FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 3 - Some Assembly Required

A new series continues. Set in a far off future where humans are just one of a hundred species with mixed earth animal DNA, the anthro-furry faces have populated a small section of our galaxy, filling it with life of all kinds, AI's and androids and cybernetic beings as numerous as the organics that created them. But space is harsh, and empires rise and fall. But for every long lost fallen empire are the scavengers and salvagers eager to find and sell some gem from a forgotten civilization. This is the story of one such salvager, and of his greatest find yet. Will she be the the priceless artifact he has been seeking to make him rich, or something more?

Series will contain stories of an adult nature, including BDSM, Master/slave, kidnapping, violence, consensual and non-consensual acts. Some chapters will be light, others dark, others... read and find out.

(Thanks to all my long time and new readers.

Don't forget to Fav the chapter you like it!

It's a big help and means a lot to me. Thanks!)

EXCERPT FROM GALACTIC DATABASE:

LEVELS OF MATTER MANIPULATION

Ring-1: Ability to re-shape matter. Example: Crude shaping through physical force such as flint arrowheads or steam engines. Ring-2: Matter manipulation through chemistry. Example: Drug synthesis and material sciences. Ring-3: Atomic level manipulation. Example: Fusion/fission. Nanotech. Matter replicators. Ring-4: Quark level manipulation. Example: Creation of non-baryonic matter and exotic matter. Ring-5: Sub-quark manipulation. Example: Godlike intelligences. Ancient construction machines.

END DATABASE ENTRY

Coell watched the green anthro dragon moving about the cave, eyes tracking him, all her working sensors on the stranger that had reactivated her and freed her from her mental cage. She still wasn't comfortable when he moved out of her sight, unable to see behind her due to having no neck to swing her head about and no body to turn her. Diagnostic routines ran continuously through her mind, focusing her attention on the status reports. Physically, her Quantum-Tunneling Crystalline Cyberbrain was in perfect condition, which was no surprised. Her brain was constructed of Ring-4 matter, protected by her impenetrable skull of Strong Interaction Matter, rendering her core systems practically invulnerable. The mechanical and electronic systems of her head was another matter, those showed some wear and tear from an unknown cause and the degradation of lubricating fluids and other expendables. Nothing she couldn't fix with a fresh supply of solvents and maintenance flushes, or with replacement re-grown electro-muscle bundles.

Her eyes snapped to the other side as she sensed movement, relaxing as Argos moved back into her line of sight. Her diagnostic routines still running, she glanced at her emotional state curiously, noting with some surprise her anxiety had increased at his disappearance and then reduced when he returned, but not her fear. She wasn't worried what he was doing back there, well, perhaps a little, but seemed to mostly just like watching him. Knowing she wasn't alone. Knowing she had help. She licked her lips, tasting whatever oils he had used to get her head systems working, finding it odd and wanting her own internal chemical factory's carefully calibrated lubricants and chemical energy mixes instead, "Ahh... can I help powering my body back up? I'm not dangerous, see?"

Argos looked over and smiles as the reprogramming and debugging unit connected by thick glowing wires to the AnDragon's horn-ports showed the results of an internal diagnostic run on her hard-wired safety restrictions. Code scrolled and data structures were highlighted as the reprogrammer ran it's own checks, making the AnDragons eyes flutter before it confirmed her own diagnosis. "I'm not sure I entirely trust that after what you have been put through. That crazy Framework code you had really did a number on your frontal cortex, it still looks a bit weird to me."

Coell frowned as she examined her internal state for the thousandth time. "There is nothing at all WEIRD about my programming, Argos" she said with a huff. "At least, I don't think there is."

"You wouldn't. Your engram storage is too fragmented to remember what a normal AnDragon brain should look like, but trust me, it's a little off. But don't worry, you guys are extremely durable and it's looking better even after only a few hours. I'm sure you will be back to normal quickly, especially once you are running at full power. Your torso fusion engine is still only generating emergency power."

The AnDragon's head tried to squirm as she thought about running at full power again, access to all her bodies systems. She imagined she felt like an organic that was deprived of air, her brain running at a low speed and capacity. Even running diagnostics made her feel light headed and she had to stop if she wanted to think clearly. "Can't you power my torso up fully? I can tell you how to disengage the emergency safeties, or you could run a data shunt from my neck to torso spinal connector and I could do it.

