Repairs with a Bonus

Pharma has made it a point to take time out of his busy schedule to visit the charity clinic in the Dead End this cycle. After all, the medics who run it deserve some respect for the efforts they are putting forth without receiving any pay or compensation whatsoever.

  So he's come here to offer advice, consultation, and assistance where needed. There are bound to be those special cases that no other doctor seems able to figure out, right? Because he is the ultimate go-to expert. If there is anything someone can't handle, can't figure out, or doesn't feel comfortable doing? Pharma is your mech. Four-way fuel pump transplant? No problem!

  One such special case manages to reach the front door during an off-peak hour. Her chassis is wide open in several places and delicate components visible beneath her chest plate show noticeable signs of blunt force trauma. She's able to stand on her own feet and even has all her limbs, but the exposed robot looks more like an anatomy chart than a patient. Secondary to a well-trained medical eye might be the large and dangerously-sharpened piece of scrap metal that's been welded to one forearm.

  For her part, Spectrum pauses in the doorway and leans one arm against the wall as she looks around, her cracked optic flickering, and takes in the interior. She might not be a welcome sight as the femme's distinctive figure and weapon are well-known as the cause of several dead empties but it's the medics she's trying to garner a favor from. The small metal cylinder clutched protectively in one hand offers a hint as to how.

  "Do you bots do repairs?" She asks towards the first non-empty who looks in her direction. Her voice is slow and lazy, a likely symptom of energon depravation. "I can pay."

  "It's what we do." Pharma answers as the severely injured fembot enters. He approaches and begins quickly scanning her to determine the full extent of the damage. "Payment will not be necessary. This clinic exists to help those who cannot help themselves. Though a donation would not be turned away, of course." The doctor smiles. "What's your name?"

  "*Scrapheap* most recently," the incomplete empty replies. She's perfectly willing to be scanned where she stands, but turns to present her blade if the medic approaches too quickly. The femme is clearly still a little wary of the clinic despite her condition.

  And what a condition it is. Enough paneling is unaccounted for that her intended shape and alt-mode might need to come from CNA; fuel and coolant lines are patched, clamped, and tied down with all manner of foreign material; the circulation to her limbs has been forced down to what might be the bare minimum; and about one in every four bolts is actually present. The empty's truly critical components are in a very jury-rigged state, but nonetheless still seem to all be functional despite the extent of her damage. She's likely had to survive off patch jobs for a very long time.

  Pharma frowns at the readouts, looking concerned. "Good Primus, it's almost a miracle you're still alive." he stares at the data for another astrosecond or so, then quickly escorts her over to a circuit slab. "I may have to rebuild some of you from scratch in fact."

  "But uh...well I meant your real name. I need it for the medical records. Besides, I doubt you really want to go down on file as a 'scrapheap.'"

  "I've had worse, but do whatever you're generous enough to spare," Spectrum requests as she acquiesces to follow. She smiles a bit at the mention of being rebuilt and climbs onto the slab.

  "Then give me a number if you want. I don't have a name."

  Pharma arches an optic ridge at her. "Ah, are you disposable class? Even if so, surely you have some designation?" He asks, opening up a case and pulling out a tube fell of some form of anesthetic. The doctor attaches a feed to her arm and starts administering the drug, pulling out a datapad while he waits for it to take affect to begin filling out the documentation. Hm.

  He looks up every once and a while though...this wasn't the only reason he came here, in fact. He was looking for a certain person who had a good chance of being here, given that Wheeljack often came here as well. Yes, there was a somewhat urgent matter he needed to discuss with Torque--regarding Starscream.

  "It's complicated. Just make one up," Spectrum replies as she reaches over and pinches two fingers over the feed tube to pause the flow of drugs. "If this stuff is going to offline me, how much are you rebuilding based on CNA?"

  "I'm sorry, but I can't do that." Pharma informs her, though he looks apologetic. "It's against regulations. I have to have record of your name, city of residence, and function or former function in order to effect repairs." he sighs. "I know, it's silly, but I didn't make the rules." He watches her pinch off the flow, and quickly turns off the pump to prevent a backflow. "I will do my best from whatever CNA I can get a clean read on, that is unless you have a specific request to make."

