WHERE: Sector-07 outskirts. OPEN TO: Anyone and everyone.
[ HE CAN’T SMELL… ]
That part of him–delicate, once–was scorched beyond function years ago. A dull click, a high whine, and then nothing, overwhelmed by the stench of irradiated waste left to rot in noonday sun, his olfactory node had curled in on itself like a dying insect. The circuits blackened. No replacement would take. He’d tried many, soldering module after module into the circuit that controlled his senses.
If he could smell…
It would be rot. Rotting meat long-soaked in something flammable, like the breath of drunken roadkill caught in an engine too stubborn to die. The bike’s lungs suck in more than they should, gulping in greedy, desperate mouthfuls of fuel. In its stomach–the manifold–gasoline pools thick and hot. Pistons seize on air too dense to swallow, drown in it, the engine chokes.
Chrom’s optics flicker, radiant blue, narrowed... Like eyes wrinkled in a harmonious blend of sorrow and frustration. He turns the key again. The starter whimpers. Something sharp shrieks, kissing metal on metal, piston rings gnashing. Fuel weeps past the valve seat, drips down into the chamber. Bile, bleeding into an ulcerated gut.
With a static-wrought groan, Chrom sits cross-legged beside the bike. His proximity sensors buzz to life, however, and his head twists around like an owl.
“Oh!” he chirps, the noise crackling a little, digital and textured but endlessly bright and hopeful, “Did you need something fixed? I.. I can take a break and help… Pleasepleaseplease give me a reason to take a break…” The screen on his pauldron hums to life, golden LCD projecting a rolling marquee…
[ ｡°(°.◜ᯅ◝°)°｡ ]