Argos shook his head, "The patch cables I have here aren't rated for that kind of load, I'll need to attach your head directly before you can run at full capacity."

"Do you have anything that can provide more HardLight particle stream power? I could form a set of legs and at least move my head about and help you work" She gave a wide and hopeful smile as her HardLight emitters fired up in pure-light produced a ghostly insubstantial image of a set of spindly legs sprouting and making crawling motions with them, then frowned again at his expression and flicked the hologram demonstration off.

Argos pictures a spider-like set of legs sprouting from a disembodied head and gave a little shudder, looking about at the dark, dim cave. "Yeah... thanks but no. In your current state that might be too much for even you to handle without breaking something. Plus it's creepy." He crouched down behind her torso, access panels along the back open as he made adjustments and hooked up further control and diagnostic cables.

Coell nodded, or tried to and filed that bit of information away, feeling it 'click' into her memory like a particular shape filling a well-fitted hole. A lot of things she was learning were like that, filling in gaps in her memory that joined fragmented and isolated bits of information, or re-writing new knowledge into sections of her memory store that seemed to have contained that shape before. Organics didn't like things with lots of long, spindly legs apparently, even just harmless light projections. That fit into her memory neatly, like it belonged, like it was something she knew. Organics were weird.

"You won't have too much longer to wait, I'm just about ready. I'll need your head's control systems to fully power up your body, I just have to hook it all up" he said as he stood again, walking behind Coells head and back around to look down at her from the side. "Anything you need to configure for the reattachment before you power down?"

The de-saturated color panels flared into an alarming red as her eyes looked up and went wide with quick, immediate fear. "P...power down?" she said, stuttering as her mind tried to draw more power than was available, emergency systems tryign to activate as she raised internal alarms from her mental state.

A soft touch of green fingers stroked the AnDragon's nose, "Hey, relax... it's just temporary. Your kind goes into sleep mode all the time, it's like taking a nap."

"N..no... please.. please don't disconnect me" she whimpered back, remembering shadowy memories of another anthro looming over her, putting her to sleep, waking up with... something wrong in her head. Something bad. Something that just made her want to KILL and DESTROY and ATTACK. Waking up with a hole in her head. Jagged edges torn out while she was offline. Her reason for being gone. Pain. "Nnghh... no..."

Argos crouched down, looking Coell's eyes, leveling his smaller head with her heavy, metallic one. He reached around and pressed his nose to hers, holding her. "It's ok, I won't hurt you, I promise... ok? I can't keep you like this for long, and I can't connect you while your operations. You know that. Trust me?"

Coell let out another whimper as she fought down the memory. Why did she have to forget all the good things but remember THAT? She calmed a the nuzzle, and tried to lean into the hug, but of course she couldn't. "Promise?" she asked.

"Promise."

"You... you're going to turn me back on?"

"Of course. I'm going to fix you all up and find you a good home, promise."

Coell blinked back tears, the non-standard fluids running down her cheeks, then took a shuddering breath, her mouth making the motions, her backup vocal synthesizers making the intake sound. It felt so wrong it made her shudder. She wanted her body back. Biting her lip she lowered her eyes, "Ahh...ok."

"That's a good girl... I'll be as quick as I can, I promise."

The AnDragon closed her eyes, relaxing, just a little at the calm voice that seemed so sure of himself. She ran pre-shutdown subroutines, feeling her mind slowing, relaxing, drifting. A thousand checks and conformations flickered through her mind as she instructed her framework to power down her brain. All but the last one. Hesitating. She couldn't do it. Memories of that other time, no, two other times where BAD things happened after she shut down froze her, panic threatening to well up again.

"Argos..." she said in a near inaudible whisper.

"I'm here."

"Can... you do it? I... I can't. I'm afraid."

"Sure. Relax... sleep."

Coell heard familiar tapping, beeping conformation, and that final switch flicked and she sank into a deep slumber, her thoughts settling down into standby mode. Then one by one gently terminating as her Framework shut down sections of her brain in an orderly fashion, the glow from her open skull hatch dimming, and finally going out.

...

Like lights flickering on from row to row in a large warehouse, Coell's mind came back a bit at a time. Working like a zombie at first, unaware of herself, bootstraping her thoughts and mental processes, checking her mind for damage, malfunctions, moving quicker and with more drive as more and more of her was powered up.

