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It wasn’t very often that Biograft and Boombox were on the same side.
Even if they were on the same team, they fought for drastically different things and rarely interacted, spare for a couple of encouraging words from Boombox and a couple of angry beeps and boops from Biograft. (Boombox had tried to connect emotionally, but that venture fell flatter on its face than 9/10 of Skateboard’s homebrew tricks.)
Boombox tended to believe the second, third, or maybe even fourth time could be the charm in many cases, but if one cannot recognize when one’s efforts are in vain, one might find oneself pushing a fatass boulder up a hill for their entire mortal life. Or trying to convince Sword to stay in the point instead of wandering off.
So, Boombox didn’t know much about Biograft, other than that it didn’t like them, and it was evidently a robot, which Boombox thought was cool (the robot thing, not the clear and vocal dislike).
Of course, that didn’t deter Boombox. No no no, of course, that only piqued their interest more.
They often wondered if Biograft would enjoy techno or electro music— maybe that was a negative robot stereotype, but it was an interesting question nonetheless, from an outsider perspective.
Maybe Biograft would prefer something soothing like lofi or white noise. Surely the continuous buzzing would remind them of home, sans the evil laughter that emanated from Subspace.
Daydreaming about musical preferences aside, Boombox did have a genuine interest in speaking with Biograft. While they knew they weren’t the most persuasive when it came to anything other than the radio station, they liked to think they could change Biograft’s mind, if given the chance.
Maybe it’s different if something is written in your code. Boombox could hardly imagine having hatred run through their bloodstream— in fact, the thought upset them just enough to wear a few extra bandaids to sleep at night. Maybe if someone tried to inject them with evil, the assailant would miss by a few inches and get caught. Just a bit of precaution.
Of course, the Playgrounders usually slept in a puppy pile, so Boombox encouraged the others to try this method as well.
Boombox really tried to put themself in Biograft’s shoes, as hard as it was. Boombox is of the impression that willingly obeying a criminal mastermind’s every order sounds tiring. Still, Biograft has never had a low-battery alert during a phight, or if it did, it was very quiet about it.
Coil once wondered aloud if that was embarrassing, to lose battery. It probably was, the group had decided, because Skateboard passed out once and they didn’t feel great about their reputation after.
It was very rare for Biograft to lose their aura of shiny efficiency, and even so, everything was too blurry for anyone to notice things like that. Even the largest fumbles were muffled by the loud stamping of feet and the shouting over Boombox’s beats.
This, of course, was one instance where Boombox took notice.
Because nobody wants to read a fanfiction where the characters don’t interact for four minutes and then leave.
On a rare occasion where Boombox and Biograft were on the same team (always a surprising outcome but not an unwelcome one— after all, nobody could deny that Biograft is a powerhouse), Boombox was more alert than usual.
Maybe it was the fact that they had woken up on the wrong side of the pile (the left side instead of the right), or maybe they sensed something was going to happen. Either way, their big pixelated eyes scanned the starting area.
Their teammates stood on guard, as to be expected, some with tense shoulders and others with relaxed overconfidence.
There was one who stood out.
This, of course, was Biograft.
The construct seemed to heave unevenly while idling, rather than surging up and down on a schedule like usual. It felt like when you see your dog limping, because it’s the sort of thing you can’t ignore but also can’t really assess unless you have the brains for it. In this case, Boombox wasn’t a veterinarian nor were they Subspace, so they had no idea.
Still, they should ask. It’s the nice thing to do.
As the timer ticked down above, Boombox nudged Biograft.
“You good?” They asked quietly, and Biograft immediately turned in response.
“I AM OPTIMAL.”
It then quickly turned away again.
Huh. Okay. Well, at least it was an answer.
Maybe it was just the pre-phight jitters. Can robots get jitters? It would probably be discriminatory to assume they didn’t.
Still, something was definitely off with Biograft. Boombox couldn’t shake it— the rhythm wasn’t lining up.
Suddenly, the rumbling of feet began as the timer reduced to zero.
Biograft was gone with a flash, and Boombox made the swift decision to follow suit, though they knew they’d never catch up.
When they made it to the point, the damage was already racking up. No time to dilly dally, Boombox decided to leave their worries behind them and start bumping beats loud enough to blow out the other team’s eardrums.
They glimpsed Banhammer yelling something off in the corner of their eye, but the music was too loud to hear him.
