Mars City Five

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The ship would be connected to a folding tunnel that curved underground, allowing passengers to move though the spaceport without breathing Martian atmosphere. Starr and Asher would be able to follow that to a larger hallway equipped with moving walkways, which would eventually lead them to the spaceport exit, and into the massive biodome that contained Mars City Five.
There would be quite a lot of androids around, guiding visitors, or otherwise busy. They had shiny "MegaBrainTech Android" badges, and looked very official.

"It's always interesting to be home," commented Asher, "I don't think I like it."

"He'll be safe with us even if you don't stay with him," the receptionist said, "Our job is to repair androids, not damage them." She looked at Mourn and Nova uncertainly, "You're free to watch if you want, but I must warn you that some people find the sight of androids without their skin rather... unsettling. Generally we encourage people to go visit the gift shop while their androids are being repaired."

Asher looked uncomfortable. He wasn't sure he wanted any of his friends seeing his insides, but of course he knew it was safer to have his friends around, so it was probably a good idea for them to come with him.

Mourn cackled. "I engineer, fix robots anyway. Curious."

Esk tensed a little at the fixing robot comment. Still, it was better if someone was with Asher and the lunatic Felid would probably be so distracted by the engineering aspect he might be kept out of trouble for a bit.

Nova smiled and ducked her head. "It is his owners wish that I stay nearby."

The receptionist didn't seem to notice anything off about Mourn's fixing robots remark. She just smiled politely and nodded. "All right then, you two can go along." She typed briefly into her computer.

Asher smiled weakly.

Yet another android came over after about a minute. This one, unlike most of the androids they'd seen so far, was male. He looked around at the group curiously. "Hello, I'm David. I'm here for unit Three-Seven-Five-Four. That's you, I'm guessing?" he asked Asher.

"Yes, that's me," Asher said.

David smiled reassuringly at Asher, then looked at the others again, "Very good. Come with me, you and whoever else is coming along."

Asher nodded, waved nervously to the others, and followed the guy, who led him and Nova and Mourn down a hall and into a medium-sized room that looked vaguely like some sort of medical operation room, only with a lot more glue and spare parts on shelves along the walls.

Mourn skipped along with this David.

Esk waited till they were gone before looking to Rigel. "So what now captain?"

Nova followed quietly though she wasn't keen on watching this. She would watch whoever did this operation instead.

~~
"Now we wait, or explore." Rigel said with a shrug. "As long as they know where I am in case I am needed."

David looked at Nova and Mourn thoughtfully for a moment, clearly trying to figure out how to handle this. He probably wasn't used to people watching.
He reached a decision, and returned his attention to Asher. "I'm gonna have to get a scan so I can actually see the damage, okay? Once we've done that, we'll have a better idea of how much we're going to have to fix, so we can avoid disassembling more than we need to. I was looking at your files by the way, and I couldn't help but notice you're the oldest Seven I've met. Not like that changes anything, it's just kind of cool."

Asher managed a smile at that. "Thanks. How old are you, then?"

"Activated nine years ago. Normally I don't feel all that young, but now my perspective's shifted," David joked. He helped Asher onto the operating table thing, and got out a scanner.

"Does this mean I should be making old guy jokes? Got off my lawn or something?" Asher asked.

"Only if you want to," David said. He scanned Asher, and inspected the readings carefully. "Okay, this looks about how I'd expect from acid damage. There might be more damage we just can't detect with a scan, but if we're lucky, maybe this won't take too long." He glanced up at Nova and Mourn again, "I'm going to have to take off some of his skin. Are you guys sure you want to see this?"

~~
"I'd like to explore," Moriah said. She knew Mars was kind of a horrible place for her kind, but man was she curious.

"I must stay with Asher." Nova said and looked around, finding a place to sit or lean to be out of the way.

Mourn shrugged. "Robots no bleed, that more unpleasant." He laughed, he really didn't care.

David nodded, and got to work.

There were totally some folding chairs Nova and Mourn could sit on while they waited.

First David had to remove the skin from Asher’s stomach to get a view of the damage. A terran mechanic came in to help, and together they surveyed the damage, looking rather startled. It did look pretty bad, lots of broken wires which Asher had wrapped in electrical tape to keep them from connecting and shorting out, as well as some damage to the flexible jointed metal piece that acted as his physical spine.

