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 recurring feature 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 break, 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."