A Few Small Repairs

**THE FREE CLINIC:**

Flat, dull gray inside and made of the same cobbled together materials as the rest of the area, the Free Clinic is a haven of help for the downtrodden that live in this area. Staffed by kind-sparked mechs and femmes who volunteer their free time and materials to help, Empties can find live-saving medical help here, as well as energon supplies when they are desperately low. There aren't many circuit slabs here, and everything from the equipment to the tools are donated, but they all function as needed. Chairs for waiting rest against the wall near the door, while a recovery ward in the back sees patients that need time to rest and reboot from serious medical trauma.

"MEDIC!"

A young fembot, copper and black, is carrying a larger helicopter mech in blue into the clinic. First thing's first: he's an empurata victim. The next major thing: His torso has a jagged hole and parts have been ripped out. He's leaking profusely.

Whirl is just barely alive by the grace of Shiftlock's quick acting. If it wasn't for her manually tying off all the energon leaks in his gut he would've definitely shut down already. As it is, he's stable-ish but if someone doesn't help him out quick all Shiftlock's work will have been for nothing.

"Is this robot heaven?" he asks, obviously still disoriented and confused from energon loss.

At the frantic call for help, Ratchet, the only medic in the clinic at the moment, came rushing out of the back room. "Move it!" he grumbled to some patients that were undergoing physical therapy. He slipped past them before finally reaching Shiftlock and Whirl. The realization of what Whirl was stopped him in his tracks. Was he ... ? Usually criminals underwent empurata, but Ratchet had come to know that not everything was as it seemed. The poor mech. He was either highly dangerous or a victim of racism.
The next thing he noticed was the /giant gaping hole/ in the mech's chassis. He ran to Whirl's other side to help drag him into an operating room. "What happened?" he asked Shiftlock. He remembered this femme. She had recently been separated from the Shifter trapped inside her body. That was an interesting experience. This was probably going to be just as interesting knowing her and her ... 'relations'. "Get him on a berth!" He was already jogging away to prepare an energon line and get some tools.

Shiftlock helps lay Whirl on the berth. "He got attacked by a Decepticon," she says. It's evasive but it's also the truth. What was that saying about half-truth lies being the blackest? "He put up a good fight but the guy ripped out half of his lower torso. I did my best to seal off the hoses and keep him from totally leaking out but I'm no medic!" she blurts out quickly.

"I was a victim of racism!" Whirl blurts out with a slurred tone. He looks around the room, trying to take everything in but his vision is still hazy and fuzzy and everything seems out of focus and really far away. "I was minding my own business and THE POLICE came and tried to murder me." As he's eased onto the berth he lets out a grunt of pain, his now stable condition causing his individual systems to gradually start coming back online, including the one that registers pain. Soon he will be howling and groaning with the pain of having his guts ripped out and then tied back together. "The system is corrupt!"

Ratchet inspected the patch-job that Shiftlock had done on the mech and made a disapproving face. "You're certainly not," he mumbled under his breath before resting a servo on her shoulder. "But you did increase his survival rate." After hooking Whirl up to the energon line, Ratchet had to actually undo a lot of Shiftlock's work so he could perform the correct repairs. A lot of parts were missing and Ratchet made a list of it on his datapad before handing it to Shiftlock. "Get these parts from the back storage room. Luckily we just got a shipment in last night and should have what we need to repair him properly."
A victim of racism, huh? "I ... don't see why the police would randomly try to murder someone," he remarked as he cut out the damaged pieces from Whirl's abdomen. "If you can, I'm going to need you to divert your pain sensors away from your torso. I'd rather you not flail around while I'm trying to /work/."

Well, it's true! The police DID try randomly murdering someone for absolutely no reason! That's the story Whirl made up in his head and that's how it's going to be every time he retells it. Ratchet's comment makes him snort and he weakly waves a claw at the medic. "No can do, doc. I don't believe in 'diverting my pain sensors' away." Why would he do that? To feel pain is to be alive, not to mention Whirl is a broken, self-loathing person who more than likely gets off on causing themselves pain because they think they deserve it (which Whirl TOTALLY does) so he wants to feel all of it. "Besides," he adds. "I've been in pain my whole life, what's a little more going to do to me? If you're worried, don't. I'll hold nice and still."

