Chapter 12: Irreparable Repaired
Tiran was sitting on a torn-up couch in what appeared to be a living room, but he couldn't be sure with all the junk laying around. At least it was warm. Warm because of the massive forge in the next room. Which Tiran was glad to have since he had the top portions of his suit removed.
Quick Fix was at his side with a variety of tools; wrenching, ratcheting, hammering and prying as she tried to remove Tiran's prosthetic while being as delicate as possible. Even so, Tiran still felt an occasional twinge of pain, wincing as he did so.
"So," Tiran began, flinching as the strange unicorn his an especially sensitive nerve, "This your place here?"
"Huh? No. This belongs to a friend. I just come here for custom parts. It's a bit of a journey, but he has a knack for being able to make any part you needneed, no matter how obscure. Which is why" she said, finally pulling out a few stubborn screws and carefully depositing them on a tray, "you're lucky that Ruwa brought you here. There's quite a few things in here I haven't seen before and I haven't even begun to start."
"That so, huh?" Tiran managed through clenched teeth.
Finally, after some pushing and pulling, Quick Fix stuck a pry bar in the small gap she had made between Tiran's arm and shoulder and gave it a good knock with her hoof. With a snap and a klunk, it finally popped free, landing on the metal table with a rattle of loose parts.
"Ah, there." Quick Fix said with relief. "Thought that was gonna take a lot longer." She picked it up and rapped it against the table a few times, "It's almost twisted into a solid hunk of junk."
"I am not junk and I ask that you please be more careful."
Quick Fix leapt back in fright, staring at Tiran's arm as if it were a snake, "Shit, it talked!"
"Yeah, I guess I should have warned you about that." Tiran said as he shook his head. It had become fuzzy as his neurological connection with Li was broken and he was trying to clear it.
"Why does it talk?" Quick Fix said, still mystified, "Arms don't talk!"
"I'm not an arm."
"There it goes again!"
Tiran inwardly groaned. He had actually wanted to avoid this, hoping that Li would stay silent. She usually did in such circumstances, but she had been acting somewhat quirky lately. Something computer constructs weren't supposed to do.
"Her name's Li," Tiran began to explain, something he hoped he wouldn't have to keep doing. "She's a near A.I. computer program. Her memory core is in the upper arm, so try to be careful around that area. Oh, and you'll need to hook up a power source to her so she doesn't shut down."
"A.I.?"
"Artificial Intelligence. It mean's she's like a person, but she exists as a computer."
Quick Fix prodded Tiran's prosthetic arm again, "Artificial... but how do you... what the hay?"
"Just try not to think too hard about it. I don't fully understand it myself and she's always in my head." Tiran told her.
"If you say so..."
"So, can you fix it?"
"Huh?" the unicorn mare still seemed to be lost in thought.
"My arm, can you fix it?"
"Oh. Oh, right! yeah, shouldn't be too hard. Might take a little while 'cause my electrical skills are a little rusty, but I don't see a reason why not. Just chill out here, I'll come get you when it's finished." Quick Fix said, lifting Tiran's arm and the tray of loose parts she had extricated from it up with a strange aqua colored luminescence that emanated from her horn and trotting off into the next room.
Tiran leaned back and let out a huff of air. He looked over at his bare shoulder, at the gaping socket of mixed flesh, metal and electrical connections that were left exposed now that his entire arm had been disconnected. Feeling a little self conscious, he grabbed a dirty rag off the table and tied it off around his right shoulder as best he could with his remaining hand.
While he was alone, Tiran considered his situation for the hundredth time. Never in a million years did he ever think that he would have been chosen to test some cutting edge propulsion technology in an advanced military aircraft. Or that he would get in a fire fight with that aircraft. Or that the technology that he was supposed to test would malfunction and send him careening into some kind of weird alternate world where ponies were people.
Actually, he could believe that the new military technology that he was supposed to test malfunctioned and completely screwed him. That's how things usually went, it was normal for that to happened. Quite accidentally, Tiran found himself laughing at the whole fucked up situation.
"What's so funny?" Ruwa walked in with a small tray topped with some snacks and two cups of liquid balanced on her back.
With surprising dexterity, she slid the tray down one of her wings and onto the table, the liquid in the cups only sloshing around minimally.
"Oh, nothing. Just thinking about all..." Tiran waved his hand around in the air, "this."
"Yeah, it's kinda crazy." Ruwa agreed, plopping down on the couch next to Tiran and picking up a cookie from the tray. "We were pretty lucky that Q's here. I imagine that having to keep walking around with that busted up arm would've really sucked."
"Yeah, but also..." Tiran stopped himself, realizing that Ruwa didn't really know about anything else about his situation or how he had gotten here. "Well, yeah, that. Being able to use both arms again is gonna be really nice."
"I bet," said Ruwa through a mouthful of cookie. She picked up another and offered it to Tiran, "Want one?"
"Sure."
