Oh...dear, I don't know how many mistakes are in this...I've tinkered with it so many times, and haven't given it a full one-over since I slapped the keyboard and declared FUCK IT. Soooo tired of this chapter. And I have no clue how to start the next one. Don't expect it for a good long while : (

More notes at the end. Please, review? Bully me into editing it before Valentines D- wait, no, before Spring Break, knowing me. Blah.

Hoooppee yoou like it!

-Oceans

Watanuki woke to a Mokona playing one-person popcorn on his chest and the sound of a heavy rain pattering on the metal roof. Sitting up with a groan, he swatted the automaton away and fished blearily for his glasses. Mokona climbed back up onto the bed.

"WA-ta-NU-Ki~! It's wet outside! And cold!"

"Hurrah." He rubbed his eyes. "What time is it?"

Mokona tapped a stubby arm against his chin. "Hrmm…almost seven. The sun rose awfully early today! I think it's a sign!"

Watanuki had fallen asleep in his one-piece zip-up again, he discovered unhappily. He fastened the belt and jerked on a white tee shirt, leaving the top half of the uniform to flutter after him as he forced open the bedroom door- which encompassed breaking his shoulder against the metal slab, it was warped in the frame- and ventured into the main corridor. A lazy hand drifted up, trailing fingertips along the cold wall until they tumbled over a series of switches. Watanuki hitched his stride a little, and flipped each one as it met his fingers. Harsh white lights flickered on, subdued whirring noises coming from the walls.

The garage, the main part of it anyway, was a good sized square. There was an office in the corner, and two Plexiglas windows so the workers (if Yuuko had hired any) could spy on the management all day. A number of junky cars took up, all told, three fourths of the floor space, and stacks of tires, tool cabinets, and stray wires connected to who-knows-what cluttered the rest.

Watanuki shuddered at the familiar mess, dusted his hands reflexively. Mokona sprung up from the floor and floated gently back down, losing a high whistle just beneath the mechanic's ear.

"You really plan to clean this mess? Good luuuucccck…"

Watanuki glowered. Weaving around and between, he pulled a bucket and a few things from a closet and accepted a pair of thick gloves from Mokona.

"I suppose you don't intend to help me?" He said grimly, pulling the gloves on with a few sharp motions.

"Heeheehe!" Mokona giggled and bounced away.

Watanuki sighed, glanced fleetingly at the ceiling, listening to the pounding above, and got to work. He followed each wire to its source, plucked tools off the ground and stored them all in the proper spot. He was moving the cars- piece by piece- into the lot next to the garage when, after dropping a bent fender in water-logged grass, Mokona suddenly started beating on the window. Watanuki brushed the hood of his rain coat back a little and squinted at the frantic robot.

"Thhhrs hah mahnen!!" The fuzzy squeaked.

"There's a…?" He repeated, trying to make sense of the sounds that reached him through glass and rain. The downpour was so thick, he could hardly see the Mokona. It looked like he was dancing, but…oh. Oh. He was pointing. Watanuki looked down Ender's Avenue, the direction the Mokona seemed to be indicating. There was…a…

Oh. Right, mahnen. Man. It looked more like a foggy black, bipedal blob through the rain and mist, but it moved like a man at least. As Watanuki watched, the stranger stumbled and only barely saved himself from kissing wet pavement.

Watanuki jogged out to meet him without another thought after that, stretching out a helpful arm as he drew closer. The man was carrying something strangely large and assumedly heavy, if his bent posture was anything to go by. It was wrapped in thick, black plastic, possibly a garbage bag, and secured with bright blue stripes of electrical tape.

"Sir," Watanuki cried over the rain. "Let me help you! Where are you going?"

The man looked up. The brim of a dark baseball cap moved to reveal a slim face and round glasses with fogged over lenses. As the man smiled, Watanuki realized that the stranger was taller than him. "Where you just came from! Ichihara Garage!" His eyebrows rose in surprise, then he shrugged and helped the man to the garage.

"Some rain! Does this happen often?" The stranger asked.

Watanuki nodded at the storm drains, or, more precisely, at the size of them. "All the time."

Inside, he noted that Mokona was nowhere to be found, but before Watanuki could dwell on it any longer, a heavy, suspiciously solid thump sounded as the stranger lifted his package off his back and set it up in a recently cleaned spot.

"Whew! What a load, eh? Been totting this thing for a long time, boy."

Watanuki delved his fingers into his hair, scratching his scalp gently as he eyed the…thing. "What is it?"

"It's busted, is what it is. I called Yuuko a while ago and she promised to take a look at it. Say, where is she?" He laughed good-naturedly, looking around. "Where're you hiding her?

Watanuki growled as the message, and what it entailed sunk in. "Sounds like her…I'm sorry sir, but Yuuko disappeared little more than a week ago. I don't know when she'll be back."

"Oh? Hm," The man propped his elbow on the package, leaning a little. "Well, you're her assistant, right?"

"Um, yeah." Unfortunately.

"Will you take a look at him? He needs fixing, he really does." The man nodded, patting the black plastic affectionately.

"I…suppose I could, but I can't promise anything, mister…?"

"Reed, call me Reed." Reed smiled. "And that's okay, so long as you look. Ho, and do you mind if I use your phone? Got a call to make."

"S-sure. Phone's in the office." Watanuki stuttered as the stranger- as Reed brushed past him. He gestured weakly at the package. "So can I…?"

"Have at it," he called, without looking back. He closed the door behind him.