Shiftlock is fast about taking the list and getting parts; she rushes back with them and puts them on a cart near Ratchet, and then moves out of the way to let the medic do his work. She's trembling and in complete emotional shock. In half a daze, she moves out of the way and leans against a wall, sliding down to a sit, and hugging her legs, quietly crying.

Ratchet cocked an optic ridge at him. "That's a horrible way of looking at life," he said. What was with all of these mechs and their pessimistic views? It was really putting a downer on his cheerful attitude lately. "Well, if you say so," he responds. But the medic is a wily one. He went to the energon line as if adjusting something, but he actually added on a little device that functioned as a dulled-down EMP generator. It sent pulses down the line that numbed Whirl's pain sensors. He would still feel some pain, but it wouldn't be as terrible as Ratchet predicted it would be. "What did you say your name was?"

Whirl doesn't even notice the device Ratchet utilized but if he did, well, he would definitely have had things to say about it. He tries to relax, which is a lot harder to do now that his chances at survival have just gone up a hundred fold. It was easier to die, to disappear from this world and never have to think about the pain he's caused ever again. "Whirl," the blue mech responds. "My name is Whirl." Perhaps Ratchet has heard this name before since it seems everyone knows him in some way or another.

He turns his head, trying to peer at Shiftlock from his position on the berth. Primus does he feel bad. He totally screwed her over. Screwed up her life. Screwed up her relationship with the only person who truly cared about her well being. Screwed up his chances with her. "Do you.. know her?"

Ratchet glanced at Shiftlock who was bawling her poor optics out over there in the corner. He frowned slightly. Did she not have faith that Whirl was going to be okay? Maybe it was something else ... "I know everyone who lives in these parts. They're my patients. But I ... haven't gotten to know her, no. She makes a habit of helping those who always get into trouble."

"I see.." is all Whirl has to say about that. That just makes him feel even crummier. How many mechs has Shiftlock dragged into this place under similar circumstances? And then how many of them hurt her again after that? He wonders if that's what the case is going to be with him; saved by a compassionate femme and then returning the favor with pain and ache. Whirl lets his head drop back onto the table, sighing and staring up at the ceiling while Ratchet works. He's quiet for a long time as if he was contemplating something. Finally he speaks.

"I messed up, doc. I messed up bad."

Ratchet always seemed to be mixed up in the juiciest gossip, but he never spoke about what happened in his clinic to anyone. That was the rules of patient confidentiality, after all. "I'm guessing that you actually /weren't/ a victim of racism," the medic muttered as he continued the repairs. He sighed. "Why do you think you messed up? Or rather, /what/ did you mess up?"

Whirl lets out a weak laugh, though it pains him to do so. "Heheh, yeah, you caught me, doc. I made that part up." He cycles air through his vents in a sigh before continuing. "Well, I'm kind of a messed up guy to begin with. I mean, look at me! I'm a freak!" He snaps his claws at Ratchet as if to further prove his point. "And I was okay with that. I mean, yeah, it hurt being called a freak and having establishments refuse to serve you based on your past mistakes but I got over it. I was perfectly content with being a gutter punk and stealing and doing drugs and being the terrible person everyone saw me as."

He looks over at Shiftlock again and assumes she's too distraught to really be paying attention to their conversation. "Then she found me and.." He struggles to find the right words. "She gave me something I haven't had since all of this business." He gestures to his face, or lack of. "And I ruined her life."

Ratchet could never understand what all of these mechs and femmes in the lower castes experienced or felt. He had been living the good life and even that wasn't satisfying. But he /wanted/ to understand these Cybertronians and their struggles ... and help.
He flinched slightly as Whirl snapped his claw, thinking that he was going to snap his nose in there or something. "It makes you ... unique, despite the circumstances. Besides, I bet you'd be a killer toy machine..." he commented, trying to lighten the mood. He coughed once. It was then that he understood, at least a little. "She made you want to be better, I take it. How exactly did you ruin her life?"

