Dorothy let her vision drag over the the state of this other mansion she had once considered home. Now as well, she supposed somewhat mournfully. Her vocabulary would have to be updated.

The 'reset' had returned it to the time just after Dr. Wayneright had died. Big Venus, the mechanical god that seemed to be able to return the world of Paradigm to it's natural fugue state, had left the key players untouched, but the rest of the world had been returned, untouched by the destructive hands of the Bigs...and the Paradigm corporation as well. Rosewater's grimy fingerprints had been wiped clean from every inch of this house she had first 'awoken' to. Furniture still drawn back for her father… no, creator (for the thought of 'father' brought back painful data points), his notes and scribblings still openly sitting on an entrance table. If the reset had been set to a day earlier, or even a few hours, would he still be sitting in his armchair, scolding her for not heeding his warnings and making sure she was alright. A small, negative subprogram hypothesized that had been purposeful on the part of 'Big Venus'.

Perhaps it was fitting punishment for the android who'd dared to try and be level with man.

The reminders of the elderly man throughout the house made the loss filed in her databanks more prominent. If she had the understanding of the nuances of her emotional programing, she would describe it as an ache, shaking in her wires and circuits to an unknown core. But there was no one to help her understand. Not anymore.

She'd had a choice, of course; to return to the life she'd known for the past year. Big Venus- or at least, Angel- had seen to that. When Rog-...when her former benefactor/employer had made it clear her presence as a servant was no longer required, and her contract fulfilled, she knew that if she were to stay, she would be seen as nothing more than an unwanted burden. Seeing her laid bare at the hands of madmen had undoubtedly left the man convinced of her machine core, and she had no wish to return to the days of chastisement for 'mimicry' and 'pretending'.

Dorothy did the only thing she knew that had helped, when she had felt like this before, when she had dealt with her 'father's death the first time, and the loss of Pero. She threw her full processing power into cleaning the house of Wayneright, determined to reclaim even a little of lives she'd lost, both on that fateful night at the Nightingale and this morning, when she'd walked out the Smith household for the last time.

The drawing room had come first, filing her father's scribbles in his desk, cleaning floors and dusting all the surfaces. Dr. Wayneright had never wanted her to be a common household android for cooking and cleaning, but she had adapted quickly to her role at Smith mansion (if she didn't process their names, she could handle it-AngelNormanRogerRogerRoger brought back the painful ache to her memory circuits). When she was done, she found herself giving into an unknown temptation subroutine to remove the painting of the original Dorothy- the real girl she was supposed to have become- and placed it wrapped in newspaper in the back coat closet. A human gesture, but there was no one to complain of her 'imitating humans'. She would indulge the subprogram. The piano remained, its warm rosewood different enough for her to stand, but closed and locked, untouched.

Slowly, she moved through the house, filing each into her new life program as she cleaned. She stopped only to engage sleep for a few cycles and to eat the non-perishables still left in the pantry. Her limited taste sensors didn't mind the blandness, and the fuel staved offed concerns on income for quite a while yet. There was even a good store of high quality fuel in the coal shed attached to the kitchen. A stray line of reasoning suggested Dr. Wayneright had planned for the day she would be left alone like this, but she dismissed it quickly when it had suggested those results.

The laboratory fortress proved the greatest challenge of all. While the doors could be opened with her strength just by depressing the handles, she discovered Dr. Wayneright had used the nightingale's key to open them instead. She had found it in his desk, as she had been arranging papers, and later had recognised the shape as she made her way up to the imposing doors. She had to block the memory files of where the other copy of the key had been left, covered in snow to rust.

As she made her way through the mess of the scientist's half finished work, she recognized much of her own designs in the blueprints he'd been tinkering on. At first, she simply filed them away, well aware of each bolt and screw that made her different from a human. Further along, as she came upon his newer notes, she found the equations and designs catching her eyes more and more.

It should not have been a shock that her creator had planned more updates for her model, to better mimic the human mind and body. She noted that quite a few were almost finished, and explained various open ports and gaps in her subroutines that she had noted in her diagnostics. There were even scribbled information about her current state that she'd never known, sensors she had built with that had never been brought online.

She was mostly unfazed that she could follow her father's lines of thought so easily, understanding the diagrams and notations of each possible adjustment. She'd even started to continue the notations the doctor had left, correcting a decimal there and extrapolating an answer here. Part of her surmised her expertise in such matters were due, in fact, to her own mechanical nature. Another wondered if such pursuits had interested the girl she had been modelled after. Perhaps… perhaps she could, in time, continue some of these designs. She...well, it was, after all, Dr. Wayneright's legacy.

In theory, such a task would seem easy enough- following plans and diagrams is something androids had been doing since their inception. In practice, however, she knew that many of the working required quick thinking and improvisation and years of skill. If she truly knew emotions, she suspected she would observe her own hesitation as fear. It would take more than mere interest in Wayneright's work to spur her to act.

Such an event, however, came unbidden to her door a week into her return to the residence. She'd been carefully rewriting the late doctor's notes on touch and sensation when the doorbell sputtered, then clanged to life.

Who would be interested in the occupants of this house. Part of her worried that Paradigm had come to collect her and the secrets housed here, even though she suspected that Alex had abandoned his hopes of building his own Big after his own fall from grace. Beck was still locked away in prison, his dirty hands unable to reach her. Perhaps… no, the possibility of the negotiator (RogerRogerRaaaaaaaaw-geeeer) looking for her were almost 130,3075 to one. She was best to open the door and correct whoever was there that they had the wrong house.

She had not postulated, however, that her visitors would have been looking for Dr. Wayneright, so the harried man carrying an android in several pieces took a moment to register, even for Dorothy. "Hello, I believe you have the wrong address…" She paused, noting the pained look on the man's face, and the alarming injuries to the other android, "...are you in distress? Shall I call the Military Police for you?"