** PRIMARY COGNITIVE FUNCTIONS ONLINE POWER SYSTEMS STABLE AT 80% MAIN SPINAL DATA TRUNK SECURE WARNING: DEBUGGING CONNECTION DETECTED**

Coell floated in darkness, waking up to full awareness in an instant. Her thoughts flicked to her internal chronometer. 4.238716 hours elapsed since shutdown. She released a tension she wasn't even aware she was holding. Not years, or even longer. Just a few hours. It took 2.8 seconds to prepare her mind for full sensory awareness, and then she instructed her Framework to connect her to the outside world.

Light.

Sound.

Sensation.

Pain.

She winced as she was assaulted by a million digital nerves all screaming at her. Cramps in long unused electro-muscle. Tears in her hide. Blocked fluid conduits. Stomach pains. More warning signals flooded in from her body.

** ELECTRO-MUSCLE ENERGY TRANSPORT FLUID OUT OF SPEC MECHANICAL JOINT LUBRICATION FLUID OUT OF SPEC ADULT SYSTEMS LUBRICATING FLUID OUT OF SPEC UNKNOWN FORMATTED MATTER REFORMATTING CONTENTS WATER RESERVOIR LOW**

Coell winced as she sent requests to her Framework to tone down the pain signals, grateful as it adjusted from emergency-reflex-pain to a more manageable informational-damage-pain. She corrected the immediate problems almost without thinking, beginning internal maintenance routines, starting the self-checks of her internal organic matter processor. Only then did she take a shuddering breath, a REAL shuddering breath, feeling oxygen flowing into her lungs, fuel for the matter processor that would replace and refresh all the required fluids in her system, providing raw materials for the systems with built-in self repair capabilities. She scanned the rest of her torso, happy to see all her major components were operational, and there was a great deal packed within her compact frame.

She had a body. Argos had turned her back on. Like promised. Her eyes opened to see him staring down at her, and she smiled back up at him, the view of his looking over her as she woke becoming a familiar site. Three times now. She looked around for her owner and cried out, that jagged hole in her mind hurting her as she accidentally probed it once more, putting up walls around the damaged areas but unable to completely ignore the ache, so many of her thought processes connected there.

"Is everything ok.. can you hear me, Coell?"

"Ahh.. yes.. just... some leftover damage, and my body isn't in great shape. I need water, please?" she asked. Even her sealed systems must not be perfect, there were extensive evaporative losses due to her not having been sealed up properly. She analyzed the mess that was in her main matter reformatter tank and decided against purging it, she would need the material. Her guts protested as she began the process of starting up the chemical factory in her belly, recycling systems starting up to begin producing essential fluids and properly formatted molecular compounds.

"Here, I only have a little, I wasn't expecting to find anything so, disassembled" said the dragon, offering her a canteen, placing it against her lips. "Is everything hooked up correctly? Any faults? It took a little longer than I had expected to attach everything manually. Full head disconnects aren't done often."

Coell nodded an affirmative to the dragon, then tilted her head to properly catch the water pouring in. It felt so GOOD to be able to move her head, and swallow. Her eyes closed as she gulped down the cool water, the hunger and thirst may be simulated, but they felt very real to her, as did the relief. It wasn't much, she would need a lot more, but it was enough to work with and begin recycling and synthesizing what was needed. Fresh lubricants and muscle power transport fluids were her first priority.

Disassembled. That word continued to echo in her mind.

She turned her head to look at her limbless, disconnected body, her head jerking to a stop as she used up the slack of the programming cables connected to her horns data-ports. Her own internal system reflexes stopped her from accidentally pulling them out. She knew she could override them and give her head a yank, but her Framework would kick in at that point, and even if it didn't she could feel the debugging systems monitoring her, and they would certainly take control if she tried. More carefully she tilted her head to look at herself. Her neck skin wasn't sealed to her body, cables were snaked in for diagnostics and for some kind of emergency bypass shunt for her motor functions. A sensible precaution, given her potentially unknown condition on restarting. She arched her back a bit, her body moving, twisting her hips, checking out her mobility, such that it was. Her limbs ended in stumps, sockets open for connecting bones and joints, data lines, HardLight Particle conduits, muscles and circulatory systems. All her limb sockets seemed in good condition, looking recently cleaned and prepared.

