Harper and Dylan stood before before Rommie in the VR matrix.
"Hi Rommie. How ya doin'? Good, I hope. Heard ya missed me, are you sure you're feeling all right? Not that I'm complaining or anything. Heh, heh. Yeah ok, anyway, I can't believe that you thought I was neglecting you! 'Cuz guess what? Come on, guess!"
"That will be enough Harper. Rommie, Harper and I have been talking and if you are certain you want to try he is willing to try to restore you to your android body again. Are you still set on doing this now?" Dylan was not completely convinced this was the best course of action. Rommie was still not herself, the crew still spent half their time fighting, and the entire system was in choas. It was not the best situation to drop a fragile personality into.
"Yes Captain, I'm absolutely…" A brief distorted memory of her arms shoving Harper across the room came to her. She turned to Harper, suddenly uncertain. "It is safe isn't it Harper?"
"What? Oh yeah doll, no chance of anything going wrong. I've got so many fault protections built into to the upload program even Trance couldn't mess it up. And I've been working really hard on getting your body just the way you like it. Lots of extra buffer space too. Nope, this procedure is absolutely 100 percentsatisfied-or-you-get-your-money-back guaranteed safe."
That wasn't exactly what she was worried about. Still, she had changed, things would be different this time. She turned back towards Dylan. "Then I would like to complete the process and return to my duties as soon as possible Captain."
She was looking him straight in the eyes. He couldn't refuse her when she was looking at him like that. And they did need her back, badly, though he refused to tell her that and put any undue pressure on her. He forced a smile, "Well then you're in luck. Harper took the liberty of setting everything up before we came here. As soon as we exit he can start the process."
Harper broke in, "And exactly two hours and thirty seven minutes later you will wake up in a lovingly crafted body designed for maximum pleasure. Yours that is Rommie, I swear!"
Harper's apparent eagerness and Dylan's fake smile didn't fool her. It was obvious they were still uncertain about the process. (Will Harper shut me down again if I don't act the way they want when I wake up? No, this time I'm ready. It's really going to happen, I'll have purpose again, an existence outside of my own consciousness.) She didn't break eye contact with Dylan, "I'm ready."
"All right Mr. Harper, it's been two hours and forty five minutes and she's still not awake. I'm beginning to doubt your skills, or at least your ability to count." Dylan was standing beside the table Rommie's body was lying on, staring at her. He had been waiting eight extremely stressful minutes for something to happen, and he was about to take his frustrations out on Harper.
Harper had been unable to hold still even for a moment, and was currently running diagnostics on Rommie's body. "Hey, insulting the genius isn't going to help matters here. And I can count just fine thank you! Anyway when I said exactly, I actually meant more or less. In this case, more. The process is complete, but we have to give her time to get use to her new environment so to speak, it's been awhile for her you know." Harper was frustrated himself and more than a little worried he would fail again. "I've been here before remember. Do you know how many times I tried this before? And it always failed, and do you know why? It was 'cuz she couldn't stop looking for you, she always…." Seeing the hurt look on Dylan's face deflated Harper's anger. "Awww, never mind. Doesn't really matter now, that won't be a problem this time. We just need to be a little patient. And what's up with the Mr. Harper again? How many times do I have to tell you it's Harper, just Harper."
Dylan looked up in shock. Did Harper just tell him to be patient? He rubbed his face, "I must be hallucinating, I could have sworn I just heard the most impatient human ever to be born tell me to be patient…"
Just then Rommie's eyes flew open. "Your calculations were off Harper, it took two hours forty seven minutes." She sat up, and looked around. "Hello Captain, Andromeda Ascendant avatar reporting for duty."
Harper broke into a huge smile, looked at her for a moment as if trying to restrain himself, then gave up and hugged her tight. "I'm so glad to see you that I don't even care you insulted me and still haven't said hi!"
She looked down at the top of his head, "Hello Harper. Thank you for repairing me." Looking back up at Dylan, "I am completely repaired and ready for duty. When may I return to the Andromeda?"
Harper finally let go of her and took a few steps back, rubbing his hands nervously on his pants and looking towards Dylan. "Why the rush Rommie? I thought you might like a little vacation here on Seefra. You can help me fix up this mess of a lab, meet your cousins, take some time to get to know your new-old body. It'll be fun! You're, uhh, not feeling any urge to run out of the room are ya? Ha, 'cuz see Dylan's right here!" Harper gestured towards the captain, eyes flicking back and forth between the two and the door.
"I don't understand, is something wrong with me?"
Dylan rescued the engineer before he descended into babbling, "Not at all Rommie. We just want to take things one step at a time. The rest of the crew has had a lot longer to get used to our current situation and we don't want to overwhelm you on your first day back. Don't worry, you'll be back on the Andromeda before you know it. Now, as much I would like to stay and talk with you I have to meet a man about some information. I'll check in with you two soon." With that he turned left the room.
Rommie stared at the door as the captain exited, then turned to Harper who was still looking at her strangely. :What would you like me to do first Harper?"
A/N: Kinda weak chapter, but I had to get Rommie into her body to move to the next stage of the story. I wanted to put more of how she was feeling at this point, but I couldn't seem to get my head around it. The next chapters will be better thought out, and longer. Promise!
