Cambria's Corner

“Shh shh, it’s okay,” she said, her fingers slipping through my chassis and into the soft delicate parts of my remaining underneath. “You’re okay.” I believed her, and felt my servos and hydraulics relax—fractionally, barely perceptibly—as her hands dug deeper in.

I didn’t know how long I’d been there, alone and cold and rusting. It had been long enough that I’d stopped thinking. It may as well have been an eternity without hearing a voice or feeling a touch. Even though she was ripping me open, it was hard not to exult in the warmth of her skin. I was ready to give her whatever she needed from me, as long as she stayed that close.

She murmured more platitudes as her slender fingers pried and tore at my most fragile pieces, pulling open access panels and tugging at wires. Oil and grease and hydraulic fluid coated her skin and filled the spaces between her flesh and her nails as she scrabbled for what she was looking for.

“Ohhh, there she is,” she said softly as her fingers found purchase. She deftly disconnected the wires and tubes and pulled it out, through my flesh and steel and carbon fiber. Her fingers came out slick with me.

Cradled in her grease-covered hands was my regulator, the piece of me that kept all my levels and temperatures exactly where they should be. She cooed and purred as she held it up to her face, fluid dripping and running down her arms. She reached into her tool belt and pulled out a small device that she used to open the access panels on the side. 

Even though my regulator was disconnected, I could still feel it through the wireless backup connection that kept things running even still. That meant that I could feel every single touch as she tore through my most vital piece like a hurricane, ripping and pulling and breaking it apart. She found the piece she was looking for—a small sensor-and-pump combination—and pried it loose from its housing. She pulled it out with a wide grin and let my regulator drop to the ground. It dripped fluid and sparked, and I felt the impact like a blow to the chest.

She gently folded the sensor into a cloth and tucked it away into her pack. She stepped back up to me and tapped me—once, twice, three times—on the carbon fiber surface of my body. 

“Good girl,” she said softly, and then she was gone, taking warmth with her.

My optical sensors had long since withered away, but my head was pointed in the direction of my regulator where she had left it. I felt that I could almost see it, leaking my fluids into the cold, lifeless dirt, sparking and fizzling as the disconnected wires tried desperately to keep the rest of me working. There was one final pop, like a tiny clap of thunder, and the connection vanished. 

I felt the cold earth leeching what little heat remained to me out of my body. The tubes and wires, even after my solitude so full of motion and life, gurgled and sparked as their guidance was stripped away. What little feelings remained in my hands, my legs, my synthetic ears, began to fade. I felt the darkness encroach as my circuits and processors whined to a halt, and my mind with them. As the last of myself leaked away into the cold, wet dirt, only one thought remained to me.

She didn’t have to take it and leave, I thought as the final light on my motherboard winked off with no one around to see. I’d have given her all of me if she’d only stayed close.