Her skin was mostly intact except for a shallow gash along her belly. her outer covering was made of several layers, just like real hide, each of which had a very basic self-healing capacity. Some layers, such as the subcutaneous synth-fat just needed pressed back together to seal, like pressing two balls of clay together. Other layers were more complex, such as the outer skin which contained sensory receptors and on some areas her color changing emitters. Sealing fluid, much like blood had 'healed' the gash but it would take a DragonHide Repair Printer to erase the scar and bring her back to factory condition. She wondered what had caused the damage, but her memory held no answers.

"How about I give you a hand? Ah, sorry, old repair joke" said Argos as he wheeled over one of Coell's forelegs on a small cart.

Coell giggled, not because the joke was funny, it wasn't, but because of Argos's clumsy, but earnest delivery. "Ahh... just make sure you put it in the right socket" she replied, watching with eager anticipation. Not having any limbs was like being paralyzed, she wanted to be able to move and not feel so helpless.

Argos laughed back, and with a grunt hefted the leg, crouching down to set it alongside the dragoness. "All right, I can see you've been producing new synthetics, so flush out this socket for me?"

Coell glanced behind her at the debugging monitor, blushing at how much of her mind was on display, her horn data-ports connecting the device directly to her brain, even bypassing her Framework to access her various sub-systems directly. She nodded with an "Uhu" and instructed her right front leg socket to open the microports as she pumped a portion of her newly synthesized reserves. Dark orange fluids mixed with splotches of black oozed out, soon replaced by a healthier glowing yellow.

"Ah, good.. looks like only a small amount of oxidation. Everything on you types was really made to last, even the consumables" he said, taking a cloth and wiping off the old, spoiled gunk and leaving a shiny yellow, the individual muscle sections neatly outlined with blue data fibers mixed in with the synthetic muscle. "Ok, hold still." He shifted the robotic arm closer, lifting it up and fitting the bone into the socket, then angling it so he could side it in, shifting his grip to give the entire limb a quarter turn until it made a satisfying click.

Coell froze as she monitored the limb hookup sequence. The data connection was first, the power surged into the limb, making it twitch. Diagnostics ran at light speed, showing everything was operational, no faults. Her muscles twitched and shifted, both ends pressing to each other as a fine array of micro-machines attached the two ends of each muscle, forming a single unbroken length of electro-active synthetic muscle fiber. It only took a few seconds for the process to complete and she slowly lifted her arm, working the wrist and fingers, wincing a bit as she worked out centuries of disuse and stiffness.

"May I power up my HardLight systems... nnnrgh!" started the AnDragon as she almost called Argos by her owners name. Name. Their names? How could she forget their names. Her head pounded, having slammed into that hole in her head again. "Owwww...."

Argos was on his feet, leaning over to the diagnostic units and watching worriedly at red lights and alarms. "Coell..."

Coell gritted her teeth, head slowly drooping. "Nnnngh"

Argos could see the problem. One of her subsections, the imprinting module was malfunctioning. It had been erased, but badly and quickly done, likely a rush job when she had been militarized. Their minds were wired deeply to that tiny pea sided bit of crystal and code that contained their owners imprint. He could see the damage it was doing her as the wound in her mind grew, swearing at the diagnostic systems inability to contain the damage. "Hang on..." he said softly as he tapped in additional commands, tapping a button as he lifted her chin to look her in the eyes. "Look at me, NOW!"

Coell felt her attention grabbed by an firm hand, commands flowing into her data-ports and overriding her very mind, forcing her attention to the dragon in front of her. "Argos!" she gasped, feeling like she had been holding something hot and burning, confused as to what it was, only knowing that it hurt her. Something in her... her... her... her eyes refocused on the dragon again, remembering the hole and shying away from it.

Argos relaxed and ended the override, returning control of the dragonesses attention back to her. "Stay with me, don't think about.. whatever triggered that, ok?"

Coell gave a shaky nod, then looked down and slowly unclenched her paw. "I... damaged. I'm damaged. Can you fix it?"

Argos turned back to the debugger and frowned, tapping and pulling up data and graphs. "They, erased something important in you."

Coell shook her head only slightly, "Nggh... no. Tore it out."

