Upon Vestia: Chapter Twenty-Three

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"You have a tablet at least, right?" Asher asked Dawn.

"Apparently even things like rocks, and pieces of silicon, have souls," Asher said, "I don't understand it, but apparently anamcara have come from all sorts of strange unions." He nodded, "The Terran girl will be fine. She'll absorb the other soul once Daniella's mind is permanently gone. The soul the Terran is linked to isn't Daniella, not really, so there won't be any complications that way." Poor Daniella, trapped in an anamcara body through sheer bad luck, and fading out of existence. Maybe it was better than immortality, at least.

Mourn shook his head. "Maybe not soul then. If rock have soul according to guild, everything have soul, including robot." He tilted his head. "or they wrong and what merge not soul at all, something else. Orb people maybe no really understand either, just pretend do." He shrugged. "Guild no use this to stop help robots no?" That was a concern, those few naysayers would love to be able to 'prove' androids weren't special. Mourn made a face.

Asher nodded. "Whatever a soul is or isn't, I guess we're not going to understand it any time soon. Maybe matter has a soul, but electricity doesn't. Or maybe electricity has a soul too, and Daniella just happened to not bond correctly. All we know is, it's not something we understand." He smiled softly, "I don't think they're going to revoke their help. Spring says that since androids freely chose to fight in the battle for the Guild, most people are on our side now. He can make sure the ruling isn't going to be changed."

Dawn was in the converted golf course, setting up the new fences so they could have more animals out in the different areas. It was becoming it's own little mini ecosystem in here now.

James looked into the golf course, and went over to Dawn. "Oh my gosh, how many animals are you buying?" he asked her, looking at the fences she was setting up.

"Enough to get us through anything" Dawn replied, looking to James then smiling. "Hi"

Mourn nodded. "good." He patted Asher on the shoulder. "It be okay robot. Magic soul or no, you still sentient and sapient." He grinned lopsidedly. "Can't argue that one. Leave mystical mumbo jumbo to magic orb people. " He made a face. "We free other robots, show stupid terrans."

"What did you get? More goats? Other stuff? Did you get bees?" James was curious! He waved, "Hi!"

~~
Asher nodded. "Whether we have souls or not changes nothing, our goal stays the same. Still, it's too bad that Daniella had to go through such an awful experience for nothing."

Mourn shrugged. "Better than being stuck with terran forever." He reasoned.

"I suppose so," Asher agreed. "Penelope hardly seemed like a good person to share a body with." He smiled softly, "So what have you been doing with your last day at the Guild?"

Mourn grinned. "Order parts from Megabrain, lots of replacement. Should be able fix you, fix robot brother, and have spare for other fixes." He nodded, looking pleased with himself. "We get told when parts ready to pick up."

"Well that's good news," Asher said, smiling. "Seems like James can't stop breaking his arm these days, and we can't keep trying to weld it forever. And I'm certainly looking forward to walking again. Did you get anything for yourself too?"

Mourn snickered. "I no need repairs." He flexed his arm, which was better than new thanks to Danielle's weird anamcara magic. Something seemed to occur to him. "How good you at soldering teensy little things?" He gestured with his fingers to emphasise teeeensy small.

"Good, I'm glad you're all right." Asher smiled, it was nice that Mourn was doing well, at least. "I'm good at soldering small things, my hands are very steady," he said. "What are you working on?"

"hologram." Mourn gestured Asher follow. "Too small, can't fix. I show."

Asher wheeled after Mourn. So Mourn had ideas about how to fix Amity now. Well that was a good sign.

Mourn headed for his room, kicking boxes aside so Asher could get in.
The broken drone was in pieces on a desk, wires linking the internal boards to a laptop which Mourn booted up.
"Inside working, code no seem damage. But need this in new body." He gestured to the pristine new drone he'd helped build. "fans fiddly, hard to fit. Boards welded tight. You look." He indicated the broken drone. The internal boards were quite securely fixed to the casing with some sort of adhesive, clearly they weren't supposed to be taken apart. They were cheap disposable units after all, least by Aketi standards.

Asher carefully navigated his chair through the path Mourn had cleared for him, and picked up the broken drone to inspect. "Have you done any research on what sort of adhesive this might be?" He asked, looking over at Mourn so Mourn could read his lips. "Most adhesives soften when heated, but there are a few that need specialized solvents, or are simply impossible to remove except by sanding them off."

Mourn shrugged. "Plant man say drones not design be taken apart. not cost effective, so just throw them away." He made a face, how wasteful. Hewitt hadn't been overly enthusiastic about the idea either, he was weirdly fond of that drone.
"Look like resin. But no sure. Boards no look like most I see, easiest to remove, insert in new body. no sure can convert full code over to new boards." Aketi circuitry was wierd, and probably not compatible with the terran sort of circuits Mourn was used to. Which was another issue delaying this repair job. Mourn huffed, clearly it was frustrating him.

"There's usually some sort of information about this online," Asher said, frowning in thought. "Most aketi might throw broken drones out, but there are always a few tech enthusiasts who like to try and repair machines like this." He pulled out his tablet and started searching to find any discussions about taking apart aketi drones, using the tablet's translate function of necessary. It was always a good idea to look this stuff up, in case heating up the glue would damage the motherboard or something.

Mourn sat and waited, booting up the laptop and opening up the little interface he'd written so they could actually talk to Amity.
It was only text on a screen, but it proved the AI was still functioning.
Sadly Amity had been absolutely no help with repair suggestions, Host drones had never been programmed with any sort of data on how to fix themselves.

Asher tried to find any helpful information they could use: tips on how to take out glued in parts, warnings about what might destroy the drone's brain, and whatever other useful info he could find.
He looked over at Mourn's laptop with interest. "It's good to see he's still able to communicate at least," he said. "This must be so confusing for him."

Mourn shrugged. "Not sure hologram can be confused, not very smart."

text spread across the screen. [I apologize for this inconvenience.]

Mourn cackled. "See?" He pointed to the webcam and mic. "can hear us, but no seem care."

[How may I assist today Mourn?] The text asked.

"We trying to figure out how fix. Robot smart, good with small part, he help."

Asher smiled at the webcam. "Hello, Amity. This time we get to help you, instead of the other way around." Amity might not be sentient, but Asher still felt like he should always be nice to the guy. Then again, Asher usually felt like he should be nice to everyone. "You really know nothing about how to repair a drone?"

[I am afraid my programmers never thought such information would be necessary.] Amity explained. [We are ultimately designed to be disposable]

"Fix once, can fix again." Mourn nodded.

[With all due respect sir, replacing a battery charger and rebuilding an entire drone are quite different. ]

Mourn made a face, he looked back to Asher. "you find information?" He demanded.

Asher smiled at Amity. "We'll figure this out. I'm sure with Mourn's brains and my hands, we'll be able to get you safely into your new body." He nodded to Mourn, "I didn't find much, but I think it's safe to try softening the glue with some heat. Amity, you should probably shut down while we try this."

[As you wish.]

Mourn shut the laptop down. "What we use?" He looked around for options, hmmm.