The man, probably in his 40s, looked at her in shock, before turning his head back and forth. "Oh, miss, I'm sorry! I was just looking for the robot engineer Dr. Wayneright, since Robbie here got run over-"

"Dr. Wayneright is dead." Her voice was flat, unfeeling, her own grief buried in her memory core. It was easier to say than accept, sometimes.

The man in front of her seemed to have enough emotion for the both of them, however. "What? Damn it! He was the only one who knew how to fix Robbie last time, and I can't take him to those quacks in the upper domes, they'll just dismantle him for parts… Oh, man, what am I going to-"

The man kept blabbering, but Dorothy was more interested in his robotic companion. The damage, while extensive, were relatively easily repaired with the tools up at the laboratory above. And the connections needed were similar to the repairs she'd often done in repairing the black megadeuce. "I can fix him."

"...and I'm just too old to do this alone- wait, what?" The man opened his mouth, shut it again, then blinked at her.

"I can repair your companion here. If you leave him here for the next 24 hours, I should be able to complete all the repairs necessary to keep restore him to functionality."

"You can?" The words seem to take several minutes to register in the man's mind. "Really? You really think so? That's wonderful! Were you….uh… Dr. Wayneright's apprentice or something?"

Her face betrayed no emotion. "Something like that."

The man handed her the pieces, delicately, as if each one was worth its weight in gold…. which was quite possible, in an age where the knowledge of true android creation was lost 40 years ago… or perhaps, a mere reset ago.

The worker android (Robbie, his companion had called him… and humans complained that androids had no imagination) could move somewhat with support. So with care, Dorothy got him to the lab with little incident.

She helped him to the operating table, arranging the pieces around Robbie to match where they would need to be reconnected. She wheeled over the torch, wire and toolkit, then sat down to work.

She managed to work faster than she had expected to - much of Robbie's damage was simply the need to reconnect this with that, and not need to actually rebuild the more intricate servos that worked his hands and feet. She regretted not taking down the man's number, to amend her original estimation of the time required.

With one last weld, Dorothy stepped back, flipped back the eye protectors (her eyes may be more accurate and sturdy than a human's, but overexposure could damage even her optic receptors), and admired her work. "Robbie, can you move your left arm for me, 40 degrees up, then each of your digits individually?"

The android did that and more, flexing the arm and examining her work up close. He seemed to approve. With both his fixed hands, he grasped hers in thanks.

Dorothy smiled, glad she had been able to give the android a second chance, like her father would have no doubt done. She was surprised when Robbie then made a series of noises that sounded like an attempt at speech. "Robbie, was there damage done your vocal output?" He nodded, almost ...sad, she postulated (in a voice that sounded suspiciously like a man she needed to forget). "Show me where."

He put her hand just under the left side of his metal jaw bone. Although she saw no external damage, she had little doubt that the android was correct in tracing the damage to the space indicated.

This was much more delicate work than she had planned for, but she knew that she owed it to this android, herself and her father to at least attempt at restoring the vocal functions. Such outputs were vital to alert companions and owners on the needs and issues of their function.

"Robbie, I cannot be completely positive that I can repair such damage, but I will try. In order to do so, I will need you to suspend your functions momentarily to get a better look. I will bring you online as soon as I can." Staying offline for long was an ingrained terror for all androids- if there was no one to 'wake' them, they were, effectively, dead.

Carefully, Dorothy removed the outer facial shell to lay bare the intricate workings of the neck and jaw. The connections seemed to be in order…. but the circuit board looked slightly corroded. Gently, she scraped the corrosion away, before noting the missing solder nodes and a single long crack along the board itself. Such work required an incredibly steady hand and attention to detail.

Luckily, Dorothy had both.

If not for own internal chronometer device, she would have been convinced the entire process took a hundred cycles. But in reality, it was a mere few hours between diagnosis to completion. She let out a quick burst of machine code, and relaxed as Robbie came back online.

"Testing, testing...oh, my word, it is good to speak again! Doctor, I cannot thank you enough!"

"You are welcome, however, I am not a doctor. That was my father." Dorothy did not look up from the toolbox as she put away the more intricate tools with care.

Robbie cocked his head at her, in a quizzical guesture. "But Simon had been looking for a Doctor Wayneright, who had fixed me before."

"Doctor Wayneright was my creator. I am just an android, like yourself."

Robbie shook his head and shifted up into a sitting position. "I have been active for the last forty years, and never encountered an android with the skills to work and repair others to level you have just demonstrated. Doctors are those who heal others, yes? Then I stand my original designation for your, Dr. Wayneright."

Dorothy considered this as the doorbell rang at the front door many floors below. Robbie's companion, Simon, had returned. After spending a moment to watch Robbie walk and move about on his own, Simon grinned, apparently impressed with her work. "Miss, he looks as good as new! Robbie, I thought you were a goner!"

"I thought I might be in danger as well, Simon."

The older man looked at the android in utter disbelief. "Robbie…. you can talk?!"

Robbie nodded. "The good doctor here was able to fix my vocal circuits. It is a...joy to be able to speak after 20 years of silence."

Dorothy turned to the other android. She had suspected that the corroded circuits were older than his most recent damage, but 20 years?

"Nobody's been able to fix that, even those quacks at Paradigm! Miss, it's not much, but here…" Simon pulled out a tight bundle of twenties. "I can get you more, as soon as the month's out. And damned if I'm not telling everyone that you managed to do what no other robot doc has done! Er… what did you say your name was?"

Dorothy shook Simon's hand, money and all. "Wayneright. Doctor Dorothy Wayneright."