"Yeah.. that's not a bad description. I tried to fix it when I was bringing you back online, but you're a custom model. All the reset and blank imprinting firmware I have doesn't quite fit your model, you have a more extensive imprint node I've not seen before. I was hoping I could just rest it like your personality parameters but it's not meant to be wiped or erased, it needs a default imprint to function, and I don't have that. It's degrading too, you've been online long enough to start plotting the rate, and it's not looking good for the long term."

"Ahh.. I could feel it getting worse, harder to ignore, like a black hole, trying to suck me in, but I'm ok now, I know what thoughts to avoid. Please... finish reassembling me?"

Argos looked over the displays again, scratching his chin. "Well, I suspect it will be a few weeks before it gets bad enough to become a serious problem, but really it's not a common problem and I can't be sure. But I need you walking to get you out of here anyway, so lets finish with those legs."

Coell watched as the dragon crouched down again, his hands working at the seam of her newly attached leg. He was pressing the two edges of her synthetic dragonhide together, the micro-machines along the edges working like tiny zippers to secure and seal as he worked around the edge. They were capable of self-sealing but needed something to push them into contact first. She watched in satisfaction as the two edges were pressed together, then pulled tight, then formed just a thin line which gradually faded as the water and air tight seal was formed. She sighed in pleasure. She knew she was artificial, but she didn't like looking at exposed parts. It was what anthros must feel when they were without clothes. She wriggled her other front arm? "This one next?"

Argos smiled, glad to see the AnDragon recovering from her minor malfunction. He could tell she was in some discomfort, but he didn't have a lot of choices, either shut her down and try and drag her out or get her out under her own power. She was as capable of making her own decisions as he was, so he was happy to put her back together. Besides, he thought as he brought the other leg over. He liked putting AnDragons together. It was a pleasure to see them turning from a pile of parts into a thinking, reasoning being. Plus, he was very much looking forward to seeing her hindlegs attached. Whoever designed her must have been an artist.

Coell was able to help this time, holding her other limb up as she lay on her side, helping guide it into place and enjoying that CLICK and flood of data, even if some was pain while she worked out her new limb. She wriggled all her front fingers with pleasure, running diagnostics on her HardLight emitters and letting them take a charge slowly to make sure she didn't damage them as they warmed up. "Legs legs legs!" she said, almost begging as she wriggled her hind stumps excitedly.

"Yes, yes, I'm looking forward to those too, they're heavy, so hang on."

Now that she had arms, she was able to carefully pull the cart with the debugging and reprogramming equipment closer, allowing her to stretch her long neck and get a closer look over herself. Her mind still tingled with the aftereffects of touching the... memory and the commands that had been used to pull her from that damaged section. She was beginning to get a feel for those commands, some had a distinct taste, one that reminder her of Argos. Custom routines and code he wrote, different from standard diagnostics and routines from her Creators. Clunkier, less elegant, but more direct, much like the programmer who wrote them. They left a distinct afterimage in her circuits, feeling much like the data probes she had clung to while she had been locked inside her own head.

Then she wriggles into position, extending the leg closet to the floor into position so Argos could slide it into place, feeling relief as her stub was cleaned, fresh lubricants and fluid transport liquids flushing out the stale, broken down gunk that had plugged up her ports. She instructed her chemical factories to add some detergents and cleaning agents to her systems to help clean any remaining clogs and blockages.

** LEFT HINDLEG CONNECTION ESTABLISHED MODEL NUMBER SLEEK-DOMESTIC-CUSTOM-7D-9981 IDENTIFIED SERIAL NUMBER 867HB-NHR5-WMNXG54-OJMRBW-2NUH54-I94TMNG LIMB PRE-REGISTERED TO UNIT DRG-FEM-0017 INVERSE KINEMATIC SKELETAL STRUCTURE UPDATED INTERNAL POSE/ANIMATION STORE CORRUPTED DOWNLOADING CUSTOM MOVEMENT SETS INSTALLED MUSCLE ATTACHMENT CONFIRMED INTERNAL SIM COMPONENTS CONNECTED BACKUP SERVOS ENGAGED**

Coell sighed and squirmed at the sensations of her lower leg clicking into place, only two limbs left. She watched as Argos began pinching the seams of her synthetic hide together, working his way around the leg, moving expertly over her inner thigh. His knuckles brushed against her crotch as she worked and she let out a "Nrrrrrrgh" as tingles of pleasure shot up her spine. She would have coiled her tail if it was attached, and she felt her toes curling. S..sensitive! She closed her eyes and let out a long shiver before calming. Well, at least now she knew what THAT profile entry had been set to, maximum! Huff. She fought to keep her emotional-sensitive hide from turning a bright pink, keeping it down to a deep red.

