#broken robots

I’ve been working on this story for like 3 years now and the second arc is about to start going up.  It took me approximately 2 years to write the first arc, 2 years of pain and agony trying to make sense of the Sonic 06 timeline, and now I’m onto the second arc.  I will not take me nearly as long to finish it.  For a multitude of reasons.  But most importantly because I’m not trying to follow literally the most confusing garbage known to man.

As for the second arc, itself... well, as I mentioned in a previous post, I decided to write it for NaNoWriMo this year, both because it won a twitter poll, but also because I kinda wanted a break from my big, intimidatingly important stuff.  (i.e. my novel series)  I decided, if I wrote this second arc for NaNo that I would literally just have fun with it.  I wasn’t going to overthink every tiny little detail (AH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA) and just write whatever for shits and giggles.

Turns I literally cannot do that.  But!  I did still write it entirely out of my normal, more intense, tragic style (which, debatably made it so much more difficult) and instead decided I wanted to try a more light-hearted, slice-of-life comedy kind of thing.  Turns out that’s harder than breaking people’s hearts.  Who knew.

But, either way, progress is being made.  I’m learning to write in a whole new genre and I think it’s going surprisingly well, all things considered.

I’m going to be spending the first week of December editing the chapters I have, so expect the first one to start going up around the 8th or so.  After that I’m going to do my best to keep to a weekly upload schedule.  As of the moment I have 11 chapters built up so that’ll hold me up for some time and I don’t intend to start any other writing projects until I finish this one so... fingers crossed I can keep it up.

And that’s most of what I wanted to say, I suppose.  The new arc will be a shift in tone from the first and mid-arc stories, and, at the suggestion of my bf, I’ve (hopefully) written it in a way that you don’t necessarily need to read the stories before to understand this one.  If you want, you can just start at the second arc.  So there’s that.

In the meantime, as usual, the askbox is always open (and currently empty) so... you know... go bug the residents while I get the chapters ready for posting.

And that’s enough blabbering for me.

tl;dr - We’ve reached 100 posts, the second arc is now being edited and will start posting around the 8th on a weekly basis.  Askbox is always open.

A search result popped up immediately. Suspension Spring Collapse. ‘Sudden failure results when a spring, or other weight-bearing part, breaks and is referred to as a collapse. Avoid hitting potholes whenever possible (for this and other reasons) and try to slow down over very large bumps such as driveway openings and speed bumps.’

This could have been avoided if he hadn’t kept putting the repair off. It was only a simple repair. Replace a spring coil or two and check for any other damage. He felt like a stupid robot. A stupid robot with incorrect priorities and a too ambitious ‘to-do’ list.

He walked around the car and dropped to his knees when he found Bing slumped against the inside ‘floor’ of the car, his back semi-resting on the inside of the once-roof of the car. His synthetic skin on his arms and torso was torn from the broken window and impact and oil was leaking out of the missing socket of his right arm. The detached arm lay useless a few feet away.

Google punched through the windshield, careful to do it in a location as to not shower Bing and removed enough glass to make a hole big enough to climb through. Although he didn’t like the idea of climbing INTO the overturned car, Bing was not in a condition to be easily moved. He initiated his scans and assessments. He started to continually glance at Bing’s face which began producing small streams of oil from his eye-sockets once Google began prodding at the damage. Once-in-a-while, Bing’s face would scrunch up from sensory overload. His core hadn’t stopped whirring from overdrive since Google found him. It was one of the only signs that he was still online.

After fifteen long minutes, Google’s final assessment came up ‘negative for repair’. There was too much damage. The amount of work that would need to be done would not leave Bing with enough original parts to be… ‘Bingiplier’. Before Google could share this information, he received an electric shock from Bing’s shaking hand and a pager message popped up on his internal screen.

 “I know.”

 Google couldn’t tell whether the oil on his hands was from Bing’s broken body or from his own face anymore. The two robots sat in silence for the longest minute of Google’s life, he tried to get Bing to say something, anything. But everything he received via message was distorted with letters misplaced. Without speaking, he finally opened the front panel of the android. Sparks shot out continuously and wires were disconnected everywhere. Google reached in and grabbed the main one running from the power source to the core. He felt a shaking, frail hand weakly grip his arm.

“I’m sorry” showed on Google’s lips however, the noise itself was lost in the sound of nearby sirens passing by on a different street to a different location calling towards a different problem. There was no help coming for them. He closed his eyes and yanked the cable, opening them only to find a small smile forming on Bing’s face as the lights in his eyes dimmed faster and faster.

 Everything froze. The mechanics stopped its ceaseless clattering, and the air was deadly still.

 Everyone had some sort of tear on their face sitting around the living room. Dr. Iplier had streams even going around the stiff hands on his face because as a human doctor, he could have done nothing. Bim and King of the Squirrels quietly sobbed while hugging each other on the couch; Bing was the only other in the office who loved adventures. Host stood silently in the corner, however his narrations were kept to short quips and a small track of red ran down his cheek. Wilford was choked up in the armchair because he wouldn’t be able to see Bing’s smiling face for a while; of course he wasn’t dead. Even Dark seemed a little more somber than usual, sitting on the matching armchair; but if you asked him how he was feeling, he’d rather be anywhere else obviously.

Google was off to the side with a blank expression. Work, work, work was the only thing on his mind. The only thing in his programming. That, and his objectives. He had no emotions. Useless things. They brought him too much pain and was interfering with coding. What was the point in charging when the only image behind eyelids was Bing’s tear-tracked, blank, pained face; mechanics whirring with errors and overloads. No, emotional upgrades were removed and buried along with Bing’s parts. They were all useless at this point. Too much sentimental value.

________________

Google’s head snapped up. His sensors were telling him he had been laying hunched over on his hard, wooden desk for the better part of an hour and a half. His internal core was whirring extremely loud and drives under his synthetic skin were spinning fast. His chest kept rising and falling intensely, trying to suck in as much cooling air as possible to slow down his core. A simple scan of his hard-drive registered the message ‘PANIC’ to pop up. ‘sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behavior.’

Fear. Anxiety. Those were emotions. When did those return? Before Google could scan further and answer his own questions, the Host seemed to appear into the tech workshop. He walked up to Google as somber as ever, hands neatly behind his back.

“The Host asks if Googliplier is alright. He seems to show signs of intense fear and worry. Typically signs of a nightmare.” Then he smirked, “The Host knows the signs well.”

“I’m fine, Host. Androids do not dream. How can I help you?” Google tried to make his face as stoic as possible.

“The Host asks if Google will finally fix the suspension on the car today as he has been putting it off for two weeks now. It has likely become quite dangerous.” As the Host turned to leave, he then added over his shoulder, “The Host had a vision recently that Bingiplier may wish to borrow the car today. He seems quite bored.” and then left from the room.

Google sat at his desk for a minute more before silently rising and thinking his plan over as he reached his destination. He knocked sharp and loud. Soon after, the door opened to Bing leaning against the doorframe, tossing a baseball in the air over and over again.

“Sup, Googs!”

“I request your assistance. The suspension on the communal car needs fixing and the job will be done faster with two robots. Then, uh, it is possible that we can fix your skateboard.”

“Aww sweet! Lemme get my working gloves.”

But this time, Google didn’t roll his eyes at that humanistic comment. He was too busy in his mind, replaying the scene of a dying robot lying slumped over in a broken car.

_______________________________________

For those wondering, let’s just say the Host made sure to transfer that vision along.

Tags: