Author's note: Hello! This is the third installment of my Diagnostic Test series. Please go read the first two parts for the necessary context if you haven't already! Thanks, Enjoy! :)
I took a deep breath. My eyelids fluttered closed. My jaw unclenched, slightly. It felt like it had been weeks since I'd been able to relax, even for just a second. I listened to the soft hum of the hovtruck's stabilizers, the rhythmic
tictactictactictac
of the turn signal, and took another long breath. We hit a pocket of wind that sent a small tremor through the truck before the stabilizers kicked in, and the heap that was Renee jostled against me.
My eyes flew open, panic immediately swelling in my chest again. Renee. Her stiff, lifeless body was crumpled haphazardly on the seat next to mine. She hadn't shown a single sign of life since she'd collapsed on the warehouse floor. I reached over and started to shake her, squeeze her hand, check her pulse, anything that could show me she was ok. The panic intensified as each attempt failed, until it finally dawned on me that what I was doing was useless. Of course she didn't have a pulse; she was a bot.
"Idiot," I murmured under my breath as I roughly pulled her closer to me and laid her head on my lap. I just needed to figure out how to turn her back on. I racked my brain for anything I could remember from the schematics I'd looked at before the diagnostic test as I felt around for the seam that opened the control panel in her neck.
Crick eyed me in the rearview mirror, his brows furrowed. I finally found the seam and hooked it with my nail to pop it open. The machinery still looked flawless. I brought my ear to the opening and heard a very faint buzzing. A sign of electricity, of working technology. A very good sign.
Crick swore suddenly as another Hovcar cut him off, braking just in time to avoid a collision. He let out a hissing breath through gritted teeth as he gradually slowed down to put some distance between the car and our truck, white-knuckling the steering wheel. We both knew that he had to drive as safely as possible. The last thing we needed was to get pulled over and have a cop look in the backseat and see at best an unconscious woman, and at worst the extremely valuable bot that had just been reported stolen and was now the subject of a nationwide manhunt.
Once the car in front was far enough away, Crick's eyes flicked back to the rearview mirror, watching me examine Renee's hardware.
"What are you doing?" He asked warily.
"Trying to get her working again," I said, slightly exasperated.
"I don't think right now is the best time for that," he said gently.
"What?" I finally tore my eyes away from Renee's wiring to meet his eyes. "Why the hell not?"
"Because if she powers back on, there's a good chance they can track her, which means they'll be tracking us. In fact, it's probably a good idea to disconnect her power supply in case they realize that they can do that and turn her back on."
I stared at the back of his head, dumbstruck. Was he serious?
"Are you kidding me? We did this whole heist, I lost my job, and probably became a fugitive to save her, and now we can't even turn her back on?" I picked up her limp arm and dropped it.
"Look, we'll figure it out back at the Body Shop. There's gotta be some way to disable their connection to her, but right now you need to make sure she doesn't power on!" He flapped his bionic arm at me for emphasis, keeping his eyes on the road. I hesitated for a moment. I knew he was right, but I just couldn't believe I'd gone through so much to get her safe, and she wasn't even conscious.
With a sigh, I pulled up the side of Renee's tank top and found her torso access panel. I popped it open, and after a bit of searching, found a thick black cable. If I was remembering her schematics right, this was connected to her battery. Just as I gripped the head of the cable, I felt her body twitch beneath me. My eyes flew to her face, which was just beginning to stir. Slowly, her eyes fluttered open and locked with mine, and the smallest hint of a smile crossed her lips. My heart gave a painful twang as I pulled the cable from its port. Renee stiffened again, the life leaving her eyes just as quickly as it had come.
I choked back a sob and carefully moved her back to the other seat. I let my head fall into my hands, and we rode the rest of the way in silence.
+++
Crick parked the hovtruck behind the shop as close to the back door as he could. He ran inside and brought out an oil-stained canvas tarp, which I quickly wrapped around Renee, trying my best to make her look as little like a dead body as possible. It was only a few feet from the truck to the door, but I wasn't in the mood to take any chances. I slung her over my shoulder, but without the adrenaline from earlier coursing through me, I could barely make it a few steps before my trembling legs felt like they were about to give out under her weight. Crick took her legs, and we slowly trudged through the back door. We laid her down on a workbench in the middle of the room and I gingerly unwrapped the tarp, revealing her still, lifeless body. The room was silent except for the rhythmic thumping of Ziggy's happily wagging tail from the dog bed in the corner.
"Holy shit," Crick muttered, and I looked over at him
"This... this is a bot?" He whispered, just staring at her in dumbstruck awe. I realized that this was the first time he'd really seen Renee up close.
"That's what I said when I first saw her too," I said, following his gaze to her face. At this point I was used to her, but Crick had never seen such a lifelike bot before, even with all the bots and parts he'd worked with. Crick reached out and gently touched her arm.
"And you're sure she's a bot, right?" He asked, pinching the skin of her forearm slightly. "Not some kind of heavily cyborged human?" I stared at the point on her arm that he'd just pinched, watched the area flush ever so slightly red. The thought had never even crossed my mind that she might not completely be a bot. The more I looked at her and the more I thought about it, the more unbelievable it seemed that she was completely manmade.