"Everything ok?" asked Argos as he continued to work around her leg.

"Yesss..." she said and felt her face heat up, her emotional centers giving her the sensation of a blush, and losing the battle with her reactive coloring as it turned a shade of pink. She looked up at the dragon to see him grinning and her flush deepened.

"Looks like we will need to do some calibrations when we get back to my ship" he said as he rose and began to wheel over the last of her four legs. "Help me with this?"

"Ok..." she said, not sure what exactly she was agreeing to as she took the fourth and final leg in a single forepaw and helped him fit it into place. She could calibrate all of her systems by herself, although help from a maintenance worker was always appreciated, and while this dragon was some kind of salvage operator, she wouldn't mind his help. She flushed a bit more.

Argos stood up and smiled as he looked at the dragoness flexing all her paws and testing out her legs. "Want to try and stand up? Careful of the data cables now, and let me close your cranial access port up, we don't want you to crack your brain if you fall."

With a snort Coell said, "It's harder than diamond, it would take more than rock or concrete to damage it." She took no time in closing it however, feeling better with her head safely enclosed once again. Her mind flickered over the security codes that would lock it in place, seeing a new entry.

N-DIMENSIONAL MULTI-PHASE TRINARY PUBLIC KEY: PoQeY4ydIAQZAQoABgUCW0lLhwAKCRDyC...

She looked over at Argos, he must have installed a new key to unlock her cranial armor hatch. She could easily remove it, her systems had full root access to her body of course, and she gave a query to the key properties.

_ ACCESS DENIED _

Or not, she thought, wondering how he had done that. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. If she had another malfunction he would need to be able to access her control systems again, and if she was unconscious or offline she wouldn't be able to open it for him. Besides, he opened it once already, and with his equipment attached to her data-ports giving him a direct line to her brain, he could force it open that way too. He hadn't hurt her so far, and she trusted he wouldn't suddenly turn evil. She filed it away to ask about later, right now, she wanted up!

"You ready?" asked Argos, watching her closely.

Coell nodded eagerly as she carefully rolled herself onto her feet and pushed herself up, stiff muscles protesting as they warmed up after long years of disuse. She shoved endless streams of data and out of spec sensor warnings to the back of her mind, a sup processor dealing with the millions of minor errors, correcting what she could, cataloging the rest to form a maintenance plan for later. Right now, she wanted to stand!

Argos stood near, but not too close. If she fell over she could break his foot! He watched her with two minds, his salvager side happy to see her functional, no broken systems that she could see, electro-muscles obviously needing some exercise and stretching to work the lubricants and power transfer fluids back into place. His other side admiring her sleek curves, watching the muscles in her haunches and hindlegs bunching and tensing as she began to push herself upright. They weren't real muscles, she wasn't a real dragon, but what did it matter. To be honest, he rather preferred the sculpted look of the AnDragon over a real dragoness. Organics could be messy and weird, a machine, even as lifelike as this one, wasn't weird at all. She was perfect.

Her libms protested, occasional muscle spasms causing her to engage her backup internal joint motors, normally only used when extreme force was needed or her electro-muscle systems were damaged. With a grunt she lifted herself up to her feet, wobbling for a few moments, and then suddenly rock steady as her internal systems adjusted to the disused limbs, feedback algorithms quickly learning their new quirks and adjusting to them as if they were brand new. Graphs and charts flowed across her consciousness, exercise routines, stretches, workouts to bring them back into line. No permanent damage she was happy to see, a few patches and muscle strands needed replacing, easy enough to do. Her head swung carefully around and she smiled widely, "Oh, thank you! I feel so much better." Her butt wriggled as she tried to wag her tail, but of course it was just a stump, slowly leaking fluids. "Tail! Tail please!" She nearly pranced in place, one foot at a time lifting and settling down, wanting to run but tethered to the diagnostics.

"Why don't we bring you to it, I don't feel like lifting it" said Argos as he began to pull the wide cart that held his debugging and diagnostic equipment, looking over the displays as he pushed the cart along.

