/ Chapter 27 – Frank Plus Athena /

Frank shuffled into his apartment, his day at school finally finished. It had been a relatively good day, as school days went, but he was glad it was over. He even managed to talk to a few kids where it felt like a normal conversation. He was hoping that, at last, the novelty of his celebrity was finally wearing off to some degree. To be fair, he thought he put forth more effort now, since he was feeling very lonely without Athena's company. Now that she was gone, he realized how much space she had filled in his life, and he felt it was time to fill it with others – preferably human.

He still thought about her constantly, but it didn't feel quite as obsessive as it had been. He idly wondered what she was doing. Did she think about him at all? Did a machine like her even have idle thoughts? He supposed she had to have some; she used to call him as much as he called her.

I need to stop thinking about her, he told himself firmly. He sighed and walked to the kitchen, where he made himself a sandwich for a snack, then walked back to his T-Net terminal to start his homework. He sat down at the desk, feeling tempted to open a certain drawer that held a certain picture, but managed to resist. He also had the holo-recording that he'd made the day she admitted she was a machine. Some day he might view it, but that incident was still too fresh. He was eternally grateful that she'd turned off the recording when she did.

He'd just managed to push her out of his head once again to start his homework when he noticed a message on his T-Net terminal. It was from Caroline, which just irritated him. While he didn't feel back to normal in any way, he was at least able to get through the day. He really didn't need any outside reminders right now. He generated enough thoughts of Athena on his own, thank you very much.

On the other hand, technically Caroline was his adult guardian to live in Tomorrowland as a minor, though he had a lot of independence. It wasn't reasonable to expect that he could avoid all contact with her. It was entirely possible that it wasn't Athena related. He was tempted to put off the message until later, but finally he sighed and touched the message to open it up. As he read it, all of his prior thoughts were forgotten as a chill went down his spine.

Hello Frank,

I know that you and Athena aren't presently spending time together. But I felt that you may want to know that she was recently severely damaged during a recruiting mission. Don't worry; it's repairable – physically, at least. I shouldn't tell you this, but Athena occasionally performs very dangerous missions, sometimes in hostile places. This last mission was an extraction of an extremely important person to the future of Plus Ultra, and thus the world, and some very powerful people wanted to prevent her. She was successful but it was closer than it should have been, and she came quite near to dying.

Athena hasn't talked too much about how it affected her. I suspect she's still trying to process the incident; she's never had such a near-terrible outcome. I believe it would make her feel better if you were to visit. I know it might seem strange that an animatronic would enjoy visitors or that it would help her, but as we've discussed, her mind is very complex and sophisticated. And though you and she have had your problems, you're very special to her.

I will understand if you're not in a mental place to see her. But if you could, please visit her in my lab as soon as you can.

Love,

Caroline

Frank read through the letter several times. Suddenly a few things were making sense. He'd already figured out that her frequent absences in the past were due to recruiting trips that she'd called "research," but the fact that Athena might also do more hazardous "extraction" missions was new. There was no doubt Athena was extremely strong; the bar she'd bent in the lab to prove she was a machine wasn't a trivial piece of metal, and she bent it like it was nothing. She was vastly overpowered if her purpose was just to talk to people and sell them on Plus Ultra. But if part of her purpose was to handle dangerous people…

But while all this was interesting, what was really in his mind was that Athena almost died. His feelings were extremely tangled. He didn't want to see her anymore, but the idea that he might never see her again was a terrible thought. And he wasn't even sure what it meant for a machine to die, considering she wasn't alive in the first place. Or was Athena alive in some sense? He didn't know.

But what he did know was that he didn't care about any of these philosophical points. His friend, the best friend he'd ever had, needed him and that was all that mattered.

"Frank, I'm so pleased you came to visit," Caroline said delightedly. "Athena will be thrilled you're here. Let me go tell her; wait here for a moment."

Frank was still massively conflicted about being there, but ultimately he knew there was no other choice. The idea that Athena was severely damaged just tore at him and whatever had happened between them in the past, he had to at least see her.

