OMG, Thanks to everyone who reviewed! I am a sucker for reviews, and the two I got this afternoon really motivated me to finish this chapter before I finished for the night. You guys ROCK.
Ratchet really did not want to wake Clank up, but, despite Ratchet's fuzzy body weighing only about 40 kilos, Ratchet couldn't carry something as oblong as his own body in Clank's tiny form. He briefly considered sliding him onto the transport sledge, but the pull bar was his real height, not his current- and, while the basic functions were something he was able to handle, Ratchet did not know how to run some of Clank's more advanced processes like his propellers or Gelonium butterfly wings.
Ratchet poked Clank on the head.
And again.
When he realized the third, fourth, and fifth times weren't the charm, he opened the minifridge they'd installed in the storage space in the rear (to Aphelion's chagrin, naturally), moved a few soda bottles out of the way (Ratchet had enough sense to draw the line at soda, even with autopilot, being drunk in the vehicle was a surefire way to be ambushed by pirates or, far worse, make an arse of oneself while ordering drive-thru at 2AM local time), and crammed himself inside.
Ten minutes later on max settings, Ratchet had a fridge full of soda-slushies (that he sadly couldn't enjoy) and himself- one frosty metal box with limbs. He waddled back out before realizing he could have just used one of the glass bottles of Nuka-Cola, already chilled.
Eh, bygones and all that, he thought, as he was tossed mercilessly across the cabin by an uncoordinated (but highly powerful) kick and a scream he didn't know his own body could produce as Clank jolted unceremoniously to wakefulness.
Yeah, this was better. He would have lost a soda (all 28 bolts worth of precious carbonated sugar water), and, worse than anything, been forced to clean up after it.
Clank laid belly-up, still in the olive-colored jumpsuit, on a sofa in Al's pretty spacious apartment above his Meridian City Robo-Shack, mostly unused unless Al happened to hop by Polaris for oxy-sensitive parts needed at his main emporium, now a full city block in Metropolis. Being forced into cyborg-hood did wonders for his intergalactic reputation as a robotics genius, and he was becoming nouveau riche. Well, nouveau riche with the smarts to invest wisely, fairly low cost hobbies that were mostly fulfilled by work, a girlfriend who didn't care for expensive displays of affection, and enough humility to not wear his money on his sleeves. So, essentially, Al with a hefty savings account and a big enough heart to provide Clank free repairs for life- and beyond, depending who went out of commission first.
The apartment was certainly not intended for a stopover so he could have a jump-distance trip to see IRIS on occasion. (As mentioned, a girlfriend who didn't care for expensive displays of affection, check)
"Well, well," hummed the black-furred Cazar doctor as she clicked uncomfortably with her tongue, running some basic scans with her instrumentation, flinching her snout only slightly at 'Ratchet's' residual toad intestine smell, courtesy of one Lawrence robot and one Liquid Nitrogen gun, natch. "I'll be honest, Ratchet, I'm not seeing anything wrong," she said, as she ran through her scan outputs, as well as a manual check of his mouth and nose for potential allergens and residue, hoping for a better clue. "If I were to guess, it's extreme stress. We rely on you way too much around here. Rest, stick to dry food and water, and keep your stressors to a minimum." She shrugged and packed away everything. "And it isn't an ulcer, food poisoning, or anything of that nature, for certain, but if it persists more than three days, call me. Be glad I'm old enough to have worked on lombaxes before they vanished from this quadrant. You really should have a proper medical file with the Federation before doctors that know what to do with you start to retire. Your physiology is close enough to Cazar that someone inexperienced might suggest Cazar medicine, but different enough that some of those suggestions are actually toxic enough to kill you, especially nutrition needs."
Clank sat up slowly, blinked, and nodded, shuddering internally at the thought.
"Good. Just make sure to take some taurine pills if you can't keep down meat. You don't need to start going blind on top of this," she chided with a flick of her tail.
"Thanks," Clank replied, mouth dry with the thought of mortality, as she passed him a prescription slip.
