Mark snorts and sharply turns away, marching to the elevator. He has to circle around Miss Masher to get there, and she pivots in place to keep her eye on him while he does so.

As she is tracking Mark’s path; when her gaze passes Lucas he covertly points at her and gives a thumbs up, then gently pats his chest in solidarity. Even though he can’t see her smile directly, her eyes visibly crinkle a bit from it, and she gives a small nod in acknowledgment and appreciation.

Mark hits the elevator’s downward call button before turning back to look at Miss Calculated once more.

“Even if you’re right, that was unacceptable. I expect an apology once you’ve calmed yourself. ...But, I will look into it.” Mark huffs after saying this, turning to impatiently stare at the oncoming elevator light with his arms crossed once again.

A service bot carrying a small box walks out from a side hallway, navigating through the random junk. It approaches the pile of bot bits, and carefully empties its box’s contents on top of it. Out of it tumbles; an intact pincer hand attached to a severed telescopic arm, two burnt-out fuses, and a metallic sphere with numerous cables running out of it. For three of the cables sticking out of the sphere, the outer protective sheath of it is damaged in multiple places, exposing the braided shielding for the wiring beneath it.

When Mark walked away, Miss Calculated had taken her glasses off with one hand, rubbing the bridge of her nose with the other, all while taking a few calming breaths in an effort to compose herself. Hearing the service bot’s actions had piqued her curiosity too much for her to ignore, leading to her putting her glasses back on again and taking a look.

Upon sighting the mini mechanical beholder-wannabe, she gasps and immediately heads over to pick it up. Gently carrying it with both hands, she takes a few steps towards Mark before stopping again and clearing her throat.

“Mark, you’re right. That was untoward of me to lash out at you, doubly so as you are, in fact, the real victim. I apologize. If you will accept it, as penance I will strive to do my best to aid you with some form of revenge on the individuals responsible. If you would take a look, here is, in fact, a piece of proof for my initial hypothesis.” As Miss Calculated is winding up her apology, Mark is still in a sulky state.

However, upon the mentioning of exacting revenge, super intelligence style; he uncrosses his arms and gains a dangerous smile. Thanks to his mask, he manages to still maintain a haughty air, despite his vicious anticipation being writ upon his face.

Now that his spirits are lifted, he turns to look at Miss Calculated once again, his attention quickly shifting to the device in her outstretched hands.

“Well, I suppose that will just have to do. That’s a core, isn’t it? What about it? It’s obviously damaged.” Upon arrogantly accepting the apology, Mark is immediately curious about what’s special about this core, losing all of his imposing air.

Miss Calculated rotates it in her hand, showing it off at various angles. Apart from a few shallow scratches that merely constitute cosmetic concerns, the PVC sheathing on the cables is the only thing legitimately damaged.

“Right. This is a standard-issue basic core for a few lines, the first of which was the WE8371. They were popular for quite a while, as they were introduced with a newly designed slimmer and cheaper to manufacture chassis. However, that design had a drawback, being smaller meant that in order to mount everything properly inside, you needed to work with forceps to get it all positioned correctly.” Miss Calculated shakes the core a few times while talking about it, ensuring there is nothing loose inside that would rattle around, which would have indicated more damage than she initially assumed.

The elevator arrives, but everyone ignores it. Instead, Miss Calculated continues her explanation.

“However, you could mount it by hand in a different, easier-to-access location, but there were multiple spots where internal moving parts would then contact these three cables in these exact spots, slowly eroding them. Once it became a known issue, anyone worth their salt sucked it up and mounted them properly. Also, there was an update for bots to self-diagnose when there is any direct contact with the shielding underneath for any of their internal components.” After Miss Calculated finishes saying this, Mark’s blank look makes it clear that he doesn’t see how this is all that relevant. Realizing this, Miss Calculated quickly clears her throat and then elaborates further.

“So, this is a several-thousand dollar piece of hardware. It is essentially their brain, and now that we’re aware of the extent of their machine learning capabilities, we get to enjoy that moral issue as well. Anyway, when replacing them, apart from the physical task of removing the old and mounting the new, you need to; do firmware updates on the new one, calibrate a few settings based on what type of unit it is in and what their job will be, stress test it, and debug it.” While Miss Calculated is explaining, Miss Chievous and Miss Masher have completely lost interest, wandering back over to play with George again, as Mark is clearly behaving.

