Tinkering (Charles)

"And the hip joint is connected to the, Leg Servo! The Leg Servo's connected to the Main Thigh Bar! The main thigh bar is connected directly into the shin bar via the, knee actuator!" Jack sang jovially as he tinkered away. There was just something about working with high level machines and tech that made Jack just want to sing! The smell of industrial lube... the feel of the hot iron in his hand, the wir of the servos and the hum of the circuits... it all worked itself into one long and beautiful melody that Jack could never keep himself from dancing to. And to be asked to be the personal mechanic of the single most technologically advanced machine he had ever seen... perhaps the most technologically advanced machine in the world!

Well asked to be.... demanded to be until he was begrudgingly allowed to be... same thing...

"Alright Charles, try it now and see what you think. I tried to free up some of your connections and lubed up some of your joints. It's not a fix by any means of the word, more of a proof of concept. It it helps even a little we'll know we're on the right track." Jack called Charles into his shack after classes today so he could work on some fixes Jack had been thinking up. With any luck he could finally fix some of the problems Charles had been experiencing. With one last nod of approval Jack closed the hatch on Charles' leg he had been working on."Just take a quick walk around the shack, test it out and tell me what ya think!"

"Understood." Charles reluctantly stood up and tried walking around a bit. He couldn't believe he actually let Jack handle his repairs for now, but it was necessary. If he could get himself fixed up even a little, it would make his performance in battle that much better. In any case, the leg itself wasn't the crucial part, something he had told Jack countless times while he was doing his thing (but Jack apparently was too caught up in it to pay any attention...). It would've been much better if Jack had focused on Charles's malfunctioning left arm instead of the leg. Well, whatever... Charles was gonna do what he was told and then give further instructions to Jack. However, as he took his first step and leaned completely on to his right leg...

Charles lost balance...

"Charles!" Jack shouted as he saw Charles fall. Thinking quickly (or perhaps not at all as was the case more often then not) Jack lunged and caught Charles before he could tumble to the ground. Jack, however, once again forgot that Charles was mostly made of dense materials and plastics, though much lighter and more functional then steel or even aluminium... it was still much heavier then normal human tissue.

"Geeze Charels!... You're!... ERF! Much heavier then you look!" Jack grunted as he heaved Charles into a standing position. Yeah... arm be damned his legs were the issue right now..."Look... Charles buddy... I get that you're worried about your arm and preforming well in battle, but that little tumble right there proves that your legs are the main issue. If you can't walk propperly you'll be a sitting duck out there, and I'm not about to stand by and let you get hurt.... Now then, all I did was clean out some gunk in your joints and tighten some loose connections. It shouldn't have gotten any worse...." Jack would walk Charles back to his seat on the couch and returned back to his black board, where he had Charles draw up the schematics of his legs and arms to the best of his knowledge.

"Hmmm I have an idea what the problem might be... Perhaps your main gyroscope zero'ed itself to your more damaged legs... If that were the case any slight adjustment, i.e. me cleaning them up, would cause you to lose balance... If that were the case it should rezero by it self... What do you think?" Jack asked turning to his friend. He honestly hoped he could help Charles. The guy deserved a break, and maybe getting some more functionality from those legs would be enough to make the gloomy bot smile.

"Since this has happened, I will be temorarily switching our current priorities. From now on, fixing my leg should be the only thing we focus on." Charles let himself be seated on the table again. He turned to Jack and shook his head. "It is most likely to be a direct cause of the damage. As we have removed the 'immobilization cast' I have created in the image of the devices humans cover their broken limbs with, from the leg, there is nothing left to hold my full weight."

"So the problem is with the parts themselves... Damn... that's what I was afraid of." Jack eyed the schematics once more and frowned slightly to himself. The limb was just to damaged to fully support his weight without collapsing out from under him. No amount of cleaning or tightening would solve damage that severe... The way he saw it they had two options.

