#slightly dramatic

It was an anomaly of sorts, but Cin just grumbled and carried on with their task. The dance pad was still broken down from the aggressive stomping of some less than respectful teens. How the machine could both be broken and fixed by acts of kicking… Who the hell knew. The only concern now was getting it fixed.

“Alright, time to tear this thing apart and get those pressure sensors fixed.” They sighed. “Now where did I put my- ggkh!”

They choked. Well, sort of. It was more of a strained, garbled wretch. The chip in the back of their neck sparked all of a sudden, and sent a painful shock throughout their body. All of a sudden they were reading dozens of streams of code being forced through the chip and into their mind through the connection they shared with the chip, and began to overheat with how active it was. From what they could pick up, it was malicious code, and every few seconds they would receive a painful shock. It was hot, out of control, and hurt like hell.

“W-what in tHe fUCk is gOINg oN?” Cin panicked aloud.

Even their vocoder was off the wall. Their voice glitched while their vocoder struggled to remain off, but lost against the command of the chip. It was a definitive hack attempt that had gone wrong, and at this moment, Cin really didn’t like the fact that they were so hardwired into technology. Even their vision was blurry, the nanotech in their contacts malfunctioning and distorting their vision. The pain was so bad they couldn’t even take them out, seizing with every shock.

Parts and services. They needed to get to parts and services now. Forget repairs, they needed them more than that damn machine. Cin stumbled pathetically over the dance pad and in the general direction of the service elevator, fighting against the constant hot, searing pain they felt on the back of their neck. Unfortunately, they didn’t get very far. Another random shock made them seize and fall to the ground this time, unable to keep themselves upright as the shocks came more frequently. Whatever was going on was about to fry them right here in the middle of an empty arcade. Just another failed experiment with flesh and circuits.

But… They kept forgetting the arcade was never actually empty; and what a saving grace that was.

The constant shocks were eventually too much for them to handle and Cin couldn’t help but cry out in pain with every jolt. Their voice was enough. That’s all he needed. It wasn’t a normal sound to hear, so when it was heard, DJ immediately made his presence known and transferred down to his seven foot casing to find Cin and figure out why they sounded like they were in pain. Off he ran, shocked to see Cin bent over on the floor convulsing and grunting with pain. This was not normal at all. He’d never heard them in so much pain before.

“Cin?! Cin what’s going on?” Dj asked, dropping down to their level.

“C-chip maLFuncTioN. BUrnIng. ShocKInG me. P-parts and SerVICes plEasE.” Cin choked out, their voice still a very glitchy mess.

DJ ran a scan on them and quickly saw there was an active hack attempt running rampant in their chip. It kept sending the wrong signals to their brain, and forcing misfires that caused painful shocks. It wasn’t known for such a thing to be possible, but here they were, having technology tamper with biology before his eyes. It wasn’t getting any prettier either. The chip was so hot it began to burn their skin around it, getting worse by the second. For the first time since he established sentience, DJ felt fear; wholehearted genuine panic, and fear.

“More like a hack induced malfunction! I’ll get you there.”

He spoke quickly and immediately scooped up Cin in his arms. They were horrifyingly limp, only moving whenever the next shock came by tensing up completely. Their chip was getting way too hot for a human to handle, and he had to get them down there as fast as possible. Watching their nerves take heavy shocks every couple of seconds was starting to get unbearable for him. The way they scrunched up with pain and discomfort in his arms was not a feeling he liked, nor was the sound of their pain filled cries. He just wanted it to stop, before they were damaged beyond reasonable repair.

The elevator luckily wasn’t too far away, so he hammered the button inside and waited in with the extremely inappropriate elevator music droning on in the background while it descended to parts and services. It was the fastest way, but it felt far too slow with all the painful noises coming from Cin, both human and robotic. That vocoder was seriously acting up now, making even their breaths sound glitchy.

“H-heh. ThiS musiC is RealLy unfORtuNaTe.” Cin commented through the pain.

“How can you make jokes when you are literally frying???” DJ questioned, eternally baffled by Cin’s nonchalant nature towards everything. “Quit talking. You’re gonna cause more pain.”

As if on cue their vocoder sparked and the little metal imprints on their neck seared through their top, effectively ruining it and showing exactly where it was on their body. He’d never actually seen the vocoder on their person, but now that the clothing had burned away the little implants glowed red on either side of their neck. That shut them up, that’s for sure. Any more talking might make it go off and spark again.