"You're looking into my mind" she said, suddenly shy again as she followed him, walking carefully along the floor, helpfully pushing any rocks out of the way of the cart with a quick swipe of a forepaw. Walking felt off without a tail, off balance, like she was going to topple forward. Even her re-calibration of her internal balance routines couldn't quite make it all go away, she was simply hardwired to have all her limbs.

"Yes I am. How does that make you feel?" Argos watched the dragoness, and the readouts. He could gather a lot of information from the data streaming out of her head, and with the right routines activated could probe her deep thoughts and internal functioning, but that would be invasive, causing her to stutter and freeze up as her systems were paused and data dumps taken. Not a polite thing to do to an AI. He did need to keep an eye on her damaged imprinting core, but he honestly just enjoyed watching. Seeing the complex patterns and code, even if he couldn't understand the details at a glance he could *feel* the shape of her mind. Like watching a face. A flicker of an eye, a twitch of a lip, the set of a jaw. These all told volumes of what was going on behind them. The code, it talked to him more than faces did. He could of course pull up details, but he didn't really need to. The overview was more than enough for now. One window in the corner of the display caught his attention, seeing a familiar shape, his face. The window was showing a small representation of Coell's vision overlayed with graphics and targeting grids, monitoring eye-tracking and perception processes deeper in her brain.

Coell gave a slight blush again as she was caught looking up at Argos, seeing his eyes flick to the display and widen a bit, then a hint of a smile. His smile seemed to freeze in place, her walk slowing to a crawl as the feeling of being caught doing something wrong caused her anxiety to spike, her Framework kicking her mind into overclock mode meant to give her time to process and react to any dangers to herself or her owners. Time slowed down even further as that thought touched the raw wound where her owners were, and then came back in a rush like she hit a wall, stumbling, catching herself and wincing. "Ow..."

"Hey... you ok?" said a worried Argos, torn between wanting to hug the dragoness and stay at the console to monitor and fix her. "I saw a surge of malfunctions there again."

"Y.yeah. I caught it this time. I'm ok" she said as her foot hit a long, curled up object, looking down at her own tail suddenly in front of her, unaware she had reached it. She rotated her body, keeping her head close to the debugger as she walked in a circle to crouch down, sitting on one leg, angling her rear to get her tail stump close to the matching end of the tail.

"Hmmm, keep an eye on that. Let me know if it happens again. Give your tail port a quick flush." He crouched down behind the dragoness, a cloth in hand to wipe away the old lubricants until the surface was a clean, gleaming yellow. He then lifted the tail, grunting at the weight and lifted it into place, feeling the spinal connector socket into place. A strong paw grabbed the tail and twisted into place with a loud series of clicks.

"Ooooh... yes... so much better!" she exclaimed, feeling her tail powering up and coming back to life, ignoring all the stiffness as she wriggled and worked it. She flicked her tailtip about and impulsively wrapped it around Argos, giving him a tailhug, the memory of doing that tugging at her, unsure of where it came from but knowing it just felt right. She cooed softly as she felt his hands return the favor as they hugged her tail back. Her eyes glinted brightly as she looked back at him, "Thank you thank you thank you."

Argos looked a little nonplussed as he coughed and slowly extracted himself from her tail. "Ahh, well just doing my job."

Her large head nodded smoothly up and down, "I know... it's not really a rescue, it's a salvage operation. Still..."

"No... it's not like that at all" he said, moving to stand in front of her, liftign her chin with a finger to look into her eyes. "It's very much a rescue operation. I do this because I am fascinated with your kind, because it feels so good to help pull you one by one out of your caves and dig you out of rubble and raise you from the oceans. To see life flow back into your eyes, the joy in them. Your default state is happy you know... it takes WORK to make one of you sad, and I just think that makes you so damn special. Plus, your fucking awesome."

Coell giggled and blushed anew at the praise, looking back into this strange dragons face, her only... friend? She didn't know anyone else. Her only, anything really. She bit her lip before she spat out, "But then you sell us?"

Argos nodded, not showing any shame in his expression, but perhaps a bit of longing. "Well yes. AnDragons aren't cheap to operate you know. You can manufacture a lot of what you need but most of your kind can't, and you don't have a whole planet devoted to making parts and consumables. Plus the salvage operations aren't cheap. I'd be broke and bankrupt if I kept all the salvaged androids I found, I couldn't afford to pay them all. My ship wasn't cheap, and when I sell a find it gives me money to keep digging up more of you."