  Spectrum's expression hardens as she regards the medic suspiciously. "That sounds like a good way to catalogue and scrap people out of favor," she notes.

  Pharma sighs. "Look, like I said--I didn't make the rules. I just have to follow them. Personally I think it's ridiculous to deny someone proper repairs, and even potentially the right to live, simply because there is not enough information about them available. However, if you don't give the information yourself, there are ways to retrieve it from your memory banks. Now do you want repairs or not?" It would appear she has three choices: No repairs, repairs and give the information voluntarily, or repairs and have the information -taken- forcibly.

  The empty stares back at length as if trying to peer into the doctor's spark casing. An exposed pump in her chest rumbles in a growing tone before eventually relenting and dropping back down to a quiet hum. Spectrum's hand comes off the tube.

  "Bloodhound, Luna 1, Primal Vanguard Sergeant, 4th Reconnaissance Batallion, former," she answers firmly. "I've had my frame patched one time too many, so override any design conflicts with my frame circa Nominus Age - if you can." Here the femme finally smiles again. "I've lost a lot of military hardware but I'll take being a civilian in better repair."

  Pharma nods as the fembot finally relents. "Primal Vanguard, eh? Not every cycle you run into someone like that. It's a privilege to make your acquaintance." he says pleasantly. "I'm Pharma, if you didn't already know." He is well-known both inside and outside of intellectual circles for being one of Cybertron's best doctors.

  He switches the pump back on, and the sedative flows once more, moving into her systems now. "Now I'm going to anesthetize you for the bulk of what I need to do, as you have likely already figured for yourself." He nods at her request for a civilian frame. "Perfect. Military hardware is harder to come by out here, anyway. I'd need to take you to Deltaran for that. So civilian it is. Do you have any other special requests, before I put you under?"

  Spectrum's more functional optic brightens at the name. That was one even she had heard of. It was also better connected than she had hoped, but it did present the incomplete robot an opportunity...

  The femme lays back down on the slab and lets out a sigh as she finally relaxes, now smiling with just a little hope at the possibility. "I'll take any upgrades for speed that you can spare," she asks, "and claws if you can weld a little extra to my fingers. Most of my current frame is from a mech who wasn't well suited to fending off the scrappers here and I'd like to do better."

  "But leave the analyzer," she adds, tapping her chest. "That I'd like to keep."

  "Oh I won't be depriving you of any equipment you currently have, unless you had specifically requested it." Pharma nods quickly. "Yes, of course, I'll see what I can do about getting you some boosters and sharpened digits. Shouldn't be too difficult to do. Would that be all then?"

  The medic's ready acceptance actually catches Spectrum off guard and the femme hesitates as she makes some mental recalculations. "Add night vision and better ears," she requests. "I'll take any sensor buffs you're willing to add that will stop someone with ill intent from sneaking up on me. Salvage them from a beastformer if it helps, I'm not picky about charity."

  Pharma nods again. "Well I can't promise you -no one- will be able to get the jump on you after sensor upgrades, but I can at least say I'll do what I can to help." He smirks slightly to himself. Yes, excellent, she even -asked- for sensor uprgrades. Perfect opportunity to install prototypes for further testing, since one of the -previous- subjects had been compromised. "Hmm, I don't think I'll use salvage--too much risk of compatibility issues. Better to send for manufactured spares from Deltaran. It might take a -bit- longer, but not by much."

  "I'm not looking for perfect, just better," Spectrum assures, her mood steadily improving as the prospect of a better body draws closer. "You do not want to know how long it's been since I've laid on a medical table."

  "I gathered as much." Pharma says soberly. "Which is why I'm going to do my best to give you what you need to survive out there in this crazy world of ours. Alright then, if there's nothing else, I'll go ahead and increase the dosage to put your out for the surgery."

  The empty reclines herself properly on the slab and gets comfortable. "Sedate away, Mr. Magic."