Eventually that god forsaken elevator door opened and DJ was able to escape the painfully out of place music and get Cin to the service workers. It wasn’t often an animatronic came barreling into parts and services willingly through the employee elevator, so most of the workers looked at DJ like he had gone berserk and malfunctioned when he ran through and up to the station where biotech work was done: one of Cin’s most frequented places in this building besides backstage with him.

“Cin’s chip is on the fritz. They’ve been breached. Help them, now!” DJ ordered, staring desperately at one of the techs in the corner.

Thankfully, it was Cin’s regular tech, Sydney, so once they realized what was just said she had all hands on deck. Seeing her panic made any other service worker realize there was a good reason for DJ to be down here, the sound of Cin’s half robotic cries of pain giving them the hint that DJ wasn’t the defective one. One of the best nanotechs came over to help, as well as another tech who doubled in the first aid department.

“Shit. Not good. Thank you for bringing them.” Sydney panicked.

She approached Cin and immediately saw the problem. The chip was glowing with heat a little, causing second degree burns to their skin around it. Even the vocoder made small burn marks on their neck.

“Don’t even bother sedATING ME. Swap the chIP now befOre I’m fried. I can fEEL It puLsing.” Cin begged when they found their voice.

“Roger. This… This will hurt.” Sydney said cautiously.

“Don’t cARe.”

Cin turned around on the chair and reclined it back, lying on their stomach so the chip was open for Sydney to work on. Everything was hot and painful already, so what was a little more pain? DJ merely stood by, watching Cin writhe in pain while Sydney got everything together. The other tech came by and got ready to do a live swap: something they would have preferred not to do, but had no choice but to now.

After a countdown, Sydney grabbed hold of the main chip and yanked it out of place, taking a fair strip of their skin with it that fused to it from the heat. The housing was left now, and it wasn’t hot, but the act of removing what was essentially Cin’s second brain caused an extreme amount of pain. They groaned out in pain and dug their nails into the palm of their hand, breaking skin and causing blood to flow down their palm and to the floor. This alarmed DJ, and out of instinct, he pulled up a stool and sat right next to Cin, wedging his fingers under theirs until they couldn’t puncture their own skin anymore. Once he stopped them from hurting themselves, he turned his hand and allowed them to continue their death grip on his hand instead, reducing the damage. He was made to take a hit or two, and despite how lifelike his casing felt, it was still durable as all hell, enduring the heat of Cin’s nails digging into his palm now without so much as a dent.

He was still impressed by their strength. Their grip was deadly, and he was glad he took hold of their hand before they made more holes where there didn’t need to be any. They would’ve definitely punctured through more if he hadn’t done something. The techs shot him a grateful glance that said ‘thank you’ and continued working, replacing the chip with a new one of higher security. After carefully removing any seared skin in the way they placed the new chip in which was of much higher security. It was already updated so the only thing they needed to do was restore connection to Cin’s brain and sync it up. It was once again a slightly painful process, the link sending a jolt through their system once more as it linked up.

Luckily, the worst was soon over. Once connectivity was restored the shocks stopped, and functionality returned to their vocoder. Now they wouldn’t talk with glitchy interruptions, and the only thing causing them pain now was the lingering damage from the heat. While Sydney scanned what was left of the old chip, the tech with first aid experience came over and gave Cin some pain killer and a cool compress, after they carefully cleaned up the burned area. They were told there might be light scarring, but it was caught soon enough to prevent serious damage. Their grip on DJ’s hand finally loosened a little, their face remaining buried in the back of the chair.

“Cin. You’re so lucky.” Sydney commented, coming back over to them.

“How so?” Cin panted, covered in stress sweat.

“If it wasn’t for DJ, you could’ve not only had worse burns, but been taken over. That hack attempt was a full on attempt to compromise your mind. You were treated like a machine to be taken over by some unknown source, and when they failed, they resorted to shocking you to the brink of death. Or… they were trying to shock you into submission somehow… When they couldn’t breach our tech fully, they resorted to that cruel method.” Syd explained.

“I can’t believe someone actually tried that. I never thought I’d see the day.” Cin huffed.

“Yes. Luckily we have a new chip in you now. We meant to install it earlier, but we were still testing it out.” Syd sighed. “Now’s better than never though. You should have more control, and something like that shouldn’t ever happen again. We’ll be made aware of it as well.”

“That is really fucked up. Wow. Alright. Am I good to go then?” They asked.