Looks like Whirl is going to have to retell the whole story. Thankfully, Ratchet's repairs are doing wonders for him and he actually has the energy, and the mental capacity, to tell it. "This cop, Barricade. He kind of took her under his wing, I guess? He wasn't happy that she was involved with me." Whirl is a jerk but at least he is classy enough to not tell Ratchet all the juicy details of their interface. "He said some things to her. About me. I lost it, went nuts on him. I tried to kill him. I didn't, and he blamed Shiftlock for everything. Disowned her. Threatened to tear her apart if he saw her again."

"I'm a bad person, you should probably stop repairing me. Tell her I died on the table. Or better yet, let me die and tell her I got all better and left so she wont blame herself for my demise."

"You're not a bad person," Ratchet said, feeling a sense of deja vu wash over him. "You just ... did a bad thing. Everyone loses their temper from time to time. Granted, you shouldn't have tried to offline the mech, per se, but the fact that you feel remorse just proves that you're not as bad as you think you are. It would make you a bad person if you /enjoyed/ it and didn't give a turbo-fox's afterburners about what she thought of it." He set his tools down for a moment to refill the energon line. "You can't control how others are going to act. All you can control is how you /respond/. Obviously, Shiftlock still cares for you or she wouldn't be here to make sure you're okay and she wouldn't be fretting like that. If you left at all, I'm sure that /would/ ruin her life. You don't want to do that, do you?" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Dying's the easy way out. You can't just run away from your problems like that. Learn from your mistakes and move on. If Barricade is truly that important to Shiftlock and her to him, then it was likely just hot air he was blowing at her. When he cools down, they'll repair their relationship. If not, then he wasn't worth it to begin with. Do you catch my drift? All of you mechs try to give up so easily, it's exhausting."

Whirl just listens to everything Ratchet has to say on the matter, letting every word really sink in. He's not remorseful for /trying/ to kill Barricade, he's more so upset at the fact he /didn't/ kill Barricade. Yes, that would've made the situation a million times worse but he hates losing a fight, especially to someone like him. The medic's right though, doesn't it count for something that he feels bad for how Shiftlock feels? He's also pretty sure Barricade isn't just going to 'cool down' and everything between him and Shiftlock are going to be okay, but keeps mum on the matter. In all honesty, he disagrees a lot with Ratchet but he also makes a lot of good points. Not to mention Whirl appreciates having someone make a sincere attempt at giving him advice, so that counts for a lot. "Yeah, I guess.."

"How'd you end up working in a dump like this anyway? Not the clinic, I mean. It's okay as far as free clinics in the ghetto go, I mean the place itself. Dead End."

Ratchet pouted slightly. He expect a better answer than 'yeah, I guess' from the mech, but it was better than Drift's constant laments no matter what the medic said. Whirl's topic change surprised him a bit. "Oh, well ... the people here really needed some help and they weren't going to get it in the city. Now they have free medical care that they deserve and in the comfort of their own ... neighborhood, I suppose." He shrugged. There was more to it, but that was all Whirl needed to know.

"I'll need to make a mold of the piece of armor you're missing and cast it, but it looks like I've gotten the majority of the damages repaired. Your internal repair systems will take care of the rest."

"Everyone in this hellhole of a neighborhood is a scumbag and you're wasting your skills on people who'll probably be offline the next day from sticking too many drugs into their lines. No offense to you, of course." That's a lie, he was totally trying to offend him. That's just how Whirl rolls. "Speaking as an aforementioned scumbag, I wanted to say thanks for the help. I really thought I was going to die back there." It's true, he was all prepared to just let himself go offline and get away from all the trouble he's caused but Ratchet was right about it being the easy way out. Besides, if he died he couldn't kill Barricade someday and that would really suck!

Whirl sits up and turns himself around so he can hang his legs off the side of the berth. "Also, is there any way I can get some, you know... medical grade pain relievers or any other pharmaceuticals? For the discomfort, of course. And the anxiety. I am so anxious right now, and I need lots of medication for it."