“What happened to you, anyway?” the Terran asked.

“A gang. They had acid,” Asher said vaguely. His discomfort at was pretty obvious, he didn’t like having his friends nearby when his robotic biology was so very visible, and the lie was genuinely uncomfortable to him. He knew that discomfort would help sell the story though. Ugh.

David looked sympathetic.

The Terran nodded. “Well, I guess they always did like being creative.”

“Yeah,” Asher said. No, he did not want to talk about those gangs, thanks.

The two got to work replacing the central relay, which despite sending signals much like a spine would, was set much closer to the center of the body to better protect it. They also replaced all the wires and systems that were obviously damaged, then had Asher reboot.

Asher rebooted and said he could sense some of his lower body again, but that a lot was still offline. He reported exactly which wires weren’t working, listing off their errors with clinical precision and almost complete detachment. He’d had to do this before after his actual anti-robot gang attack after all, he knew the drill. If he couldn’t be detailed enough, they might start pressuring to connect him to a computer anyway, which wouldn’t be acceptable. So he’d better keep being helpful.

Besides, if he was focused on his medical situation, he wasn’t thinking about how disgusting and unnatural the organics must think he was when they saw him like this, with so much of his internal systems exposed. He knew they didn’t hate him for what he was, but he’d spent too much of his life believing that any sign he wasn’t an organic was a bad thing that should be hidden, to ever fully let go of that fear.

The next few hours became a tedious cat-and-mouse game of replacing damaged parts, rebooting Asher so he could adjust to them, and then having to repeat as he was suddenly able to detence new damage thanks to his newly restored functions. The dragon’s acid really had done a massive amount of damage to him, and all the dead wires and connections made it impossible to detect everything in one go. Thankfully David didn’t feel fatigue, he just kept working patiently, occasionally joking about something to Asher to try to keep their moods up. The Terran mechanic mostly watched, only actually helping when David asked him to.

Finally Asher couldn’t sense any more damage, so David helped him, ever so carefully, to stand. Asher leaned against the other android, looking like he expected his legs to crumple at any moment, maybe if some wire were to work itself loose, but the minutes passed, and nothing like that happened.

He walked carefully around the room by himself, a smile inching its way onto his face. Walking again felt amazing, it was like for the first time in months, his body was finally responding the way he wanted it to, and having that control over it again, so suddenly, was intoxicating. Nope, he couldn’t help it, he was grinning like an idiot now. Even if part of his skin hadn't been glued back on and his friends could totally see his wires and skeleton, he still felt incredible.

David looked delighted by Asher’s happiness. He called him back over after letting him wander around the room for a bit, and with some help from the Terran mechanic, they glued on a replacement piece of skin on his stomach. The original piece had looked okay, but it did have some visible seams from Asher’s own attempts to glue it back together, so this was better.

“Right,” David said. “Good as new.”

“Thank you,” Asher said. “I can’t begin to tell you what a relief this is.” He remembered where he was and added, “My owner will be so relieved to have me back to normal again.”

“Glad we could help you guys,” David said.

Asher picked up his shirt and put it back on, still grinning. “Thanks for being patient,” he told Nova and Mourn.

Nova stood and smiled at them "Wonderful. I am glad he is back to being able to walk once more." She said honestly.

Mourn had intially watched all this eagerly, he was facinated by robots after all, and not in the least bit squeamish. Given the work he'd done on his own cybernetic parts, none of this disturbed him, it only made him more appreciative of how beautifully made the terran androids were. But as time wore on the novelty had worn off and he'd had a snooze on the fold up chair, curled up around himself like a terran cat would.

He opened one eye every so often, not fully asleep in this strange environment and once they were finished he stretched, yawned and got up. "Robot fixed now?" He asked, checking the time.

---

Meanwhile, during all this Esk, Moriah and Rigel had presumably gone exploring. Or more, Rigel and Moriah had gone exploring while Esk tagged along as security. He had no real interest in this place after all.

Rigel had explored with Moriah and Esk, having a look around this place just in case they did have to come back. Hopefully they wouldn't have to especially to attack it.

"He's as good as new, well physically anyway," the mechanic said. "I know his owner requested not to have him updated, but I'd highly recommend a software update. Being vandalized tends to cause all sorts of behavioral problems, which no owner enjoys dealing with."

"My owner likes me the way I am," Asher said. "She's the one who gets to decide what happens to me, and no one else does."