"We can ether A: patch the leg with scrap material in order to give it some internal rigidity. You would be able to move it at the knee and hip, however the range of movement would be severely reduced. It would also mean we would have to almost gut the leg and replace a lot of replace quite a bit of machinery with solid bars and simple mechanisms. Or B: I can attempt to construct you a brand new leg using your good leg as a template. I'd do my best to recreate your machinery as best I could... But I'm not sure if it would be able to integrate with your existing systems... plus you would literally have two left feet heh." Jack couldn't help but make the pun."The choice is yours Charles... What do you want me to do?"

"I require full functionality of my legs in combat." Charles raised his right leg onto the table and began meddling through it with his fingers. "Which means both ideas are to be labeled as 'innapropriate'. Even so, leaving it in its current state is also not an option." Charles frowned. "I am not sure what to do. I do not see a solution for this situation."

"I suppose the option you listed under the letter 'A' is currently our best solution. My leg would retain its function as a weapon even in such a condition and it would most likely become more durable and solid. The only issue I see is my mobility...

...

I suppose it would be better than at my current state."

"I was hopen you would say that, heh. To be honest I was kinda blowen steam when it came to option B..."Jack laughed to himself slightly as he began to dig through the nearest pile of junk. Jack had a tendency to acquire random things from the side of the road, dumpsters, junk yards. ... Pretty much anywhere people would dump their garbage,er.... Treasures... This has lead Jack to become a bit of a hoarder. If you asked him he would tell you he only grabbed the stuff that he could use. The fifteen broken lamps in the corner of his shack told a different story... Then again if he wasn't a hoarder, he would't have this bar of aluminium the exact length of Charles' shin. Who's laughing now everyone who laughed at Jack!... Probably still you... If we're being honest.

"Ya know Charles... I Gatta thank you. Before you came along my life was really dull. I mean... I would just go about my days never really doing anything. I'd wake up, got to class, then come home and go to sleep...Then you came along and... well... Now I'm repairing the most advanced robot in the world!... I'm really glad we met." Jack would hold the length of aluminum up to Charles and smile broadly, "Say hello to your new shin!"

"Hello." Charles politely greeted the aluminum bar before turning to Jack. He didn't really understand the motives behind Jack's gratefulnes, but it did feel kind of nice, being thanked like that. "However, I sincerely doubt that I am the most advanced machine in this world." He responded obliviously as he pulled the leg up and extended it across the table.

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Jack would have been able to notice some differentiations between the schematics Charles sketched out and the actual leg once he would've began picking through its insides further. The real deal appeared more complex and technologically advanced. There were also some parts which were not included in the scheme, most notably the synthetic tissue connecting the elements within the leg. The tissue was, however, torn at some places seemed altogether worn out.

"Oh don't be so humble Charles! I can say without a doubt that I have never seen anything on your level. You can seamlessly integrate with human society on a PERSONAL level. You have emotions, hopes, wants, needs! Charles... you're a human just like me! Except... more sparky! If that isn't the most advanced machine in the world I don't know what is! hehe" Jack smiled and looked at Charles's leg. He reopened the hatch he had been working on earlier and set to do his job

...

It didn't take long to see Jack was in WAY over his head. When Charles drew up his schematics Jack was worried he wasn't good enough to fix him... now he was SURE he wasn't good enough. What Jack was expecting to be a solid removable bar was attached at several points with synthetic tissue. After a few moments of poking and prodding Jack would find a small latch near the base of Charles' shin. After flipping it the tendons would loosen with a small hiss and the bar that made up the inner core of Charles' Shin would poke out from his knee."Bingo! I think this might be the problem," Jack would pull the rod from Charles' knee, the rod was surprisingly light and about half the length of his lower leg ending in a rather sharp and jagged break,""From the looks of it this is the main support of your endo-skeleton, and as you can see it's broken in half, the other half still being in your leg there... now... how do we get it out?"

"I shall not object." In any case, Jack was the human in the room, so if he said that Charles was human-like, there was nothing he could say to oppose that statement. Besides, Charles himself noticed some severe deviations in his behaviour in several situations...