Tiran took the cookie and bit into it, albeit, hesitantly. He was expecting some kind of hay-based recipe, but was surprised when it turned out to be just a plain old chocolate chip cookie. He devoured it within seconds.
"Slow down there, champ, you're gonna choke." Ruwa said, sliding one of the cups over to Tiran.
He picked it up and took a sip. Apple juice. Real apple juice. He hadn't had any of that since he was a kid. In two gulps, he drained the cup.
"Wow, you sure finished those off fast," Ruwa said with amusement.
Tiran up-ended the cup to drain the last drops of juice onto his tongue before putting it back on the table with content. "Yeah," he said, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, "it's just I haven't had real juice in a while."
Ruwa looked at him skeptically, "Real juice? I don't think there's any such thing as fake juice."
"Yeah, well... the real stuff is kind of expensive where I come from."
"That is unfortunate."
"You're tellin' me."
"In that case, you can have the rest." Ruwa said, hopping off the couch and yawning. "I think I'm gonna go take a nap while Q works. see you in a bit."
"Alright. I'll be here."
Tiran figured he had at least a few hours to kill, so he gathered up the parts of his suit and some tools that were laying around. He thought it might be a good idea to clean it up and give it a little maintenance while he had the down time. Tiran didn't know much about how everything in it worked, but he was pretty adept at taking things apart and putting them together again.
In almost no time, he had a lot of the suit stripped down to its individual components, carefully arranging each in their own respective groups on the table. Then he got to cleaning them up.
After a couple hours of scrubbing, scraping and lubricating, he began to put them all back together. The parts felt a lot smoother going back together now that they were clean. He assembled the leg and lower torso portions of the suit onto his body, snapping everything cleanly into place.
Tiran stood up and walked around a bit, enjoying the looser feeling he got from the joints. He tested the servos in his leg joints by doing a little jump and was happy when he was nearly propelled into the low ceiling of the shop. Lugging around all his gear wouldn't be such a chore now.
Tiran sat down again and started to re-assemble the gauntlets. He was having a little trouble with some of the smaller parts in one of the fingers when Quick Fix finally walked back in. She was sweaty and her face was smudged with grease, but she looked satisfied, levitating an object wrapped in a clean cloth in front of her.
"It took a little bit of ingenuity and improvisation on my part, but it's finished," she stated triumphantly as she set it down on the table. With a flourish, she grasped the edge of the cloth in her teeth and whipped it away, "Ta-da!"
Tiran looked at his newly repaired arm on the table. The synthetic skin was gone, as well as the sealant that had cocooned it when he and Ruwa had arrived earlier. Instead, his arm was sheathed in a strange dull metal that sparkled a little bit when when light hit it at certain angles.
"Sorry I couldn't save that rubbery stuff that was all over it, but it was pretty shredded." Quick Fix explained. "What I did instead was have my friend, Abby, mold some custom plates out of Wright Steel. Hope you don't mind."
Tiran didn't mind at all. In fact, he liked it. What was once a simple working replica of his right arm now looked as if it belonged on some kind of battle droid. The new armor she had slapped on there looked fluid, intimidating.
"That's actually... really cool," he said.
Quick Fix smiled, "If you think that's cool, try breaking it now!"
Tiran felt a moment of panic as she suddenly produced a large hammer and savagely brought it down on his new arm. Tiran flinched as the hammer struck, bringing his one good hand up to his face as if to protect it against the flying shards of metal he was sure were about to come flying his way.
Instead, all he heard was Quick Fix let out a peal of laughter, even as the peal of the metal faded. "What are you doing? Take a look at it!"
Tiran lowered his hand and leaned in towards the table, not at all optimistic about the condition of his are. Amazingly, nothing had changed. Quick Fix indicated the spot where the hammer had struck and Tiran looked closer. Not even a scratch.
"Holy shit." Was all Tiran managed to say.
"Yup. New and improved. Now let's get that sucker on there and see how she moves."
Tiran anxiously ripped the rag off his shoulder as Quick Fix lifted the shoulder joint towards its socket. Once she popped it in, she began putting all the securing screws back in their place, working as quickly and carefully as she could. Minutes later, she made some final adjustments and stepped back.
There was a spike of pain in Tiran's head as he felt Li's presence return. 'Please do not let her hit me again.' she said to him in a irritable tone.
"Sorry, Li, I didn't know she would," he replied.
"What?" Quick Fix asked from beside him.
"Nothing. It seems Li is a bit angry at you for hitting her."
"Oops. I forgot. Sorry." she said demurely.
"It's fine."
"Now besides that, how's it feel?"
Hesitantly, Tiran tried to lift his arm. It suddenly shot up, nearly ripping it out of the socket again.
"Whoops!" Quick Fix said, scrambling for a set of tools from her bag. "Hold on, let me calibrate it."
The unicorn moved again to his side and took out some fine adjustment tools from a pouch on her side and began tinkering with Tiran's arm. A second later, she stepped back and urged him to go again, "Alright, try it now."
Tiran did as she said and smiled as his arm responded smoothly to his commands. He wiggled his new fingers a few times before clenching his hand into a fist and punching the air a few times.
