on your stern." Again, Joie did as the healer instructed.  He felt the other robot messing with the back linkage of his outer casing. The first plate was clicked open.

"Now roll over." Joie obliged. The machinist removed the front part of his casing and the back part easily fell away. It was all removed and put to the side. Joie was now quite exposed; with his casing gone his outer framework (which was a partially hard, black synthetic substance) and his core (a very special type of metal that was always malleable and had special memory capabilities) were exposed. A dark spot could be seen on the core near his hip.

"It just needs a little, here we go…" The machinist pressed specialized fingers to the darkened part of the core and it crawled open. He took special brushes and began removing the gunky fluids that were staining the core. "We are lucky our cores are so specialized. Yours worked like a sponge, containing the leaking fluids so that they did not spread to other parts of your internal layout." The machinist told him. He massaged the core again and it slid further apart, revealing some of Joie's "organs" and a punctured bit of tubing. "That won't do. I will need to do a quick snip and solder. It won't be that difficult, don't worry." The machinist seemed to be talking to himself as well as Joie. The healer put two tiny clamps on either side of the broken part of the tubing. It immediately stopped leaking; thought the flow wasn't very strong to begin with, something noted by the machinist. He looked up at Joie.

"My friend, you may be critically lacking in a certain type of fluid. After this I'm going to give you some vials and demand that you intake them. Understand?" Joie nodded. He felt so awkward talking to someone who had their hands inside his body.
The machinist cut out the damaged piece of tubing and replaced it, via soldering, with a new piece. Joie immediately felt better when the clamps were removed and his fluids were able to move again. The machinist looked in the compartments on the floor (where he'd been getting all his other tools) for some vials. Once he found the right ones, he gave them to Joie and helped him inject them.

Minutes went by and Joie began holding the vials on his own. His systems hummed appreciatively and he began to feel much better. The machinist pulled up a large cylinder, a chair, and sat in front of him.

"Now, friend, I need you to tell me why you injected nano-bots into your system." He said sternly.

"I…I am a musician." Joie said sadly.

"Nano-bots are no way to inspire yourself. They are meant for other things." The machinist told him.

"I didn't really want inspiration. If it happened, I would have been happy. But really, I did it because I am so depressed. I hate being a musician. I want to be one, but no one else does. They tell me I am nothing special, not meant to be a musician. They tell me to get reformatted. But I want nothing more than to make music." Joie confessed. The machinist looked worried.

"It is not normal for people to become sad. Sometimes, robots will become quite attached to their given profession and not want to change, but for it to make you so sad… that is not good. You don't HAVE to be reformatted. Your superiors were just making wise suggestions as per their directive. You can stay a musician and try to become better." This older robot realized that he was now trying to console this young artist. That was not appropriate. He was only meant to repair the body. But the inner workings, the "soft" body, were not his job.

"I am aware and pleased by it. But…it still saddens me to know that so many people see nothing in me…these are people who are meant to help me." Joie said.

"I am certain that your developers never intended and harm or abuse towards you. I am going to give you a writ. Follow the orders to complete your repair." The machinist held up a thin tablet and began etching things on it with lasers from his head.

"Am I not fixed already?" Joie asked. His core was restored to its basic shape and his casings were reattached. He felt fine now. The machinist looked at him, sighing.

"When you get older, you will understand the importance of one's thinking self as well as one's physical self. There are repair workers for both, and I am only for the physical." The machinist told him. Joie took the writ as the walls descended. To his surprise, Félicité was standing right outside the cubicle. Joie looked away from him. His optical units spotted a colorful poster on the wall and he focused on it to take his mind off things. What he saw interested him greatly.

"How is he?" Félicité asked. The machinist bowed to him slightly and he returned the gesture.

"He is physically repaired now. But unfortunately, he is suffering from abnormal cycles. Rather than being on a neutral, functional plane, his cycles move lower, more towards sadness than is average. He is depressed. He must see soft technician to be repaired further. The nanobots he introduced to his systems have likely worsened his mental state. You are his friend, correct?"

"Yes."

"Is it normal for you to be with him regularly?"

"…Yes. He and I are traveling together so we are together often."

"Very good. He must never be alone, not until he sees the technician." Félicité cringed and looked over at Joie. But Joie was no longer on the table. He'd walked away from the cubicle and was now standing at the far wall, looking at some poster. Félicité bowed to the machinist again and walked towards his friend.

As he got closer, he realized Joie was looking at a public service announcement poster. In large letters it read:
"WHERE WILL YOU BE WHEN THE METEOR STRIKES? WILL YOU BE READY WHEN THE SUNS BURN OUT? INVEST IN EARTH."

An odd poster. It was odd that they still bothered with that campaign. Earth was a far away planet, but it was important because it orbited the sun that was closest to their own. It was also a planet that held intelligent, but somewhat primitive, life; Humans. The governments around the world had long ago decided that if anything should threaten the planet or the life therein, Earth would be like a safety net. The most people talked about when they entertained thoughts of Earth was this simple debate: if we need their planet, do we try to make peace with the humans and hope they will take us or do we simply wipe them out and take their planet?

Félicité wondered why Joie had suddenly taken an interest in this poster. The silver robot was touching the "mouth" area of his mask curiously.

"Earth…I don't know much about it." He said.

"No one really does. We get probes from there with some information every four to five years but that's it really." Félicité said.

"Do you think they would care about music more so than the people here?" Joie asked, turning to his gold friend.

"Probably. From what little we know of their many vast cultures, humans adore music. It is important to them on multiple levels, entertainment, art, religion, nationality. At least…that is what some of the probes suggest." Félicité said. Then he grabbed Joie.

"Come on, we're leaving."

"But, I haven't paid-!"

"I paid the bill for you, Joie. It wasn't that much." Joie was extremely dismayed at this statement. He hadn't wanted to be such a burden! Joie hanged his head as his gold friend dragged him back to their motel room.

"Right now you need to recharge, Joie. Just do that for me, alright?" Félicité said this as he rubbed Joie's mid section. They were laying on the recharge table, drifting off…