  Pharma does just that, upping the dosage to put Spectrum into deep stasis. As soon as she's out, he gets to work right away. First of all he works to stabilize her condition to make sure she isn't leaking out, then contacts the Decagon so that they can send the parts he needs. He then works on repairing her internals. Once that's done, and the parts have been delievered via drone transport, he moves on to the upgrades. As she had requested, he gets her a pair of boosters on her back to help her move more quickly, as well as sharp attachments to her fingers and...yes, of course. The sensor upgrades. Fuller spectrum audio receptors and expanded infared vision for seeing better in the dark than a typical bot. There is, however, one thing that he neglects to tell her about.

  The upgraded optics actually double as -cameras- that constantly transmit to an undisclosed location on an encrypted frequency. Not that she'll ever notice it, right?

  At any rate, the entire procedures takes a good several cycles, though on average it is very good time. But we are talking about -Pharma- here. There's a reason he's one of the best.

  Spectrum's damaged and starved systems respond quickly to the sedatives and one optic blinks out, then the other as she goes offline. The damaged empty's pump stills and she goes silent, almost dead if not for vital pulses.

  For as quickly as she turns off though, the old/new femme is far more sluggish to turn back on. Running the energon deficit that she was, her systems soak up every drop they're offered while she's unconscious and even after the sedate wears off, Spectrum is just genuinely a heavy sleeper. Her systems certainly take their time recalibrating.

  Eventually though, "Bloodhound" does come to and as her matching pair of un-cracked, clean blue optics light up, it's quite a different bot that is laying on the slab than the one who arrived half-dismantled cycles ago. Her pump restarts with a smooth, pleasant hum that's quieter and more fluid by the grace of new bearings and better fitting parts, and the femme takes in a deep breath. She spends a few seconds contemplating the ceiling and then slowly sits up and looks over her frame; truly 'her' frame now, Bloodhound notices. While not an exact match for her old beastformer self (the box in her chest rather gets in the way) she looks distinctly similar. The empty's pump does its best impersonation of a stock car as Spectrum smiles widely and sits the rest of the way up more animately, then works her joints - noting also the sharp ends of her fingertips.

  If Pharma is nearby, he's getting a beaming smile that could light all of Polyhex.

  Pharma is indeed still nearby, though he is getting ready to leave. He had been working on gathering up all his things and putting them away in cases when he heard her sit up. Chuckling, he looks over at her. "Oh, you're finally awake. Took you a while, but I suppose it was rest long needed. How are you feeling?"

  Indeed, the new parts are fantastic. She probably feels better than she's felt in -vorns-. Every joint moves with grace and ease, as if she could run ten kils without stopping. Yeah, Pharma is good.

  Assuming she's not hooked up to anything important, Pharma gets a demonstrative answer as Spectrum boosts straight off of the bed and tackles the doctor in something of a flying hug. If she is... well the excited empty might owe some more shanix. The boosters fire mostly by accident and while they do give the femme's gesture some extra get-up-and-go, it's a bit more than she really needs.

  Landing against or on top of the medical mech, the freshly painted robot is still all smiles. "For a first time, perfect."

  Pharma laughs and is tackled to the floor. "Whoa! Easy there!" Getting up, he dusts himself off. "Well, I'm glad everything is working splendidly for you--though you might want to look into some training in the use of those boosters." The winged doctor pats her on the back and gathers up his things once more, picking a briefcase up off of the floor.

  "Well, it was very nice to meet you, Bloodhound. I wish you all the best in your future endeavors. Though, if you'd like to speak to me again, or if you have any questions about your upgrades feel free to contact me." At this, he presses a small microchip into her hand, which contains a hailing frequency to his office at the DMF in Iacon. "But I'd better get back to Deltaran for now." He then makes his exit, leaving the building and flying off into the skies above the Dead End.

  Bloodhound lets Pharma get back up with a bit of sheepishness. "Hehehe, I guess this new body will take some getting used to. Oh Primus I look forward to getting used to this," she muses euphorically. The offer to talk is met with a quick nod and the empty takes the microchip for later reading.

  "Safe travels, and thank you, Pharma!" she calls as the jet speeds away. Bloodhound herself looks around the room and again at her shiny new frame - she's even got a paint job! Spotting the cylinder holding all her worldly possessions beside her slab, she grasps it confidently with her other hand and lets out a deep, contented, but also eager sigh.

  The former sergeant smiles toothily as she turns towards the door and fires her boosters, making fresh tracks at full speed.