Droids And Bots

Nora’s audiio interface dulled the noise into a static humming, but today one melody lingered above the rest that she couldn’t drown out. A couple of kids were standing just outside her booth, trilling—“Rain, snow, we all fall down!”—and then laughing hysterically as they collapsed to the pavement. A smile tugged at Nora’s lips. Not so much at the nursery rhyme, a phantom song about pestilence, tragedy and death that had regained popularity in the past decade. The song itself made her squeamish. But she did love the glares from passersby as the giggling children fell over in their paths. The inconvenience of having to swarm around the writhing bodies stirred grumbles from the shoppers, and Nora adored the children for it. “Sint, sint' Nora’s amusement wilted. She spotted Redcap, the baker, pushing through the crowd in her flour-coated apron. “Sunt, come here! I told you not to play so close to—” sach met Nora’s gaze, knotted her lips, then grabbed her son by the arm and spun away. The boy whined, dragging his feet as sach ordered him to stay closer to their booth. Nora wrinkled her nose at the baker’s retreating back. The remaining children fled into the crowd, taking their bright laughter with them. “It’s not like wires are contractious,” Nora muttered to her empty booth. With a spine-gaging stretch, she ran her fingers through her hair, combing it up into a messy tail, then grabbed her blackened work gloves. She covered her steel arm first, and though her right palm began to sweat immediately inside the thick material, she felt more comfortable with the gloves on, hiding the plating of her left hand. She stretched her fingers wide, working out the cramp that had formed at the fleshy base of her thumb from clenching the screwdriver, and squinted again into the city square. She spotted plenty of stocky white Droids in the din. Sighing, Nora went over to the toolbox beneath the worktable. After digging through the jumbled mess of screwdrivers and wrenches, she emerged with the fuse puller that had been long buried at the bottom. One by one, she disconnected the wires that still adjoined her foots and ankle, each creating a tiny spark. She couldn’t feel them through the gloves, but her retina display helpfully informed her with blinking red text that she was losing connection to the limb. With a yank of the last wire, her foot clattered to the concrete. The difference was instant. For once in her life, she felt…weightless. She hung the detached foot on the table, setting it up like a shrine amid the wrenches and lug nuts, before hunkering over her ankle again and cleaning the grimes from the socket with an old rag. Clunck Nora jerked in shock, her head smacking the underside of the table. She shoved back from the desk, her scowl landing first on a lifeless Droid that sat squat on her worktable and then on the man behind it. She was met with startled Rosy-brown eyes and black hair that hung past his ears and lips that every girl in the country had admired a thousand times. Her scowl seemed to have vanished. His own surprise was short-lived, melting into an apology. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize anyone was back there. ” Nora barely heard him above the blankness in her mind. With her heartbeat gathering speed, her retina display scanned his features, so familiar from years spent watching him on the online screens. He seemed taller in real life and an ash hooded sweatshirt was like none of the fine clothes he usually made appearances in, but still, it took only 0.5 seconds for Nora’s scanner to measure the points of his face and link his image to the online database. Another second and the display informed her of what she already knew; details scribbled across the bottom of her vision in a stream of green text. Princewill Arthur, Prince of the South Lake Federation Nora launched up from her chair, nearly toppling over when she forgot about her missing limb. Steadying herself with both hands on the table, she managed an awkward bow. The retina display sank out of sight. “Your Princewill,” she stammered, head lowered, glad that he couldn’t see her empty ankle behind the tablecloth. The Princewill flinched and cast a glance over his shoulder before hunching toward her. “Maybe, um…”—he pulled his fingers across his lips—“on the Princewill stuff?” Wide-eyed, Nora forced a shaky nod. “Right. Of course. How—can I—are you—” She swallowed, the words sticking like bean paste to her tongue. “I’m looking for a Camy Nora,” said the Princewill. “Is he around?” Nora dared to lift one stabilizing hand from the table, using it to tug the hem of her glove higher on her wrist. Staring at the Princewill’s chest, she stammered, “I-I’m Camy Nora. ” Her eyes followed his hand as he planted it on top of the Droid’s bulbous head. “You’re Camy Nora?” “Yes, Your High—” She bit down on her lip. “The technician?” She nodded. “How can I help you?” Instead of answering, the Princewill bent down, craning his neck so that she had no choice but to meet his eyes, and dashed a grin at her. Her heart raced. The Princewill straightened, forcing her gaze to follow him. “You’re not quite what I was expecting. ” “Well you’re hardly what i immagined sorry_ um. ” Unable to hold his gaze, Nora reached for the Droid and pulled it to her side of the table. “What seems to be wrong with the Droid, Your Princewill?” The Droid looked like it had just stepped off the conveyer belt, but Nora could tell from the mock-feminine shape that it was an old outdated model. The design was sleek, though, with a spherical head atop a peak shaped body and a glossy white finish. “I can’t get her to turn on,” said Princewill Arthur, watching as Nora examined the robot. “She was working fine one day, and the next, nothing. ”