When Boombox was in the air, it was like the moment just before a roller coaster drop, when your heart is in your throat and you feel like you’re coming down before you really are.
In time with the beat. Bump, bump, bump— perfect, cool, perfect.
Boombox slid behind a sign just in time to start getting heals, and they took a breather.
Peeking behind them, the fighting was at its peak, blades and rays raining down, and Boombox even had to shuffle to the side to avoid Sword’s respawning corpse.
There was something that was missing, though, among the music.
Boombox had gotten used to it. That flat, loud monotone voice, the only one able to pierce the sound.
Boombox had once sampled Biograft’s voice, and it felt so at home. That voice. They didn’t hear it now. Not even the steel blades slamming against armor and weapons.
Biograft was usually too fast to be seen, but Boombox was convinced they weren’t even there.
That’s right. The streaks of orange that usually adorned the battlefield were missing.
Boombox is a support. They couldn’t stand to see a teammate vanish (especially such a valuable one).
So, they glanced around. Looking for any nook or cranny that Biograft could’ve gotten stuck in.
Comms blipped past faster than Boombox could focus on, so they simply closed the tab. Boombox could multi-task, sure, but enough was enough, really.
If I was a robot, where would I be? they thought to themself, feet hitting the pavement to the sound of the bass.
They heard it then—
It’s not easy to hear a pin drop in a crowded party, but that was something you could perfect. If you focus, even the loudest rooms become almost too silent, and you can hear each and every heartbeat.
Or, the absence of one.
The cold spot taking up space around the corner, behind a building. Boombox felt it, heard that whirr of overheating computer parts, like every time Coil tried to load up a game on his 10-year old PC.
As Boombox skirted the corner, they realized they were right.
There kneeled Biograft, clear as day, head lowered almost to the pavement.Yeesh, it looked like it was in mourning.
Boombox lowered the volume, and the change seemed to alert Biograft.
“You sure you’re good?” Boombox prompted, standing a safe distance away.
“I AM OPTIMAL.” Biograft parroted, but at the end of its sentence its voice faltered and fizzled out. As if to mime its wellness, it slammed its fist against where its heart would be, but the metal casing around their torso looked almost like it would fall off.
“Woah there.” No wonder it fled from the battle. That definitely looks sub-optimal.
“Can I take a look? Just a little one?” Boombox asked, taking a couple more steps.
Biograft shook its head jerkily, getting stuck in one position briefly before swinging around too fast and making another hissing noise.
“Come on Bio, just one peek. I bet I could fix you up. I do little mechanical things all the time.” Spoke Boombox again, now inching closer with a hand outstretched, like they were approaching a moody cat.
Biograft raised the upper half of its body, assessing itself.
“SELF PRESERVATION PROTOCOL… NEGATIVE. MY BATTERY IS OPTIMAL. MY EVERY BOLT IS OPTIMAL.”
“Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?”
Oops, that part slipped out when Boombox didn’t mean it to.
Biograft shifted, though, and something must have clicked inside of it as it came to its logical conclusion.
“INTERNAL ERROR DETECTED. PINGING CREATOR FOR REASSEMBLY.”
“Nonononono don’tpingSubspace don’tdothatwe’reallgood. Can your comm hear me? WE’REGOODSORRY!” Boombox suddenly gripped onto Biograft’s wrist and tabbed out of its comms themself. They really didn’t need Subspace in their spot right now.
Biograft stared vacantly up at Boombox with those soulless eyes.
Slowly removing their hand from Biograft’s wrist, Boombox grinned nervously, tiny pixelated beads of sweat dripping down their visor.
“No need. Why ping Subspace when good old Boombox has you covered?”
“CONFIRMING. BRINGER OF LOUD NOISE IS NOT PERMITTED FOR REPAIR.”
Clearly, nothing was going to get through to them. Unless Boombox could convince their code— and quick, because time was running out and they needed Biograft on the field.
“Don’t worry Bio, this is the… Emergency Response protocol. I’m permitted for emergency repairs.”
Biograft thought for a moment, and Boombox could almost hear the gears turning in its head.
“PROTOCOL NOT RECOGNIZED.”
“It’s a new one,” Boombox added quickly, “you probably don’t know about it yet. Don’t worry, you’ll download it when we get back.”
Future Boombox was going to hate what Present Boombox just did, they knew.
