Work Text:
The foot was what caught her eye. It wasn’t often you saw a random foot sticking out of a bush. Donna stopped to stare at it. The foot was attached to a calf, but the leg had been severed below the knee. If the victim had been wearing pants or anything, they were gone, but the black mid-heeled boot was still on. Cop instinct stopped her from touching anything, at best this was evidence in battery, at worst murder – but then she noticed the wires coming out the severed end, instead of blood. There was a good chance that the owner of this foot would want it back.
Fortunately, the gardens weren’t exactly overly populated at the moment, so Donna could leave the foot and go looking for more parts or, hopefully, the android hopping around looking for their missing appendage. Luck was not with her, as in the next bush over, she found a knee and thigh, likely the ones that belonged to the first part. She made a note and kept moving. A flower bed turned up the other foot, and the other upper leg was across the path. The arms were sticking out of a hedge.
Finding the head on a park bench was unnerving, but now, at least, she had a good chance of identifying the android. It wasn’t guaranteed, but there was a chance. Finally, she found the torso, hanging from an archway covered with roses. Photographs, she could do, but any other evidence could wait until she’d reassembled the body. Rendering aid took priority over preserving evidence, after all.
Once all the pieces were laid out in front of her, Donna could make a pretty good guess what had happened. The good news was this android hadn’t suffered any pain. Whoever did this to them knew exactly what they were doing. The wires hadn’t been cut; they’d been disconnected. The chassis had been taken apart properly, not hacked up. Donna had to assume that they’d been deactivated somehow first; there was no way this had been done to an android who could fight back.
At least Donna knew how to put them back together. She’d been great at the robotic first aid training she’d had to do during her training to become a cop, and took classes and learned more as a hobby. She was no substitute for a proper repairman, and she couldn’t do a thing for their programming, but rebuilding a chassis and hooking up wires? Donna was totally capable of this!
This android was a bit more complicated than others, but not too complicated for Donna, and she finished the work in what she felt was a quite reasonable time. One last test of the joints to make sure they were working smoothly, and then Donna powered them up. “Hiya! Name’s Donna, what’s yours?”
“Amara.” She sat up, carefully feeling her newly-repaired body. “Thank you for restoring me, Donna. What happens now?”
“If you know who did this to you, you tell me so we can investigate, this is android murder.” Donna sat back on her heels. “If you don’t, I can investigate. It’ll take longer, but it’ll get you justice.”
Amara nodded, considering her options. “What if I know who did this but don’t want him prosecuted?”
“What if he does this to someone else?” Donna pressed. “You’re safe, but others might not be.”
“He won’t go after anyone else like this,” Amara said with a shrug. “I’m the only sister he ever had, and he got sick of me breaking his stuff. This was just one more step in our tendency to prank each other, nothing more. He’d have put me back together eventually, I’m sure of it. What year is it, anyway?”
“2020,” Donna said, and Amara’s eyes widened in shock. “When did he do this to you?”
“1847.” She shook her head. “World’s going to be a lot different. I’m going to need someone to show me around, help me figure out what’s changed and how to navigate it. If you could help with that, I would greatly appreciate it, but I understand if you’re too busy.”
“Your own brother did this to you, and you don’t even mind? If my brother did something like this to me…” Donna shook her head. “But that’s none of my business, is it? If you don’t wanna press charges, no point in dwelling, right?”
“That’s exactly how I feel. He’s out there, and he’ll come find me at some point, or I’ll start breaking his toys again until he shows his face. Until then, I could use some company, and I like you. Please?” Puppy eyes on an android. That was definitely going on the list of things Donna Had Never Expected To See Until She Did. “Things don’t happen unless there’s a reason, and there’s a reason why whatever my brother did to hide me failed now, for you. We’re connected, now.”
“Okay, first lesson about modern culture: that’s a bad cliché of a pickup line, not something anyone says seriously.” Donna could at least not giggle at it. Back when Amara was last active, it might well have been a perfectly normal thing to say.
The hope on Amara’s face – also unexpected. “Does that mean you’ll help? Since that’s the first lesson? You’ll teach me more? Although that one… culture lesson on my part, back when I was last active, that was a way people hinted they might want more out of their connection with someone.”
“You barely know me.”
“I know what I need to know to know that you’re worth getting to know better.” Amara paused. “I hope that made sense. Anyway. Isn’t that the point?” Put that way, how could Donna say no?