A Helping Hand
Featuring Walter Guy Andy by thedarklordemma
(Forewarning: Violence, some of this sounds sorta noncon so if you’re triggered by that, I wouldn’t recommend this fic.)
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Gamma balanced a large stack of books precariously in her arms as she used her toe to push the button for the elevator. The Walter Library was massive, and without the upgrades that other robots received, she could only read and obtain. And so, these books would have a new home in her stasis chamber, keeping her awake at night as the Matter Mistress would watch and study her. She knew she was observing from that two way mirror, but she didn’t care, one insomniac to another. They both needed something to do.
She couldn’t see over her armfuls but she heard the DING as the elevator arrived and waited for the shuffle of doors before walking carefully inside, books teetering. She side-eyed the number pad before using her toe again to push the button on the level of her room, blessing her mechanical balance. The doors shut and the elevator made her boiler slosh as it descended.
It stopped, and she glanced at the floor number, since it was much too soon for her level. The door shuffled open and someone pushed a button, unable to see who until a Walter Worker stood next to her. She froze, looking at them in surprise, before sharply looking at the spines of her books. The intern seemed unperturbed by her presence as the elevator continued, the strange feeling coming not just from her boiler now as she grew concerned.
That or I’m just paranoid, she scoffed. But when had she been wrong? She shifted a little away from them and the elevator jerked to a stop.
As the doors dinged the Walter Guy grabbed her by the large gear on her neck, paralysing her mechanical spine. She bent over, dropping her books and waving about her arms to fight him off, but three other workers pulled them out of the elevator, her books scattered everywhere making her trip. Her hat was knocked off her head as they dragged her down the laboratory hall, two pinning her arms, but it was hardly much use. She kicked and wailed as loud as her vocoder would go but they merely forced her into an empty lab, dragged about like a kitten at the scruff of her neck.
"Pin her down!" The Walter Guy at her neck demanded, and she was forced onto a lab table. They jammed the gear with some wire cutters, nearly being flung about in the process.
"Now we can finally find out what’s wrong with you, you crazy piece of scrap!" The other worker shouted, and she looked at them with wide, terrified eyes. They couldn’t do that, Mr. Walter promised! He promised she’d be safe, that she could have her secrets! No, no, no! She wouldn’t be dismantled, not like this, not now!
The sound of whirring mechanics filled the air and she threw one of them with a hiss of hydraulics. Her body began to heat up with the strain, steam shooting from her vents and sounding like a kettle. The others locked down her legs, but her arms moved too much, and after the member of their party had been tossed like a ragdoll they were sure to be more careful.
They grabbed clamps from the workbench and tightened them around her wrists, forcing out a wail of pain as the metal crunched a bit beneath the teeth, arms pulled wide. She could feel her green matter crystallising as one of her captors took the opportunity to reach inside her head and start to pull out her filters, which glowed brightly in the dim room.
"Time to figure out what makes you tick," the Walter Guy threatened, slicing off the Walter Robotics jacket she always wore as she began to cry. The other employees watched, holding her shoulders back as he picked up a large power tool to strip the screws right off her chassis.
Out in the hall, a young Walter Guy trotted down the stairs, sent to figure out why the elevator wasn’t working. He heard it ding over and over as the doors tried to close but were blocked by a book. Picking it up, Andy looked confused by the mess, noticing an old hat on the ground. His ears perked when he heard a shrieking vocoder screech, bolting into a run down the hall. Stopping at the source, he burst into the lab, seeing Gamma shrieking and crying as her bolts were removed one by one from her loosening chest plate. They were on the last few now, the decorative metal hanging on by a thread. Andy snapped out of it and rushed towards them.
"What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” He shouted, shoving the drill-bearer out of the way.
"Protecting ourselves!" The other yelled right back once he recovered his footing.
"This thing could be a walking bomb for all we know! Haven’t you seen her glitch? Look at Jack over there, he’s out cold!" The Walter Girl messing with Gamma’s head feed pointed to the Walter Guy she’d thrown.
"Maybe if you didn’t attack her she wouldn’t have thrown him?!" Andy insisted, going to Gamma’s side to try and pull out the clippers in her clockwork. The one with the drill grabbed his wrist to stop him.
"You’re about to make a very big mistake." He threatened, fingers tight around a metal wrist.
"You already did." Andy’s face darkened and he used the strength in his robotic arm to push the guy off, knocking him back and tripping over his fallen comrade. "Anybody else have a problem?!" He turned to the other two employees, who put their hands up and backed away slowly as the silver metal glinted in the single lab light.
He quickly went to the button on the wall that calls QWERTY and when the screened AI arrived and made a large 8O Andy began undoing the clamps upon her arms, Gamma gently crying, limp against the metal slab as steam leaked from her nose.
"QWERTY get Six please, and the Matter Masters, we have a situation in lab 7." He informed as he snapped the wire clippers and tugged them out of her neck, shoving the loosened cog back into place, eliciting a pained gasp before freeing the trapped gynoid. QWERTY sent the message as Andy twisted the clamps from her dented, broken chassis, releasing the ankle cuffs as well. Stumbling down from the table’s foothold, she found a lab coat was draped around her shoulders suddenly by mismatched hands and she gripped it around her ruined mechanics, chest plate still hanging loosely, held into place by damaged hands.
