Upon Vestia: Chapter Twenty-Two

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(Starts on day 15 at the Guild, I believe)

James held the metal scrap obediently. "Yes, sir!"

Ethan nodded. "Sure. I can do that," he told Mourn. He wasn't a skilled mechanic or anything, but he did know how how to tell some tools apart. He went over to James to gawk at his injury. "Glad I'm not you right now, James," he said dryly.

James poked at his arm "bone" and looked pleased. "And I'm glad I'm not you. This way is better."

Ethan winced at the sight of James poking his injury. Geez, that was nasty.

James watched all this curiously, while Ethan supplied tools as required.

"Very nice," James said, admiring Mourn's handiwork when he was finished welding. "Now all we gotta do is reconnect some wires and glue some skin, and then I can go back to work." He looked disappointed at the thought. "Man, it stinks having all the other medics pretty much useless like this."

"It'll be nice when all the medics are back at a hundred percent. Then I can stop helping people," James joked. He held still as Mourn worked, barely resisting the urge to try flexing his fingers or something as Mourn stuck everything back together.
He looked over at the little wrecked drone, finally getting around to worrying about it. "Is Amity gonna be okay?"

Ethan frowned. He should go check on the Professor sometime soon. Without Amity, the guy might need help and not be able to get any.

"Poor Amity, he did a good job in the battle," James said. "For a service drone, he's surprisingly versatile. Will we have to find Aketi tech to fix him, or can we get the necessary parts somewhere else?"

"Maybe we'd better stop by Aketi space to pick some stuff up, then," James said. He looked thoughtful. "Actually, they might try to take back Amity. Maybe we shouldn't take him back there, he might get confiscated and wiped, and we don't want that."

"If they wanted to keep Amity, it would probably be because they don't want their host drone tech getting copied and stolen," Ethan said. "Some companies make a big deal out of their tech getting copied without permission."

James nodded. "Well I guess we can always hide Amity. It's not like anyone would be able to find him on Vestia if we hid him somewhere."

Ethan nodded. "The Professor will know a lot more than we do, at least." He watched, half fascinated and half disturbed as Mourn soldered the last few wires of his brother's arm. So, so weird. James wasn't even mildly concerned by all this!

James flexed his fingers experimentally, then raised, lowered, and flexed his arm. The repair made it feel a bit less smooth to use, but the difference wasn't very visible to bystanders, and he could function pretty much normally again. "Awesome, man. Thank you!"
James picked up the piece of skin and started fitting it back into place. "Yo Ethan, help a guy out, would you?"

Ethan rolled his eyes, but started applying adhesive for James.

James nodded. "I'll be careful. Unless I forget, anyway."

"Which he probably will the moment he goes into a holodeck," Ethan said dryly.

James made a face at him, but held still so Ethan could glue his arm.

After a bit, Ethan finished gluing James. "Guess it's my turn," he said, suddenly anxious.

Ethan nodded. "Can't turn off pain," he confirmed. "Just gotta tolerate it."
He had gotten his armor off before he arrived, so he just took off his shirt now. "I think there are some severed wires too, that will need to be fixed."

James went to hold him still so Mourn could start ungluing Ethan's skin.

That worked for about ten seconds while Ethan forced himself to not react, but then the panic started building up, and he started trembling a bit, pretty obviously freaking out.

James frowned. "Maybe we need a new plan here," he said to Mourn.

James nodded. "Hey, it's worth a try, right?" He smiled at Ethan and let go of him.

Ethan tried to focus on the conversation again. "Yeah... Worth a try." He absently tugged his maintenance panel open and unrolled the data cable, which he held out to Mourn.

Asher's code had been modified to match mirrorverse android code, so installing the switch in Ethan's code should be pretty much exactly the same procedure.

James watched curiously, then looked away when he caught sight of Ethan's nervous thoughts scrolling the bottom of the screen. Right. Privacy.

Ethan waited and tried to recover his calm while he watches Mourn work.

Ethan concentrated for a moment, then let out a sound of confusion. He looked at his hands and flexed his fingers, incredulous, then reached up to touch his hurt shoulder.

There was no pain. There was no sensory response at all. There were only readings of weight and temperature that steadily streamed through his mind, telling him what readings were safe for him, and what readings would be safe for everyone else. Everything was calculated and precise and not at all dictated by personal preference, just by some database that was supplying everything he should know to interact with the rest of the world. "How do you handle this?" Ethan asked James.

James blinked. "It's not that bad! I like it!"

Ethan gave him an odd look. Androids here were so weird. He looked at Mourn, then reached out to touch his fur.