“You are. Just get some rest soon. Perhaps maybe stay the night here at the plex. I wouldn’t recommend you to drive home in this condition. There’s plenty of places you’ll be welcome to stay. I’m sure DJ here can help with that as well.” Syd nodded in his direction. “Thank you by the way, DJ. We’re all so very lucky you were as responsive as you were.”

“Of course. What kind of monster would I be to leave my favourite DJ in that condition?” He nodded.

“I’m so glad you two are basically inseparable. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost little ol’ Cinny here.” Syd chuckled.

“Syd. what’d I say about using that name?” Cin growled.

“Sorry, sorry~. Alright, you’ve got your updates and pain killers. You’re free to go. Come back if there’s anything else wrong, okay?”

Cin nodded against the chair and Sydney finally left them and DJ alone. He looked down at them with an anxious expression, still holding their hand. Cin sighed deeply one more time and slowly pushed themselves up with their other arm, intentionally not letting go of his hand. Partially because they didn’t want to, but partially because they were sure that was the only thing that stopped their palm from bleeding excessively from their own puncture wounds.

“Are you… Alright?” DJ asked.

“Hah, no. I’m… I’m not okay. Everything still hurts like hell. My neck…” They paused and touched the chip, feeling all their slightly burnt and blistered skin. “It’s fucked up. Wow.”

DJ looked at it a little himself and agreed that it was not pretty. Cin’s skin was angry and red, and their top was pretty much ruined too. At least nothing was glowing red anymore, and everything was back to the usual metallic silver colour. Cin took the cool compress given to them earlier and placed it on the back of their neck after a moment, using it to quell the lingering heat.

“I can see. I’m… Sorry I couldn’t be faster.”

“Don’t be. No one thought this would ever occur. You got me down here and that's what’s important.” Cin insisted. “Though I must say Syd is right. I can’t go home like this. I honestly feel like I’m going to black out. Could you take me backstage to the couch? I’ll have to leave tomorrow morning instead. I’m too… Dizzy.”

“Yes of course. You’ll just have to… Let go of my hand first.” He said quietly.

“Ah. You are correct. One second. I know my hand will keep bleeding.”

When Cin let go, a slow moving flow of blood started oozing out of their self inflicted puncture wounds again. Reaching over, they grabbed the first aid kit on the counter and quickly cleaned up the wound before wrapping it sloppily in a white bandage. It would be enough. As long as it was clean.

“Alright that’ll do. Let me just get up-”

“Nu uh. You damn near tipped over.” DJ sighed, catching Cin when they inevitably got dizzy and swayed. “I’ll carry you again.”

“Your idea is better. Damn. Maybe I did get a little fried.” Cin chuckled.

“Cin please. You’re a menace. Get some rest.” DJ groaned, wearing a genuinely worried expression.

Cin snorted a little and happily let DJ carry them bridal style once again. They always had to slip in a little joke here and there no matter how heavy the situation was. It was just in their nature. For his sake though, since they could see how visibly stressed and worried he was, they ceased, and relaxed into his many arms that supported them with ease. Once he had them settled, he carried Cin back over to the elevator to take them backstage once more to rest.

Cin was definitely right about feeling like they were about to pass out. About halfway through the elevator ride they blacked out on the spot, the weight of the damage they took finally taking its toll. He had to hold the cool compress on for them just to keep the pain at bay until those painkillers kicked in. He watched their limp form as the elevator doors opened, scanning them for any more strange activity. Thankfully there was none. Both the new chip and their brain were operating normally, their breaths gentle and steady as they slept. It was a horrifying rollercoaster of events, but it was over thankfully. There was peace again.

DJ brought them backstage and carefully laid them down on the couch with the cool compress under their neck, covering their lower half with a blanket. They were sound asleep by now, finally at ease after that random cyber attack on them. He sat down just next to them and watched, occasionally scanning for anomalies out of paranoia now. The longer he sat, the more he thought about how horrifying it actually would be if they were to have succumbed to that attack. Absent-mindedly, he took hold of their bandaged hand and looked it over, applying gentle pressure when he realized blood was still seeping through. He hoped it would clot better by doing this, and reduce any more blood loss.

“You are seriously cursed by your incredible uniqueness.” DJ muttered. “I can’t believe the stuff you go through and still hang on like nothing happened.”

There was a brief moment of silence. He knew Cin couldn’t hear him, but he still mumbled on regardless.

“I worry about you, shit head.”