Caroline came back in. "All right. I just wanted to make sure she was decent. You can go in, she's in that lab room over there."

Checking that she was 'decent' struck Frank as odd, considering Athena was a machine, but then, machine or not, Frank wouldn't necessarily want to walk in on her naked. This didn't make any sense, yet it made all the sense in the world. He decided to stop thinking about it.

He walked over and peeked around the room entrance, feeling shy considering how they last left each other. All those thoughts emptied out of his head, however, as he saw her lying on a work table, in pieces.

"Hello, Frank," Athena said, smiling. "I'm so happy you came to see me."

Frank slowly walked in. She was on a work bench, propped up at an angle so she could look around. Her main torso was in some sort of holder, covered by a sheet. But only her left arm was currently connected; her right arm and both legs were removed and laid out neatly on another work table. He could see her bare shoulders, and her right shoulder was currently opened up with what looked like interior damage in that section of her body.

"Are you okay?" he asked, appalled at the sight. And if he was really honest, he felt quite a bit of anger at whoever did this to her.

"Oh yes, I'm fine," she assured him. "It looks worse than it is. My mum had to take me apart to get at the damaged sections."

He felt very odd about the whole thing. On the one hand, this was really the first time he'd ever seen her unquestionably as a machine, hardware and all. But somehow his emotions didn't care about that. All he really saw was his friend, and his friend was – well, not in pain, exactly, but – in pieces. He walked over and, without even really thinking about it, took Athena's remaining hand and held it. She looked surprised, but smiled at the gesture, gripping his hand in return.

"Frank?" she started.

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you're seeing me as I really am," Athena said in a quiet voice. "I didn't like hiding my nature, you know. I just didn't know if you would accept it."

"I'm glad to see you as you really are, too."

"Would you tell me about what you've been working on lately?" she asked.

So Frank did, filling her in on what he'd been doing in school, and the improvements he'd been working on with his jetpack, and that he'd become very interested lately in quantum nuclear physics. He even thought physics might be an area he'd be interested in moving toward. Athena smiled the whole time, happily commenting here or asking questions there.

"Thank you for telling me, I greatly enjoy hearing about your progress," she said.

"Sure," he replied, having enjoyed telling her, though also feeling like he'd enjoyed it a little too much.

"Frank?"

"Yeah?"

"I want to try making a deliberate joke," Athena said. He could almost swear she looked nervous. "As you may have realized, along with not laughing, I also don't normally tell jokes, though sometimes I unintentionally say things humorous to humans. I don't completely understand how to construct humor. But just in case my joke comes out odd, I wanted to warn you."

"Okay," he said, smiling. "Shoot."

"Under other circumstances, I can imagine you would enjoy seeing me in pieces, since you once said you wanted to see my mum's lab and I'm her top project," she said, with a small smile.

He laughed, though he wasn't quite sure if it was at Athena's joke itself or just the sheer weirdness of her humor.

"It would be cool to see your parts, but yeah, not now," he said. "I just hope you don't want to see me disassembled at any point."

"While that would be fascinating," she said seriously, "Humans are not disassembled as easily as animatronics and I would be worried you could suffer permanent damage or even death."

Frank laughed again. Now that was the quirky Athena humor he knew.

She sighed. "As usual, my unintentional humor is more successful than my intentional."

"Well, unintentional or not, you're very funny sometimes."

"Thank you – I think," Athena said. "I added 'I think' as a joke. It's a common humor trope to add 'I think' as though I believed it was a compliment, yet wasn't sure if it was a subtle insult."

"Sometimes explaining the joke kind of kills it," he said with a grin.

"I'll keep that in mind," she said, nodding her head seriously.

They were quiet for a few moments, Frank still holding Athena's hand, realizing how much he missed her, yet still feeling huge misgivings under the surface. He was so tempted to go back to the way it was, but he just couldn't, for all the reasons he already knew.

Athena noticed him becoming more reserved. "It's all right, Frank," she said quietly. "I know things aren't the same. I don't want to emotionally hurt you again."