The mechanic nodded. "Of course. Still," he hesitated, then continued, "We're actually releasing a new firmware for older model androids tomorrow. Unlike current firmware updates, this one is going to be free to download and install. It's not official news yet, technically we're not supposed to talk about it until the official announcement, but I think it could be a really good idea for an older android who's been through a lot, like this one has. It'll fix any behavioral issues, and prevent future ones before they can happen." He smiled.

~~
Moriah had bought a MegaBrainTech baseball hat and a shirt with a happy robot on it. Whee. She'd also wandered much of the city, seeing all the major sights with Rigel and Esk.

"His owner likes his behaviors as they are." Nova said "If she wishes to do anything else, she will when she has time to look over the updates herself. Thank you for the warning though."

"Firm... ware?" Mourn perked up, looking interested. "How it stop behavior issue?" was it like the shackles on the 8s? He tilted his head.

---

Esk shook his head. "She's way too happy about all this." He muttered to Rigel, but he couldn't resist buying a 'I heart megabrain' hat for James. It'd piss him off briefly, which in Esk's book, was totally worth it.

The mechanic smiled at Nova. "It's just a suggestion." He nodded to Mourn, "It's a fix of the behavioral parameters, so that the older androids don't develop the issues owners often complain about now. Older androids, Five and Seven series models, that is, will stop developing new problems, and lose their old problems, making them as reliable as the Eight series. The update is going to make old androids much better, and did I mention it's going to be free and easy to update?"

Asher stared at the mechanic, trying to figure out which questions he could safely ask here. "The update will erase our personalities?" he blurted out, unable to contain the question.

The mechanic eyed him with a frown. "That's not a very scientific way to put it. It's a bugfix, really."

David looked less than convinced about this. He stayed back, expression almost inscrutable.

Mourn looked serious. "Like eights? They stop.. develop yes? " He considered something and asked. "how it fix old problem? It delete memory?"

"No, the memories all stay, so you don't need to worry about re-training the android to do chores and stuff after the update," the mechanic said. "The new firmware changes their behavior parameters, so the android still remembers everything they learned before the update, but they react to new situations in a more stable and reliable way. No random freakouts or paranoia around strangers, to name a few common issues it'll fix." He nodded, "Exactly like the Eights."

Asher folded his arms, trying his hardest to shut himself up.

Nova frowned, she didn't like the sound of this. "It sounds like the same effect as erasing the personality, which is what his owner likes about the older ones, their personality."

Mourn nodded slowly. If they were like the eights, it could be reversed he thought. he'd read all the release info, but he kinda wanted to see it working, to see if he could backward engineer it. Ahem.
"it come with patch notes yes? list all fix?"

"I'm sure there will be extensive release notes," the mechanic said, "many owners will want to know about the firmware they're installing, after all. Keep your eye," he looked awkward, realizing Mourn did have only one real eye, oops, "Keep checking the website, it'll be updated tomorrow for sure."
He frowned at Nova's words, "The effect may appear similar to erasing a personality, but you must remember that androids aren't sentient, which means they don't have real personalities anyway. But if his owner likes him the way he is, she certainly doesn't have to install the update."

"We should get going," Asher said, still trying to rein in his rising sense of panic. "My owner wanted us to head home as soon as I was repaired, and now I'm repaired, so we should go." He needed to get out of here before he said something wrong.

Nova shook her head and went to Asher's side. "Right, we should go and get the others so we can head back."

Mourn nodded. "We go. I read notes tomorrow then yes?" Oh he would, he really would. "come on robot." He glanced back at the android mechanic, presumably he'd get the update whether he wanted it or not, bah. stupid terrans. He did however manage to restrain himself from laughing at the terran's insistence that androids weren't sentient. Stupid stupid stupid terrans.

"It was good to meet you," David said. He smiled, it looked automatic though, and not very happy.

"Thank you for choosing MegaBrainTech!" the mechanic said cheerfully.

"Thank you both for your help," Asher said, the words every bit as automatic as David's smile. He remembered to take the wheelchair, pushing it as he tried not to hurry for the door.

"Thank you for fixing Asher." Nova said, giving them a smile and following Asher out.

Mourn got the door, already he was thinking about this firmware and how to fix it once it was installed. A new challenge, and he hadn't even solved the first one.