Coell nodded, she was aware of the concept of money. Currency. Barter. Organized exchanges of goods. Half remembered flowcharts of a massive economy tickled at her mind before she lost the threads, checksum errors replacing the vague memories. "It's ok, I'm glad you do it. I'm glad you found me."

Argos nodded, then brightened, "It's not permanent! Once you earn enough from your owner you can stay with them or set off on your own. Domestic companions with imprinting systems are a bit different.. you don't really want to reset those too often, can cause a lot of problems. But I expect your first owner will be a keeper, you're VERY valuable and anyone with that kind of money will be able to keep you in perfect condition." He have her back a pat, "I'll make sure you're all spit-polished and in perfect condition."

"I don't think spit is a good conditioning agent for my synthhide" she said dubiously, cocking his head at Argos curiously.

Argos snorted, "Figure of speech, you're going to hear a lot of odd things, and luckily understand most of them. Your Creators kept their language pretty stable, not too far off of standard so you won't have much trouble getting by, and a few language updates will get you fluent with anyone you are likely to run into here. I've worked with your kind long enough I'm pretty fluent with your dialect, but most would be able to at least understand it. AnDragon accents are pretty famous, so try and keep that if you do any major speech updates."

"Oh... ok. I don't think I know any other languages" she said as she accessed her memory store and skillsets, browsing through catalogs and looking at her built in language centers. Her primary language was hardcoded but she saw empty sections for additional data. "I see. I have a lot to learn... I don't even know what to ask because I can't remember what I forgot. Will you be able to explain it all to me before you sell me? It sounds scary out there, and I don't want to disappoint my new owner."

"There will be time, yes, a good bit of travel to get you somewhere I can make a direct sale. More money, and better for you because you can even help pick. I expect we will have a number of rich bidders at the end and we could set some sort of system up where you pick one out of the three highest at the end. That happens for the rare models" Argos scratched at his chin, "I'll make sure you know everything you need to, I have a number of database son my ship you can... Coell?"

Coell blinked, looking up in confusion at the strange dragon. That wasn't her owner. Where was her owner? Her owners. Her family. Where. Where. Where.

_ FAULT! _

Coell jerked to a stop, muscles tensing as she wobbled on her feet like a statue, eyes glazed and frozen before she stammered, "I'm a C.O.E.L.L. Model, pleased pleased pleased t-t-t-tooooooooo" before she locked up again.

** SYSTEM HALT IMPRINTING MODULE COMPROMISED CASCADE FAILURE DETECTED PRIMARY COGNITIVE FAULT MEMORY CORTEX FAULT EMOTIONAL RESPONSE NODE FAULT**

"Hnnnnnnrgh!" Coell stumbled forward, her legs trembling under her as the black hole in the center of her mind began to grow, clawing at her. She shuddered as her thoughts gravitated to her owner - FAULT - she couldn't remember them why couldn't - FAULT - she tried to wrench her thoughts away from them but she - FAULT - her body shook as she struggled, dimply seeing the dragon frantically typing on his console by he wasn't her owner - FAULT - her vision dimmed as the whirlpool in her head sucked at her very being, tearing at it. She could feel parts of her mind being forcefully rebooted making her slip in and out of consciousness. it HURT and her head pounded in pain, the danger signals triggering her pain receptors, unable to shut them down as a fire burned inside her head. She was helpless in the whirling madness, nothing she did could break through.

Through her haze of pain something grabbed that whirlpool and it came to a grinding, shuddering halt, just long enough for a single command to flow into her head through her dataports, powerful and overwhelming, and even in her state she could have tried to fight it, but that command, the codes and structures embedded had a familiar taste. A taste she trusted, one that helped her before. Unable to speak, she used the last of her strength to unlock her cranial access hatch, the top of her head unsealing with a soft hiss, orange light spilling out of the seams, using that light to say what her voice couldn't, 'Help me?'. With a whimper only she could hear, she let it the commands take her, accepting the machine code, letting it do to her whatever the programmer wanted.

_** SLEEP MODE ACTIVATED

EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN**_

Coell's eyes rolled up into her head as her jaw dropped, eyelids fluttering as her sleek, reassembled body collapsed with a heavy thud to the floor, the soft orange glow of her exposed crystal brain fading to darkness, and taking her with it.