Chapter Twenty-Seven – Nun Too Soon

Chapter Twenty-Seven – Nun Too Soon

“H-hi everyone!

Please?”

–Beatrice “Quantum Lovely Bubble Pop Honey Bliss Laser Ranger” Smith, during her first livestream, 2040

***

I stared at the part in my right hand, then the one in my left. They had grooves designed to interlock together. I knew this, because I had seven more nearly identical parts, all slotted together, sitting on a table in front of me.

I pushed the two parts together.

They didn’t fit.

“What the fuck,” I muttered as I tried shoving the two parts together with more force. Unfortunately, more enthusiasm didn’t do anything.

These doohickeys all fit along a line that ran from the mech’s leg up into a sort of little actuator in the shoulder. The actuator needed replacing, which meant that I had to take apart all of the little clamps that kept the line in place.

It had taken a few hours, and was rather tedious, but I’d figured it out and became pretty decent at it by the end. There was some skin missing from my knuckles, but it wasn’t all bad.

Now I just had to put it all back together. The new actuator had fit into place like it belonged there, and these fiddly bits I was working with were the old ones, they should have fit in well because I’d literally taken them out an hour ago.

That was only if I could get them to click together. I tried again, but the part didn’t fit into its opposite. Squinting, I looked at the two, then noticed that they were slightly different. “Myalis, what’s going on?”

That’s part 256B that you’re trying to fit into 257G. They aren’t meant to be together.

“They’re all different?” I asked.

Yes. 257B is on the table to your left. 256G is currently linked to 257C. The parts happen to click into place, though the tolerance is off.

“I did that like, ten minutes ago,” I said. “You knew!”

I did.

“Then why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. I was past frustrated by that point, but I figured I owe Myalis at least the chance to explain herself.

I am very good at running predictions. If I corrected you, you wouldn’t have made the mistake. You also wouldn’t have learned a lesson. I predict an extremely high likelihood that, moving forward, you will be significantly more attentive about labelling and marking out your parts.

I sighed. She was probably right. “Okay, so how do I fix this?”

The parts on the table started to glow as my augs highlighted them. They were each painted in two colours, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that colours went with those they matched to.

“Oh, hey, this one’s not fucked,” I said as I picked one up.

A legitimate coincidence. You were going to fit it into the wrong place, but then you dropped the other wrong side and fitted it into the right one instead. That part has rolled under the mech, by the way.

I grumbled to myself as I went to look for the part. The mecha was looking… disassembled. Which was actually an improvement. The busted, bent, or otherwise fucked bits were all gone. Now all that was left were missing pieces. For the most part, I was done removing the bad, and was now working to shove in the good.

It was just taking a lot more work to replace parts than to remove them.

I was on all fours under the mech when I noticed a large van moving towards our place. It slowed down, then flew towards the lower floors and out of sight. It was definitely heading towards us, though.

I shimmied backwards out from under the mech (with the part I’d gone down to get) then I returned to the workbench. “Hey, we got eyes on that van?” I asked. There was basically a bubble around our place that was more or less free of aerial traffic except for high-flying cars and the occasional racers that didn’t mind dipping in and out of the area.