Lucas is, unsurprisingly, right there with them. He even found a bucket to serve as a hat for George.

Miss Calculated pays them no mind, continuing her lecture.

“Once everything is up and running, that bot then has to undergo training to establish the foundations for its machine learning with the aid of another bot before it’s really functional, as it is effectively a newborn baby that has no idea how to even use its own hands, let alone walk. So, an involved and time-consuming process wherein not only is that bot not operational, it even needs to tie up another one, too, while it’s at it, correct?” When Miss Calculated ends with a question, Mark nods in response reflexively while humming out an agreement.

His brows are furrowed, though, as he’s still not entirely sure what the point of all this leadup is.

“Well, when mounted correctly, nothing should be contacting it any longer. A five-dollar roll of electrical tape is sufficient to make it operational again, and arguably you don’t even need to put the tape on, either. OR, they can charge you for a whole new core, bill you for all the time involved, which is largely hands-off, lazily mount it incorrectly again, and repeat the process when the next one wears out. The bot itself reports when it’s an issue, the randomized erosion is staggered enough you don’t notice a regular trend, and since it’s a valid sounding reason, you are unlikely to question whether it’s actually a necessity.” When Miss Calculated gets this far, Mark’s expression sinks.

“Oh, and they’d also get to enjoy the extra fees for the ‘emergency repair’ call when you need them to do it. Most likely, they just yank the old core out, halfheartedly jam the new one in, probably don’t even bother with updates, do the default settings for a basic model bot, let it run a minimal amount of testing while they’re on their phone, make one of your functioning bots do the training, and then just call it a day.” After Miss Calculated gets this far, Mark brings a hand up to rub his face, but she’s not done yet.

“All of that for an outrageous bill, which should have only been a few minutes of effort to remount it correctly. A few dollars at most. Honestly, they shouldn’t even charge you for it at all. If they were reputable, they would have just done it as a courtesy during regular maintenance, since it was their laziness that was causing the problem in the first place. ...I’m probably going to have to remount every single one of your bot’s cores, aren’t I?” Coming to that final conclusion, Miss Calculated hangs her head and sighs.

She’ll be needing a lot of caffeine. So many things to do, with nowhere near enough time.

-----

Lucas’s total kills: 7

Lucas’s total deaths: 11

Lucas’s total assists: 1

Lucas’s current GDV: 17.38

Lucas’s fame level: 6.0* (Local fame is completely maxed, he’s creeping up on minor celebrity status even on a global scale. Thanks, internet.)

Lucas's hero suspicion level: 2.0*

Jonathan’s total kills: 7

Jonathan’s total deaths: 2

Jonathan’s current GDV: 6.07

Jonathan's fame level: 4.0* (Local fame is near-max, but everyone thinks of him via his affiliation with Lucas, and not often just for him, alone.)

Jonathan's hero suspicion level: 2.5*

Willy's fame level: 4.5* (With how popular he’s become, it’s only a matter of time before people start realizing just how smart he is.)

Mr. Quacks’s fame level: 5.0* (His local and global fame are nearly even, he’s a full-blown internet sensation.)

Supervillain social circle size: 15

-----

Little character theater:

Jonathan, eyeing the empty elevator: ‘Would they notice if I left now? Oh, wait, I actually already have an excuse to go, I should just wait until I can actually get a chance to speak.’

Willy is happily sniffing around the bot bit bank, in a good mood now that everything seems to be okay, and finds something interesting: Bark!

Lucas, adjusting George’s bucket-hat: Hmm, should the handle be a chin strap, or just hanging in the back?

427, not even remotely surprised that Lucas lost interest in the techspeak: [You know, I’m a bit surprised that you made a point of letting the sisterhood know that you chose their side, even though it wasn’t actually necessary. Well, I suppose there is no harm done, since Mark isn’t aware.]

Author, tugging the bucket down and pulling the handle under George’s head: Obviously, it’s a chinstrap. Hey, you should poke holes in it so he can see!

Mr. Quacks, wandering around in pursuit of anything interesting among the discordant disaster that is this floor: Quack..?