Watanuki stared for a second and then shook himself. Sparing a last glance around for Mokona, he started peeling away the electrical tape and plastic. When it was all laid aside, he blinked, unconsciously breathing a whistle of admiration.

It was a persocom, and a damned expensive one. Shaped like a young male of eastern descent, the com was at least six feet tall, and appeared to be built to do anything from hard labor to valet services. Watanuki circled around it, looking for the manufacturing information that was usually stamped between the shoulder blades, but…He brushed his fingers over the unmarked organic polymer, puzzled, and looked back at Reed, who was chatting away amiably in the office. Shrugging, resigned, he sought out the connection ports and found them in the standard places, on the right hip and inside the right wrist. Then he attached a retinal scanner over the persocom's eyes, plugged a series of cords into the ports, booted up a laptop and set a diagnostics scan to run.

Less than four minutes in, a popup announced in blaring, blocky green letters, 'ERROR'. He frowned and restarted the scan, and sooner than before, the message reappeared. Grunting, Watanuki got up to fetch the tools he'd need to do the scan manually (which would take hours), and popped open the hatch at the base of the spine. Pushed aside a collection of colored wires, he mumbled procedure under his breath.

"Main generator located beneath the foremost cortex, energy lobe glows green if operating at full capacity…" The procedure he had no trouble with. It was the actual problem he couldn't pin down. After he checked the secondary power channel twice, he ran for a notebook to mark his progress.

Two hours later he sat, glaring at the com with an energy.

It should be operating perfectly. Nothing was wrong.

But something obviously must be, because it was just…standing there!

Watanuki drummed his fingers against his hips, leaving behind grease spots that he'd have to scrub later.

He didn't want to…but what else he could check?

Shoulders sagging, he sighed, and moved to drag out the heavy duty equipment. Removing a persocom's head is nothing an amateur has any business attempting. Watanuki had practiced on several junk coms Yuuko had gotten her paws in the past, but he'd never worked on a customer's before. Sweat bullets appeared on his forehead as he took hold of a cluster of hair thin wires. A lot of them had to be cut and mended again when he reattached it later. Finally lifting the head clear of the body, he held the piece of tech between his greasy hands as gently as if it were a live butterfly, and carried it to a work table.

He looked. But, no matter how thorough he was he couldn't find the problem. The persocom really should be working. In fact, it should be functioning at maximum output, factory-fresh. Nothing on the inside suggested the outside, the current stasis. Watanuki boiled, never one to leave a project unfinished- that was Yuuko's job- but had to admit: he'd reached a dead end. He reattached the head, a venture which took twice as long as the act of removing it, whipped his hands, and turned, preparing to deliver the news to Reed, who-

-wasn't in the office anymore.

Watanuki blinked, and looked about the garage. No stranger, still no Mokona for that matter. He jerked on his rain coat and stepped out.

Dark had fallen and the rain had let up, but a fog had risen and the streetlamps did little to illuminate the gloom. He walked, peering into the inkiness in the direction that was…probably Ender's Avenue, until bolt of lightning stabbed downward. A few seconds later thunder followed, sounding like rock slide overhead. Watanuki flinched away from the sky and jogged home.

Cursing the weather and people who pulled disappearing acts and alcoholic bosses and life in general, he dropped the sopping coat on its hook by the door.

"Watanuki-wata!" A furry black rocket shot out of nowhere and slammed into his collarbones. "It's scary! Scary!"

"Oof- mo-Mokona!" He grabbed the bot by the rabbit ears. "Where have you been all day? Did you see where Reed went?"

"Reed? Who's Reed?" The dangling robot tilted its head to the side (which looked very odd, considering the dangling), blinking large eyes cutely.

"Oh…nevermind." Watanuki released him, sighing. "A customer, or…something like one…" He saw the white glow of the persocom in the dark, and threw a hand toward it. "He left his com, so I guess he'll have to come back."

Mokona hovered, its ears flapping gently. Watanuki didn't think that was what held it aloft. "Think he will?" It said.

Watanuki, in the process of locking the garage door, threw a look over his shoulder at the somewhat…enigmatic tone the robot's voice had taken. Shaking his head, deciding to leave it for tomorrow, he finished and drifted across the floor, rubbing his stiff neck with only slightly more pliable fingers.

He was tired. Of course he was tired, he'd been working for hours, now that he thought about it, and hadn't eaten anything, hadn't even drunk anything since that morning. Watanuki beelined for his bed and dropped onto it, thinking that he was going to smack himself when he woke up the next morning in his uniform.

The storm raged; thunder shook the building. Watanuki pretended not to notice when Mokona cuddled up against him, or the trembles that racked the little bot's body with each new boom and flash. He felt asleep not long after.

And it made sense that, because he was asleep, he didn't know that during the night, one particularly long bolt of bleached white light stuck the roof of Ichihara Garage, or that secret powerlines in the walls swelled and sparked with the power they channeled. Or, that high beams on previously thought totaled cars flickered on so violently the bulbs popped, and power tools rattled over desktops.

The phone rang in the office, and one dead persocom opened its eyes.

Yeah, I do mean Clow Reed by Reed, that's not supposed to be secret, so nothing's spoiled =) But I've never...er...read anything with him actually...in it. So...what is his character like? Did I totally miss it?

Oh. Forgot to mention, Ender's Avenue is a salute to Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, which pwns. Also, I don't know tech speak, and I've never popped open a PC or messed with wires, so, if it sounds fake...eer, um, oops.