"Don't give me that look, it's an easy fix," she said with a slight smile, and Clank couldn't help but ease up a little. "Taurine's normally over the counter, but a lombax of your size is going to need a dose they won't have off the shelf. Worst case and they can't fill it, get the pills for Cazar children and take one-and-a-half. Trying to split an adult pill to get the right dosage would be a nightmare."
"Why?"
"Your height and weight? Three-sevenths an adult pill. I wouldn't try it."
Clank thought to himself how easy that would be to measure and cut in his own body- perfectly able to gauge weight and composition, combined with the lasers in his fingertips.
He looked over at Ratchet, attempting to turn his hands into propellers, getting one stuck halfway between, lodged into the side of his own chassis.
He'd fill the prescription or get the child's pills, thanks.
The moment the doctor was out of the building, Clank glared at Ratchet, quickly realizing that glaring felt different when one only had upper eyelids.
"Really?" Clank asked dryly as he reached down to pick up Ratchet, feeling the hard metal in his fingers. Spatial awareness and the notion he was lifting and manipulating objects were old hat, but this was just plain weird.
"Okay, so your transforming stuff is new," Ratchet replied sheepishly, ducking his head. "I didn't exactly have helicopter blades as a Robo-Lombax."
Clank instinctually let out an irritated puff of air, recognizing it as a sigh, as he sat Ratchet down on the sofa next to him and attempted to detangle the propeller blades.
"That's smart," Ratchet said, smacking Clank away with the hand that wasn't twisted awkwardly into his side. "Wanna add bleeding to vomiting and potential blindness? 'Cause I don't. Don't waste the nanobots in my system on stupid stuff. I'll go downstairs and get a pro to do it," he added, in Clank's continual semi-monotone as he slid off the couch and clunked his way downstairs to the repair shop. "I'll get you those pills and something to eat when I'm done. Just chill for a bit, yeah?"
"But Ratchet-" Clank said, reaching out to chase after him as Ratchet reached the door.
"But nothing. I'm being selfish here, all right? I don't want my body back worse than I left it," Ratchet mocked, before closing the door. And you're already in enough pain, you giant turd, he thought to himself with all the respect someone gives gum stuck to their foot. "Go take a hot bath and go back to bed, tin can."
No sooner than the slam reverberated through the doorframe did it click back open again, Ratchet squinting sheepishly.
"I…. need to teach you how to use the bathroom, don't I?"
One major embarrassment later (not helping things along was that Clank was perfectly waist height to Ratchet- shudder) and Ratchet scurried back down the stairs. Enough movies, mindless action flicks though they were, and Clank had gotten good at reading others for acting- enough to realize that Ratchet, even in his own clunky square body, moved with quite a bit of fluidity. Catlike.
Reflexes from all their years as mercs were pretty ingrained in him.
Clank shucked off the jumpsuit and undergarments, and almost instinctually fluffed out his fur, tail swishing lazily behind, before turning on the bathroom taps. Clank took baths on occasion- in oil, for his joints. He'd been in water plenty of times too- salt and fresh, to swim, almost always on Ratchet's back. He'd been sprayed down before, mostly to free himself of collateral organs from exploded toads or ameboids. But this was the first time he'd felt gross, like something slimy was on his chassis- skin- and he needed to get it off.
Of course, the toad ooze that leaked into the suit may have been part of that.
Ratchet returned an hour and a half later to find Clank curled up like a yellow ball on the sofa in a pair of his work pants, his suitcase of clothes still open on the floor like a small fabric volcano, clutching a blanket that had probably covered him when he started sleeping. Now it was just bundled into a tighter ball in his arms like a stuffed animal.
And the snoring was War Grok levels of impressive. Ratchet was surprised he didn't hear it from the city block below.
This time, Ratchet stayed far out of kicking distance as he opened up the bag of sweet bread he'd bought from a bakery he'd always been meaning to try, and fanned his hand over towards Clank in the hopes off wafting over the aroma. He was upset he couldn't smell much of anything, but if they smelled half as good as they did the last time he'd passed then….