She kept running through her mind what she could’ve done differently to prevent what had happened, eyes misty and glistening. She could’ve been upgraded, she could’ve gotten less books, covered up her gear, she could’ve invited Bumble, but she didn’t, none of it! Why didn’t she?! A broken sob crackled through her vocoder, steam rolling out of her head to ease her pressure build up, but it did nothing to ease her pain.
She flinched slightly when Andy touched her arm gently, metal on metal. Her eyes flickered to him and then away, her bellows nearly popped from her screaming and her boiler nearly empty now, she was too weak to resist. She shakily reached up and used bent fingers to quietly drape her filtration tubes back into her head.
As the other three Walter Workers kept their eyes and hands to themselves he could see one of the Guys get fidgety, and in a split second he ran, but Andy was too quick and snatched him from the edge of his uniform.
"Don’t even think about it!" He scowled and shoved him to sit with his buddies, before glaring at the Walter Girl. "You too, over there." She joined them and sat down, Andy turning to Gamma who’s eyes stayed on the floor. “Are… Are you alright? Is there anything I can do?” He hated feeling helpless, frowning when she shook her head, the coat draped tightly around her shoulders, cinched shut by quivering, nervous fingers.
"I-I’m f-fine, I’ll-I’ll b-b-be oka-kay…" She muttered, vocoder gravelly and sounding badly damaged. He didn’t insist any further and there was an uncomfortable silence until the Masters and Six arrived, looking surprised at the scene before them.
"What happened here?!" Six exclaimed, looking at two of the Walter Workers helping their semiconscious friend to sit up. Gamma made a sound like a quiet, gravelly whimper, static in her voice and Andy spoke up for her.
"These guys attacked Gamma in the elevator, I’m guessing and hauled her in here to," he paused, "dissect her, I think.” Matter Mistress Bunny shot silent angry daggers at the four who had disobeyed her orders, and they cringed, not knowing if she could send actual invisible mime daggers at them as well. Matter Master David hauled them all to their feet somewhat angrily, causing Gamma to be a little startled and turn away. Mistress Bunny walked to them and made Matter cuffs to keep them all in line, a little chain gang of magic, and they all winced, and you could tell she was giving them a hell of a talking to with her telepathy.
"Get her out of here, kiddo. Patch her up." Six told Andy, "We’ll deal with these guys."
"Six, please! Trust us, she’s gonna hurt someone! Find out how she works!" One of the Workers pleaded with him. "Please, let us do this!" Six turned to them and stalked up to them, Andy had never seen him mad, nothing like this, even Master David and Mistress Bunny paused to watch.
"You made me break a promise." Six spoke sharply, the worker forced to gaze deeply into the keyhole mask as he towered over them. "I do not break my promises. Especially not pinky ones. And that is unacceptable.” He looked at the Matter Masters and they forced the Workers into a walk, leading them out of the laboratory.
"Take her to a different lab," Six told Andy, turning back to them. "I don’t think she wants to stay here any longer than she has to." He bends down and picks up the scraps of her favourite jacket, rubbing a thumb over the patch with his company’s logo. "You’re lookin’ a little green around the gills." He said gently, bending down a bit, and she looked at him. "I’ll get you another one. I promise." He tore off the patch and handed it to her, before leaving, gesturing for QWERTY to follow him.
Andy stepped to Gamma’s side to follow orders, holding out his arms to give her warning of his touch before gently wrapping an arm around her, resting his hands against her shoulders and guiding her to a different room, switching on the lights. Instead of the table, he sat her on a chair and she kept her eyes down. He quietly rolled over a toolbox, kneeling in front of her.
"Can you hold up the plate please?" He spoke quietly to her, pulling out a box of nuts and bolts, some washers and tools. She shrugged off the lab coat and pressed the metal into place, letting him feed the bolts through and he screwed them on gently. He then picked up her hands, looking at the crunched up wrists, bent and crushed finger joints where the old, thin metal was fought and held.
"I was m-more durable when I was younger…" She said quietly, not meeting his eyes, her voice, with its static, making her sound old and sad. "I’m not meant for fighting any-ymore." He tried his best to smooth out the metal and fix the tiny screws and joints as her limb shook with her voice, "I-if I’d b-b-been upgraded I-I could’ve…"
"What you could’ve done doesn’t matter," He silenced her, "It wasn’t your fault. You’re safe now." She didn’t meet his eyes and he pursed his lips, lifting her chin to look at him, "Hey." She met his eyes, "They won’t let it happen again." She paused, looking at him before nodding quietly, her cores going into cool-down. He finished doing his little repairs upon her hands and she looked not-quite-new, but good enough to pass. He packed up the toolbox and put it away as she slipped on the lab coat and stood up.
"Th-thank you…" Gamma glitched out softly, looking at him but not directly. She raised her hands as if to hug him, but changed her mind, looking as if to shake his hand before giving up.
He smiled slightly at her indecision, and went over to her gently placing his metal hand on her arm, “It’s okay.” She nodded, and put her hands in her pockets, before shuffling to the door. She paused, vocoder making a strange sound. Turning back, she looked insecure.
"Can… Can y-y-you walk me to my room?" She asked, and he smiled and nodded, going to the door and leading her down the hall. Bending down, he picked up her hat from the floor, brushing it off and putting it on her head.
"There. Much better." She smiled weakly at him as he pressed the button to the elevator, the doors opening with a ‘ding!’