"You know that when I say I can't be around you… it's not because I don't like you, right? It's because I… I like you too much. I know that doesn't sound like it makes sense."

Athena nodded, then paused. She spoke very seriously. "Thank you for coming to see me. This may not make any sense to you, either, but also – thank you for holding my hand. It stimulates memories in me of our time together and that has calmed me mentally. There is a lot you don't know about my background and mission in Plus Ultra, but you know that I'm physically superior to humans. You don't know just how superior I am. Even in dangerous recruiting extraction missions, it's rare that I can't easily handle things, since they're at human reaction speeds. This most recent mission is the first one where there was a significant possibility I might've ceased operation. I have mental states that roughly correspond to many human emotional states. The most basic and easiest to understand of the human emotions is fear, which clearly maps to my internal states. This was the first time I'd faced fear of death and it was quite upsetting. Most, though not all, humans treat me as a 'mere machine,' as though my life matters little to them. But it matters to me. And it helps me to know that, at least in the past, I had a friend like you that cared about me. Cared about me not only as a conscious being, but specifically me."

Frank felt himself choking up. "I still care," he said, squeezing her hand, not trusting himself to say anything else lest he start crying right there.

"I know that now," she said, smiling.

Athena looked past Frank and spoke in a louder voice. "And I see my mum is here. My empathy interface tells me that she is currently feeling conflicted. She's impatient to start working on me, yet is also touched that we are speaking and holding hands and doesn't want to disturb that."

He spun around and blushed, seeing Caroline at the door.

"Show off!" Caroline said in mock annoyance, but then started laughing. "I suppose if I didn't want you reading me like a book, I shouldn't have made your empathy so effective. It's my own fault."

Frank laughed at this as well and released Athena's hand after giving it a final squeeze. "Well, I'm all in favor of you being put back together. It's disturbing seeing you spread across the lab."

Caroline walked over and grinned at him. She picked up Athena's detached right arm and shook it at him. "What, this? It's just an audio-animatronic arm. I thought you liked engineering."

Frank rolled his eyes. "I think I know where Athena got her weird sense of humor, even if she claims it's unintentional."

"It could be worse. I could remove her head to work on that shoulder," Caroline said.

"But then I couldn't see!" Athena said, very annoyed.

"Well, I didn't, did I? Besides, you'd at least be able to hear with your secondary auditory pickups. On the other hand, your voice does sound all wonky just coming out the neck without your throat and mouth."

Frank laughed at the weird conversation. "Well, I guess I know where your brain isn't."

But then a very weird thought of his own entered his mind, as he looked at Athena. He paused, embarrassed at what he was thinking and what he was sort of curious about…

Athena cocked her head and looked at him with interest. "I believe Frank is currently feeling that he would very much like to see my parts and construction," she commented. "But he's too embarrassed to say so. I would speculate that he believes it would be improper under the circumstances. However, I wouldn't mind at all; in fact, I would enjoy having him here. This is a rare opportunity for him."

Caroline's grin transformed into a smirk. Frank glared at Athena. "I agree with your mom; you are annoyingly perceptive."

"It's refreshing not having to hide my nature any longer," Athena noted.

"Well, Frank, pull up a stool, if you like," Caroline said, gesturing near her and Athena. "You can be the surgeon's assistant. Let's see if all the king's tools and all the king's engineers can put my daughter Athena back together again!"

Author's Note: Thanks for reading my story! I hope you enjoyed it. If you want more details, be sure and read the afterword in the next chapter. I also added another little extra chapter with my analysis of the movie, what went right and where it went wrong. And of course, leaving a review about my story would be a greatly appreciated. :)

For those not familiar with Mother Goose (such as non-native English speakers), the last line is a reference to Humpy Dumpty, who traditionally is a large anthropomorphic egg who falls off a wall and breaks. The rhyme goes:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses, and all the king's men,
Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again!

(The purpose of the horses is to lift Humpty Dumpty using ropes and pulleys).

The official story site is at www. frankandathena .com for discussions of the story! - T.K.