The medic scowled at him and wanted to smack him with the wrench he held in his servo. He was doing good work here, the prick! The fact that Whirl was trying to squeeze a lot of medication out of Ratchet made him less sympathetic to the mech. "I already told you how to get rid of the discomfort," he replied plainly. "Besides, you've 'been in pain' all of your life, what's a little ache gonna do?" He smirked slightly and leaned against the wall. "As for the anxiety, I suggest deep breaths. Three seconds in, hold for three seconds, and three seconds out." Now he was just being sassy.

Well, you can't really blame him for trying. Whirl gives Ratchet a big shrug and a shake of the head. "Yeah, yeah, I get it, I get it." He hops off the berth and stretches his arms high over his head, no doubt putting strain on all his fresh repairs but it feels sooooooo good. "One more question, doc. You ever treated a mech like me before?"

Ratchet sputtered, jogged over, and reached out to lower Whirl's arms. He /just/ repaired him! Why didn't any of his patients listen?! "Be careful!" he hissed. "Have I ever treated a mech like you? You mean a snarky kid with a flair for the dramatic who likes to argue and ignore me? No, I can't think of /anyone/ I've treated like that."
He could think of two.

Whirl lets Ratchet lower his arms only to very slowly raise them again, just to stress the poor guy out. "Ugh, no. You're in Dead End, I'm sure you treat lots of messed up people with lots of messed up problems. I meant someone who looks like me." He lowers his arms and shows Ratchet the horrible, vicious looking claws that have replaced his hands. "I've heard people refer to us as 'empurata victims.' Isn't that nice of them? They're calling us 'victims' now, like we're supposed to think they're sympathetic to our plight."

Ratchet was going to hit him. He was /so/ going to hit him ... if this whole conversation wasn't so serious. Instead, he sighed. "You'd be surprised how many of us are," Ratchet said quietly. "I /have/ treated a mech that underwent empurata, yes. His name was Glitch. Good mech with a special power. It's probably why they ... did that to him." He rubbed his temples. "Why did they do it to you?"

Whirl is surprised to hear that Ratchet has interacted with someone burdened with the same mutilation he endured. It's oddly comforting in a way. "Afraid I can't answer that, doc," Whirl says nonchalantly, resisting the urge to scratch at his repairs. "Who I was before the empurata doesn't exist anymore and I wont speak ill of the dead."

Ratchet looked a bit concerned about that answer. Whirl was still the same mech he used to be .. he just looked different, right? Still, he wouldn't pry. The poor mech had been through enough for one day. If they spoke any longer, Ratchet really would whack him with a wrench. "Fair enough," he said. He went over to the cabinet and grabbed some wrappings to cover his wound. "Until I have your armor ready, this will protect your wound from further damage. I should be done with the mold in a solar cycle or two. You better come back and grab it because I won't chase your aft down."

"Heh, don't worry. I have no intention of running away and getting into fights with cops. Not until I have that part." Whirl would give Ratchet a sly grin but, well, you know... no face. So he just stares blankly instead. "Where did you think I'm going to go anyway? I've been living on the streets ever since I got out of jail." He really doesn't have a place to go but maybe Shiftlock will be okay with him following her everywhere for the rest of her life.

He was living on the streets, too? It was a wonder hearing that still surprised the medic after seeing the state of most mechs in Dead End. "You-- Oh, well ... If you ever need a place to recharge for the night, we usually have a room open here at the clinic. If not -- and I mean it, only if there is no room /whatsoever/ in this clinic -- I have an extra berth in my basement. That's a /last/ resort, though!" he said. "The last time I offered it, both of those deranged mechs stole /my/ berth."

"I appreciate the offer, especially the one about staying in your basement because that's what everyone wants to do, stay in a stranger's basement, but I'll probably just hang around the area until the part is ready." Whirl looks over towards Shiftlock, amazed she is still waiting for him and hasn't just abandoned him already. "Yeah.. I'll be around. Don't worry." With that said, he makes his way out of the clinic and disappears somewhere outside like the mysterious loner he is. No doubt Ratchet will be seeing him again.