#nikthesniper

Tipsy had reactivated on the floor of a holding cell in the Plifterston police department, or so she had been told. The crook that she "had been meeting" in the alley had been apprehended shortly after she'd been knocked out and was being sweated for information.

The only reason they hadn't cracked her head open and downloaded her mem-dat was because they didn't have a warrant from her owner.

"Unless, of course, you don't have an owner, 'bot. You free range?"

They can't see those. They'll lock up every robot in the city, I know too much. I'll destroy myself first--

"...No, sir," she mumbled, turning her head toward the voice. She had fiddled with the vocalizer's tuning as much as she could via processor alone, shifting the cadence closer to her old feminine tones.

"No? Owner's name."

Can't call the bar. Elijah won't know what to do. No one on the pay roll will recognize me--council will be glad to be rid of me.

"Owner's name, 'bot."

Who the hell is even going to believe me, that I was randomly tossed into...another body..."magicky bullshit"...

"C...Carlton. Paul Carlton."

I'm so sorry, Shi. I'm so, so sorry.

"M-Mr. Carlton has several of us. One of them will, will retrieve me."

"What, the man can't come down in person?"

"No, he's... bed-bound. Ill. We do everything for him."

"Including running arms?"

"...N-no, that...that was...that was all...me. My idea. We needed the money."

"Yeah. Cute story."

...

"Fine, we'll call Carlton. Assuming our chump sings, we won't need you as evidence. But believe me when I say we'll be pulling your owner over the coals for this. Letting a dangerous 'bot run free an' all--"

"Please, sir, l-let me talk to him, so I can explain--"

"Not a chance, 'bot. Anything you want to say goes through us or not at all. You got that?"

Heavy footfalls coming her way. Two sets. Almost echoing off close walls. Stopping near her head.

"Get up."

"...I--"

"Don't make me ask twice, 'bot."

"...I can't."

Tonic heard a boot scuff over the cement before it hit her leg in the side, jangling it enough to make her 'gasp' and flinch.

"You broken?" Before she could answer there were hands on her, a human growling and huffing as they tried to haul her to her feet. Tonic scrambled the legs under her, trying to learn how to stand as another set of hands grabbed her shoulders, and with nauseating suddenness she was staggered against one of the humans, legs spread awkwardly and clinging to the human, who reached around to grab her wrists.

In the scuffling, she bumped against his chest and felt the little bit of metal pinned there.

Cops.

"Put yourself on autopilot, or whatever it is you do, 'bot," the first voice snapped again from in front of her. There was a shuffling noise, something heavy in a sack he was messing with. Tonic slowly flexed her fingers in the grip of the second cop, keeping quiet, only tilting her head back up when she heard an unzipping. A... backpack?

"Yeah, he's the one, Jed," the voice grumbled, moving the backpack again, some collection of metal things sliding over each other inside of it. Jed huffed, unsurprised. The first cop moved closer. "You want to tell us who you're delivering for, metal man?"

Tonic froze, face aimed where she thought the others face was.

"...I...I don't know, please, there's--"

"You don't know?"

"Sir, listen, there's--"

"You're carrying half a dozen handguns and you don't know why?"

Half a dozen and one.

"...P-Please--"

The coat was all but ripped off of her shoulders, and she could just hear it land in a puddle over the sound of her own metal being slammed against the brick wall behind her. It didn't take them very long to find the seventh gun.

She could hear the taser come alive.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Water was falling somewhere nearby. Very nearby. Uncomfortably nearby. Tonic flinched away from the sound of it, more toward the wall. The ground was damp, as far as she could tell, and that was worrying enough; her old body wasn't waterproofed and she wasn't going to risk this one. She had already dipped the heel of a foot into a puddle on accident, trying to feel out her surroundings; fortunately, she seemed to be wearing footwear.

Continuing her inventory, she began patting herself down, checking the shape of the chassis and its clothing. Male-form, apparently, with heavy riveting and an alarming number of dents and dings. Something has wrong with the face--these seemed like damages, not designs. She could open the mouth just enough to let the vocalizer ring, which was good enough; she wasn't used to a moving faceplate anyway. The frame wasn't huge, but it was lean and powerful. Part of her was frightened by that-- like the body might turn against her-- but that was stupid.

Keep going. Clothes. Heavy pants... canvas? And a leathery jacket, seemingly fleece-lined. And the boots-- combat style. Tonic patted down the pockets, feeling most of them loaded, and slipped a hand into one--

--Good heavens, was that a gun?!

"Oi. 'Bot."

Tonic snatched her hand back guiltily, turning her head toward the voice in a mixed of relief and dread.

Poor Tonic. So much suck for her to discover.

Tonic wasn't even looking at the door when the thunder rolled by; she didn't see the purple hue the light in the window took on. But the magic snaked its way into her just the same.

The last thing she saw was the petrol martini in her hand.

And then she fell.

--

Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

Tonic was not used to pain. Oh, she had the sensors for it, buzzing fuzzy glitches and the stinging alarms for critical damage, but very rarely was something so acute as this inflicted on her.

It made the disorientation all the worse.

At first, she suspected she'd been turned human again. Two arms and two legs again, and unfamiliar internals. But, and she flexed this body's fingers to be sure, the extremities operated on joints and pistons not too unlike her own-- still a robot. Slowly, gingerly, she rolled the shoulders, turned the head, bent knees and wiggled toes (as alien as they were), fighting down the reflexive panic with a systematic inventory of her 'new self.'

Finally, she came to the optics.

...

...Oh.

No shutters. No feed. No redundancies like on her old face. No visual information whatsoever.

One hand, just as dextrous but larger, stronger than her own, patted out along the ground, along the-- gravelly, broken-- cement? Was she outside? Oh god, how'd she-- Wait, that was a wall, she'd found a wall. One jerky movement at a time, she lifted this body up on its elbows, crabbing along the ground to her left, curling slightly against it, drawing just a little comfort from it...

"E-- E-l-lijah...?"

The vocalizer glitched and rasped around the name, tuned deeper than she'd expected and making her stutter in surprise. Tonic waited a moment, listening for a response through the descending dizziness.

"...Elijah?"

It didn't matter how many times she would call.

Ru makes the MechaNik wave. “Over here! We can threaten to blow up the city and you and Gage can be the plucky, meddling kids who take me down! PLEEEASE~”