"Whoa, careful there, tough guy!" Quick Fix giggled.
"I like it!" Tiran exclaimed. "It feels just like new!"
"I thought it would. Now, that'll be a cool three hundred bits."
Tiran paused and stared dumbly at the unicorn standing in front of him. He didn't have that kind of cash. He doubted Ruwa even did.
Slowly, a grin began to creep onto Quick Fix's face, "Ha! Just kidding. Consider this a favor for a friend."
"Oh, thanks." Tiran said, relieved.
"No prob." Quick Fix turned and looked out one of the dust caked windows. "It's getting kinda dark out there. You guys gotta place to stay?"
"Uh, no. Not at the moment."
"You guys can stay here if you like. I'm sure Abby won't mind," she offered. "He rarely leaves his workshop any way, if ever. Actually, I don't think I've ever seen him near the door."
"No, that's ok." Tiran said, getting up and pulling on the rest of his suit. "We're a little behind on our trip and we should probably get going. Ruwa's been sleeping all day any way."
"You sure?"
"Yeah. Thanks for the help."
"Alright then. I'll go get Ruwa." Quick Fix said, a little dejected. "But don't become a stranger, got it?" She said with a little smile. "That arm of yours is pretty interesting and I might tinker with the designs a bit. Come find me later and you might get another upgrade."
"Oh, uh... sure," Tiran forced out, unsure of what he should say.
"Alright." Quick Fix smiled again. "Wait right here, we'll be back in a sec."
Tiran sat by the campfire, twisting and admiring his new limb in the light of the flames. Ruwa was stretched out on the opposite side of the fire, munching on some snack and trying to get in a comfortable position in which to doze off. Once again, the moon was wide and bright, lending some comfort to the usual disquiet of night time in the forest.
Tiran was impressed by the workmanship the odd unicorn had applied to his arm. It was completely functional once again. He picked up a pebble, marveling at his rediscovered dexterity. Tiran gave it a squeeze, enjoying the feeling of the pressure being transmitted through the sensors in his finger tips, up through his arm and into his brain. It really was an outstanding job.
There was a small click. Then a crack. Quite suddenly, the pebble split in two with a puff of dust, the halves projecting themselves from between his thumb and forefinger and into the grass. Tiran stared at the remaining crumbs balancing on the pad of his metallic thumb. His hand needed a little more calibration.
"What was that?" Ruwa asked, sitting up at the sound of the pebble's separation.
"Huh?' Tiran lowered his hand and wiped it in the grass, "Nothing. Just a rock."
"Oh..." she laid back down, this time on her back, gazing up at the stars.
Tiran grabbed his cloak and maneuvered his pack into a good position before laying down. He was pretty tired, having walked almost five miles out of town before it got too dark to continue. The ground felt good to lay on even through his suit.
"Hey, Tiran..."
Tiran sat up a little and saw Ruwa looking at him from across the fire. "Yeah?"
"What're you going to do after we get to Canterlot?"
Tiran let out a breath and lay back down. "I'm not sure. Ask a bunch of questions maybe?"
"Well, yeah, but what about after?"
Tiran thought for a moment. What was he going to do? Trying to get back to his own world came to mind. Though, he didn't have even the slightest idea about how he was going to do that. He wasn't even sure how he had gotten here. Then there was the other problem; could he even get back? How would he even explain where it was he had gone if he did?
These were thoughts Tiran didn't often enjoy. There were too many unknowns, too many things that could go wrong. Much of life was like that for him. He found it was best to just roll with what happened.
Damn, he really wanted a drink right about then.
"I really don't know." Tiran finally answered. "Definitely wanna get back to flying. If I can even fix my aircraft..."
"Hmm, that would be nice," Ruwa agreed, rolling again to her back. "You're a good pilot, right?"
"I guess so. If you don't count me crashing here."
Ruwa giggled, "Yeah, I guess that kinda looks bad, but I don't think that was your fault. Any way... if you can get back to flying, you wanna go fly sometime?"
Tiran thought about it. Flying with a pegasus, what was supposed to be a mythological creature, and wasn't really a creature because she could talk and have complex thoughts and emotions. It was a bit off-putting to Tiran, but he was slowly getting comfortable with it.
"Sure," tiran said, glancing over at her. "If I can get back in the saddle, so to speak, I'll go fly with you."
"Awesome." Ruwa responded with a barely imperceptible whisper.
"I won't go easy on you, though," Tiran continued, "my bird's pretty fast and I like to make her dance."
"Your bird?" Ruwa looked at him with a hint of confusion.
"It's slang. I'm talking about my aircraft." Tiran explained.
"Hm hm, that's weird," Ruwa chuckled.
Tiran yawned and scrunched down against his pack a little, trying to get more comfortable, "Yeah, we pilots are a weird bunch. In fact, not many people like that."
"That's alright. I like weird."
"That right?"
"Mmhmm. Much more fun," Ruwa said, yawning loudly herself.