compnetwork | 6th Screw [Action/Video]

[Action - Ichiban Market, Virgo District]

[It's been a few days since the market from home appeared in Hinoto-Ri, and Nano's taking full advantage of the convenience and familiarity of the location. She spends a good few hours shopping around for various ingredients and household necessities, filling up her shopping bags with soy sauce, daikon radish, leeks, miso, rice, and all sorts of other ingredients common to traditional Japanese meals. Feeling very at ease here in a place that's almost second nature to her, she hums cheerily to herself while she's collecting everything.

Unfortunately, after she's paid for everything and is carrying everything out in a large brown paper bag, her nice casual shopping trip takes a turn for the worse. Right after emerging from the store, and completely without warning, Nano's left arm falls completely limp. She lets out a surprised yell as the grocery bag goes tumbling from her arms, its contents spilling out all over the sidewalk. Immediately recognizing something as deeply wrong, Nano glances around quickly and starts to scramble to pick everything up with her one good arm.]

[Video]

[Eventually Nano makes it home, and after no small amount of privately worrying and panicking, she turns on the COMP to reach out for some help. It's not help she particularly wants to ask for, but she has no idea what's wrong or how to fix it on her own. She's doing her best to hide the fact that one arm is completely out of commission, aiming the shot at her face only.]

U-um... I hate to impose, but is there anyone out there who knows a lot about fixing things? My, um...

[She glances around the room briefly before returning her gaze to the camera.]

My television is broken!

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...All right.

[Nano slowly leans down to remove one of her socks, folding it up and placing it on the table next to her before leaning back down. Taking her big toe between her fingers, she wiggles it back and forth a bit before it comes off with a click to reveal a USB port.]

Of course. That isn't an issue.

[It's not like he has to work at it.

Instead, he just pulls that floating plate out of the back of his armor.

It's time to attach bags to that.]

[Forgetting about her bad arm for a moment, Nano just stares in amazement.]

That's amazing...! What is it?

A shield drone. Though, in this instance, it has more usage than just projecting a shield.

I can be there in an hour. Sound good?

Ruri rummages around in her bag and pulls out a USB connection cord and hooks it to her laptop, booting up a simple mecha diagnostic program.

"Please plug that in."

[It takes a little bit but the two reach the Pisces complex without any hitches and filed away into Nano's apartment. After setting the food down on the counter, it was time to get to the bottom of this situation.]

Nano-chan...are you alright with telling me what happened back there?

It seems very convenient.

Mm-hmm. Thank you.

A-all right.

[With a nod, she sets her toe aside before taking the cord and plugging it into the port. She's not used to this sort of thing, so she looks a little nervous.]

I... I don't know if I can.

[She can barely even look Yukiko in the eye right now. She's done so much for her, and helped her so much, and here she is still keeping secrets. It's almost enough to make her want to cry all over again.]

You might not want to be my friend anymore if you knew.

It's very convenient when there is no cover in a firefight.

Try me. I'm not going anywhere.

[Nano, you're not a death goddess are you?]

O-okay...

[Well, the best way to soften the blow of finding out her friend is a robot is with cake. Everyone likes cake. But she's going to need a bit of help with this one. Nano holds out her good arm in front of Yukiko.]

Normally I could do this myself, but... brace my upper arm and then push down at my elbow. I promise you won't hurt me.

[A strange request, to be sure. What do, Yukiko.]

And also for carrying things, apparently.

[That's...a strange request.

But Yukiko nods and follows Nano's instructions. What does this accomplish?]

[Nano closes her eyes so she doesn't have to watch Yukiko's reaction, but her forearm makes a clicking noise and folds down to reveal a fresh rollcake inside - see icon for helpful illustration!]

If you insist. Let me walk you home with your things, at least.

[Holy-

Wait what?

WHAT?

IS THAT A CAKE THAT POPPED OUT OF NANO'S ARM??]

Nano...chan?

Ruri nods and looks at her trying to sound reassuring, but probably failing due to the deadpan.

"I'm going to see if I can access your diagnostics systems now. I just want to warn you in case you feel odd in any way."

...All right.

[There's a moment's hesitation there, but she can't deny kindness like that.]

Thank you.

It's weird, isn't it? That I have something like this?

[Her eyes are open now, but cast down toward the floor.]

What kind of normal person does things like this?

[And next, have a cuckoo clock springing out of her forehead.]

See? I'm full of stupid things like this! Because... because I'm not...

[Oh god, she's going to hate her. She can't even finish the sentence.]

[Just a nod over here. Too nervous for much else.]

Ruri will then begin trying to access Nano's systems, trying to see what language she's programed in, if the neural net is a downloaded copy of a person's, and generally try to gauge just what sort of system she's looking at.

"I'm going to guess by your reaction that your creator didn't do much check up work?"

She always did it while I was asleep... I didn't even think of it when I came here, but I haven't had any regular maintenance at all.

[And now she's looking a little ashamed. The problem, incidentally, appears to be a bad connection in her upper arm, causing everything distal to that point to stop responding as well.

As far as Nano's personality, it appears to have been programmed in from the ground up. Her physical workings appear to be similar to a sophisticated engine - movements run primarily on clockwork gears, but centrally controlled by her computerized brain.]

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6th Screw [Action/Video] - Backdated to the 9th

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