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Charles observed as Jack prodded through his leg, eventually managing to detach part of its support. Indeed, it appeared broken, along with several other elements inside it and Charles himself was surprised at how different the insides of his leg looked like when compared to the data he had installed in his bank. "Perhaps..." He held the other half of the pole tightly and pulled at it in an attempt to forcefully remove it from the hatch. It was connected directly to the knee joint, eh... But if the lower part was removable, then this had to be as well... somehow. Or not. The problem wasn't just that, though. The hatch itself has been dented from the impact with the iron street sign. But that was a minor injury as opposed to the support pole.

"Hmmm.. Charles... I have an idea but I don't think you're gunna like it...." Jack sighed and took one last look at the short metal pole sticking out of Charles' leg. It was made to come out... probably for servicing and repair. However due to the large dent in his knee, it seemed it wasn't going anywhere."We're gunna have to cut it out..."

Jack would then turn to a very specific pile of junk and begin to clear it away layer by layer... This pile was special...Inside it was the key to getting them out of this mess and possibly fixing Charles. Jack grunted as he pulled the large tool from its resting place. The thing was old but it still worked. It was how Jack was able to keep this shack together for so long... A large, old and dusty welder. Jack pushed the primer button three times and pulled the starter cord. As the engine roared into life Jack turned on the large fan in the back of the shack to provide ventilation. Finaly Jack put on his Ranger helmet and took up the welding torch and took a deep breath."Charles... Do you trust me?"

Charles observed the machine in Jack's grasp. They were going to cut out a part of his body, huh? For whatever reason, the thought of that irreversible act made his thought squirm and his nonexistant stomach twist. Was this feeling of uncertainty... fear? He recalled feeling something akin to that, but he just couldn't put his finger on when or why.

Charles reluctantly gulped down these sensations and closed his eyes as he nodded.

"I shall disable the motoric functions of my leg."

"I sure hope you disable the feeling in your leg...or else this will hurt a lot...." With one last gulp Jack pulled on a pair of thick welding gloves and lit the torch, reducing  the flame to a very manageable size. Jack had taken a class on welding and metal work as part of the schools shop classes and he was pretty good... But then again he had never done surgery with a welding torch before so there was that.

Slowly and carefully Jack brought the white hot flame closer to Charles's leg. He only hesitated for a moment before beginning the cut. Normally for a job like this Jack would use a table saw or a vertical saw, however that would require bringing Charles to the shop and possibly being caught in the act... not the best situation to be discovered in...

Jack was careful not to bring the flame close to any of Charles's synthetic muscle. The process took a good five minutes... but after what felt like years... the bar was cut and freed of Charles's leg. Jack made sure to leave enough of the bar intact so he could preform the next step... Re-welding the aluminum bar to the existing bar... This would prove to be tricky seeing as Jack wasn't entirely sure what material Charles's existing leg was made from, however it was not impossible.

After a few more moment's Jack breathed a sigh of relief as he double checked his work... The bars were connected well enough that nothing short of the end of days was going to get them apart! Or so he hoped.

"OK!... I... I think I got em.... heh... We should... let the bar cool for a good few hours before reattaching you muscles... How ya feeling there buddy?"

"You should not worry. My body was not designed to be able to 'feel' pain in the same sense as you do. I do not posses nerves, just electrical cables and connections." Charles spoke calmly as Jack worked on detaching the pole. "Yet... I still get hurt... and I go through pain. Why is that?"

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"I am not experiencing any issues. Thank you." Charles took a glance at his leg. The muscles were unnecesary. Besides, they were not included in the initial schematics and, therefore, they were obsolete and out of place. "We should remove the synthetic tissue."

"C-Cut them off?...." Jack was a little shocked to hear Charles say that. He had thought Charles would be a bit more hesitant to remove anymore parts but... it was true... The synthetic muscles served more to strengthen the leg and to serve the "Human" aspect. In all seriousness, as damaged as they were they didn't serve much purpose. Removeing them would probably lighten the leg a little and make it a bit less cumbersome in battle, the aluminum being much heavier then whatever material his leg was originally made out of... man what he would give to get his hands on more of that!.

"Welp... your the boss, lets get cutten!" Jack would laugh as he pulled a box cutter from a nearby junk drawer"Hey Charles?... Why did you let me do this... I mean I know I kept buggin you but... why did you say yes?"