Combat Android Service Center

You let your work phone ring a few times over the weekend, so you thought you were going to walk into a whole stack of new cases on Monday, but luckily it turns out you've only got one new patient. Heavy Ordnance 5, the blonde one everyone calls "Honey" by her own idiosyncratic preference, had already checked into your office and seated herself on your worktable by the time you walked in with a cup of coffee.

"Hi, sorry it's me again. I think some of the synfibers in my left thigh are faulty, I can't extend it all the way."

She smiles the flawless smile of an android, and demonstrates by slowly and carefully stretching her long leg. You watch carefully, but can't quite see any obvious signs of fault. It might be one of the deeper internals, which are always a pain to get at. Trying to figure out if there might be an underlying issue, you shut the door and sit at your PC to pull up her maintenance records. Wow, has she really been here three times this month already?

Honey smiles at you, swaying her legs as they dangle off the worktable. "I came straight to your workstation because you were such a big help the last few times. I don't have any missions scheduled for this week so it's fine if this takes a while. Plus you might as well give me a full diagnostic while I'm here!"

After a late lunch, you walk back into your office to find something unusual: an unfamiliar face. She's already sitting on your workstation, her blue glowing eyes boring into yours with an expression that's cold and imperious even for a military android.

"You're late. We have work to do."

You study your new patient for a moment. She's tall and statuesque, with long dark hair styled into one of those hime cuts that were fashionable a couple of years ago. A quick glance at the new record on your PC confirms your suspicion: she's an old executive bodyguard, bumped down to "Risk Management" after her old charge left the company or replaced her with a newer model. They always have a tough time adjusting; who wouldn't? But this one seems to be taking it personally, staring down at you seated at your desk like your every movement is intended as an offense.

"You may call me Excella. I am here for a routine diagnostic and 'adjustments necessary for new duties'. And if it isn't plainly obvious, I am grossly overqualified for this position. Don't waste company time by pretending you have anything to offer me."

You grimace as you read through her records. If these specs are correct, she's actually going to need a dozen different hardware and firmware adjustments to go from bodyguarding to combat duty.

You came in late for work, and you're trying to rush through your morning routine as fast as possible. You clock in, you give an excuse to your manager, you chug your coffee so fast you're sure you burned something important. You quickly walk into your office, and you're midway through checking your open calls when you notice the android already sitting on your worktable with her own severed head in her lap.

She looks up at you with a vexed expression. "Yeah, I know."

She's a dark-skinned android with short hair, convenient for just this situation. Melee Weapons 2, "Sam" by her own preference. She's somewhat of a regular guest in the Chop Shop; apparently the programmers thought self-preservation was a superfluous trait in the MW line. She raises her own head up in her palms so her glowing orange eyes can look at you straight-on, and despite the obvious, she grins.

"Had a mission last night, as you might have guessed. Bastards had their own melee bot, gorilla-shaped thing the size of a van. I got in and sliced it right in half. Clean down the middle, like an apple. This right here is nothing in comparison."

You get a message on your work holophone when you're out for a water break. You don't get a lot of intensely urgent cases in your line of work, androids tending to just remain broken when they great, but unusual cases do happen, and this one sends you hurrying back to your workshop.

You open the door to see a blue-haired android sitting placidly on your worktable. One of her hands is clutching the other, pushing it backwards as she attempts to ram a hot soldering iron through her glasses and into her own glowing blue eye.

She looks up at you placidly as you enter. "Hello, Doctor."

It's General Armaments 1, AKA "Pacifica", one of the older ones that still relies on an external HUD system. Her posture is upright but casual, belying the intense struggle between her two arms that has servos squealing so loud you can hear them across the room. Her voice, likewise, is nothing but calm and professional.

"I believe an adversarial actor managed to compromise the systems governing my right arm. I'm afraid I cannot stop it from trying to kill me. I'll leave further diagnosis to you, of course, but I'd personally like to request that you please contact IT and ask them to update our firewall."

You walk into your office with a faint sense of anticipation. You've got a big project scheduled for today, one that's been in the works for a while, and it leaves you with a lot to plan and consider. It would be at the forefront of your mind even if a certain someone hadn't been texting you every day just to remind you.

You walk into your office, where you see a petite android sitting in your office chair, spinning herself with her arms raised triumphantly. Her red eyes look up into you, and she grins a blurry grin as she revolves.

"FINALLY!"

It's Stealth Infiltration 5, "Riot" by her own incongruous preference. She's here, after months of delays, for her requested conversion to a Heavy Ordnance model. It's a tricky, complicated modification process that'll require replacing numerous parts of her chassis and putting her through some tedious retraining. Not that she seems to care.

Riot stops herself spinning with her foot, sending sparks trailing on the metal floor. Her white ponytail flows through the air as she practically flies onto your workbench.

"I am going to kick so much ass! No more vents, no more alleys, no more climbing buildings in the pouring goddamn rain! C'mon, get started, I'm not going to let you put this off any further. First thing you're going to do is rip out this stupid camouflage unit; it never works right and itches every time I use it."

There are a lot of strange rooms in the service center, but probably the strangest is Chassis Aesthetics, AKA "the Face Room". A full wall filled with nothing but skin sections, including a whole rack of faces staring down at you hollowly, waiting to be fitted and customized. On a workbench lies today's subject in nothing but plain white chassis, humming tunelessly to herself with lips that aren't there.

"Anytime you're ready, handsome. I don't have anything specific in mind, just pick something that looks like me."

It's Social Infiltration 3. Technically "Jane" is her casual name, but she barely uses it herself. You only see her every few months, after she's successfully completed a mission and needs to abandon her identity. It's strange to see someone that disinterested in their own face.

Jane looks up at you with featureless visual sensors.

"Seriously, I don't need anything specific. I'm good at my job, I can work with pretty much anything. Plus I'm just infiltrating an advertising company; it's like trying to shoot through tissue paper."

You're catching up on some paperwork, mostly just killing time until the end of the day. You're done with all of your scheduled jobs, and there aren't any missions scheduled for today, so unless somebody slips on a depleted-uranium banana peel you don't have any real work left to do. Which is why you're surprised to hear a knock at the door.

The door cracks, and a dark-skinned face peers in at you. "Heeeey, Doc. Howya doing? Good?"

General Armaments 7, "Lara" by her preference. She slinks into the room, one glowing blue eye gleaming at you through her long straight hair as she gives what she seems to think is a disarming smile. She clasps her hands behind her back, swaying nervously from side to side as she starts to circle the reason for her visit.

"Sooo, I was wondering. You put us through maintenance to make sure we don't break down or anything, right? Can you do, like, the opposite? Just a little bit, so my leg busts open or something? 'Cause I've got a mission scheduled for next week, and it's kinda on the launch day of this game I want to play..."

You click the buckle of the helmet under your chin, and fasten the restraints on your chair. You always have to make sure of that- last time you left a restraint loose during a VR-dive, you woke up flopping on the floor midway through.

Melee Weapons 4, "Penelope", lies inert on the workbench with a thick cable plugged into her spine, most of her own bodily functions disabled for safety. She flicks her orange eyes over to you.

"Ready when you are."

Penelope is a quiet, unassuming sort. She wears her hair in a bun and spends her free time alone. You've never had good reason to get to know her, but that's about to change fast, because she got a glimpse of the security codes for a rival company while on a mission, and corporate wants you to dive into her head and get that image. Penelope, for her part, seems to be taking the idea in stride.

"Just don't go wandering around in there, all right? I understand if you see some things you didn't mean to, but we're all professionals here. So let's not dwell on it too much."