"whatisthat….?" Clank mumbled, twitching a giant ear as well as his nose, before being dragged along to the table by its scent like a zombie.
Vegetarian zombie wanted graaaaaaaiiiiiiiins…
Clank blinked twice, shook himself awake all the way down to a whipcrack in his tail, and sat at the kitchenette table.
"Bread. Water. Pills. They made you- me- gah, this is confusing- they made custom dosage, so one a meal, twice daily if you aren't eating meat. Skip if eating at least ¼ kilo of meat in 26 hours," Ratchet said, as he switched to heli-pack mode and flew himself up to the table to sit at eye level to Clank, passing him the bag of bread and a water bottle, and a second containing the white bottle of pills, unfortunately auto-printed in Lombax, about as useful to Ratchet as a toupee. "Told the guys below I had some of my processors scrambled, and asked for the manual. Think I got the hang of flying!" he added, swapping between the propellers and hands a few times for good measure.
"Naht bahd, baht I'm naht letting yah fly oos antil yah shaw me yah can sahmwhere sahfe," Clank replied in affirmative, cheek stuffed with a honey-roll. He'd forgive Ratchet's body for forcing his first taste of food to be so terrible, as this more than made up for it. He swallowed it down, and gulped down some water, which was cool and oddly devoid of flavor. Well, it was a coolant and solvent for robotkind the galaxy over, it made sense it had no taste. Using that sugar-water excuse for a beverage that Clank now understood why Ratchet liked so much would corrode most circuits.
"Yeah, sure, I'll practice by the docks so we just fall in the water," Ratchet said, as he rolled his eyelids. "Just don't go making me fat," he joked. "Or eat too fast. Don't need another upchuck, especially not on Al's furniture."
"I cannot make any promises," Clank shot back, before shoving another piece of bread in his face, marginally slower this time. .24 seconds slower, by Ratchet's insanely precise timing.
"Can't believe I'm saying this, but wait until you can have pie. I'm promising that, at least. No switching back until you've had pie, and that's an order from a sergeant of the Rangers," Ratchet commanded. It sounded so much more… official… with the Clank-sounding drone. "Anyway… about that… what do you think we should do?"
"Lawrence thinks the machine malfunctioned. I believe our best chance is to actually return next week and let them do the work for us- let them hit us again. Done."
"Yeah, but they'll just think the machine is busted again. I want to get in that control room and do some serious damage to it… after taking its specs."
"What would you even plan on doing with the specifications for such a device?"
"Uhhhh… medicine, for one. Nanotech can't fix everything, just surface wounds. There are still people stuck in wheelchairs, or with terrible disease…" Ratchet trailed off, realizing the implications.
"Diseases that would simply be passed off to someone else. It switches souls. It wouldn't even work to put someone in such a predicament into an unused robotic body as there is no soul to switch, present company notwithstanding due to extraneous circumstances," Clank said, pointing at his own chassis. "The Biobliterator is a much better option for those, is a reversible process as you have witnessed firsthand on multiple occasions, and is already actually offered in care. I heard Nefarious was furious when he found out it was saving lives, even after those who took it became robots, as it was not by his hand. So those with terminal diseases do not retain an organic form. They are not passing their disease off to another to live. And something like a lost limb is easily replaced. Al is proof of that, and he is doing his best to make sure as many organics as possible have access to quality, affordable limbs."
"Point," Ratchet replied, at a loss for a good reply or quip. He started to come up with something involving bemoaning a loss of taste, but if he had to choose taste or life, well, the choice was an easy one.
"Still doesn't change how we convince Bad Daytime TV and his valet that it's worked long enough for them to let their guard down to destroy the thing, though," Ratchet finally settled on adding. "I think I could act like a toad or whatever creature they settle on tossing in there with us, at least long enough. But how do we get it to do what we need? They'll probably overlook me me if they think the toad is me, especially if it acts coordinated somehow."
"I… I do think I have an idea."