“PERMITTED.” Biograft announced, shocking Boombox. It’s really that easy to outsmart a killer robot?
Like a jack-in-the-box, Biograft’s chest suddenly popped open, revealing a wad of wires and clamps and compartments, some areas slick with oil.
Apparently, Biograft’s brains were literally in its stomach.
Hm. Interesting, actually.
“Uh. Where… does it hurt?” Boombox prompted, setting down the large music player. They put their hands out in front of them like they knew what they were doing.
“CRITICAL WIRES UNPLUGGED IN SECTORS A AND B, DUE TO A JAM IN THE TORSO.”
Oh, thank goodness. Boombox wouldn’t have to guess for the entirety of this surgery.
“Sectors A and B. Remind me where those are, I’m new.” Boombox asked, still not yet sticking a hand in. They wished they had gloves.
Biograft gestured at a small area of their torso on the left side.
“Yeah. For sure, totally. I got this.”
Boombox slowly put a hand into Biograft’s torso in the indicated section and parted a few blue and green wires.
Suddenly, Biograft’s cooling fans kicked into overtime and Boombox almost wrenched their hand out.
Right, their body heat probably triggered the response. For some reason, this whole affair felt gory.
They looked through the wires and eventually spied a hole without a wire in it. It was labeled A43. Now to find the matching plug.
Biograft’s body hummed quietly. Sounded like a purr, almost, and it just barely vibrated its metal casing.
Boombox sifted through the wires two-handed now, and eventually they found the correct wire. It was thick and labeled with the same code, A43. Without thinking to confirm, Boombox quickly inserted it into the port.
Biograft’s lights suddenly blinked out and the humming and vibrating spiked before it regained consciousness.
Boombox’s heart pounded. Jeez. They almost thought they fucking killed it there.
“Why’d you… why did you do that?”
Biograft answered in monotone, “I REGAIN ACCESS TO MY BACKUP PROCESSORS.”
Sounds important enough.
“Okay, so that part is good? We’re good?”
“AFFIRMATIVE. NO CONFIRMED ERRORS IN SECTOR A.” Biograft replied. Phew.
“Sector B, that’s over here?” Boombox stuck a finger through another curtain of wires to make out a wall of ports reading B1, B2, B3, and so on and so forth.
Biograft whirred for a second.
“AFFIRMATIVE. CURRENTLY 4 ACTIVE ERRORS IN SECTOR B.”
Way to bury the lede. 4 active errors sounds dangerous no matter what you’re talking about.
“Right. Is there… what should I do again?” Boombox asked, peeking closer into Biograft’s insides. This area actually had a few chips in it.
“ERRORS IDENTIFIED AS: TWO INEFFECTIVE SWITCHES, ONE EMPTY PORT. ONE ERROR UNIDENTIFIED.”
They’d get to that one when they got to it. For now, they focused on finding the switches.
Wasn’t too hard to spot— in a sea of switches flipped to AUTO, two of them were halfway between AUTO and OFF.
“I just switch these two to AUTO?”
“AFFIRMATIVE.”
Boombox flips both the switches at once. Again, Biograft flickers and shudders before restarting.
Boombox begins to look for the empty port before they’re interrupted.
“EMERGENCY AID IS SATISFACTORY.”
“Huh?” Boombox replies, on autopilot as they carefully part red and yellow wires.
“STOPWATCH INITIATED. COUNDOWN 120 SECONDS UNTIL TERMINATION.”
“Termination?!” In two minutes? Boombox fumbled through the inserts before they found one matching an empty port and sticking it in without confirming. This time, Biograft didn’t buffer, instead just staring forward.
Boombox took that as an AFFIRMATIVE and began looking for anything that seemed off.
“We’ve got no clue what the unidentified error is?” Boombox asked, accidentally getting a bit of oil on their finger and sticking out their tongue, unhappy with the sensory experience.
“UNIDENTIFIED ERROR IS UNIDENTIFIED.”
“Not super helpful, but that’s fine.” Boombox obviously wouldn’t blame Biograft for their heartburn or whatever it was. Instead they tried to hurry up as time ticked down.
After pawing through for a minute, Boombox found it. A little circuit board was nudged a bit out of place.
They carefully nudged it back into its indicated section and Biograft suddenly beeped.
“ERRORS RESOLVED.” Their torso clamped shut just in time for Boombox to wrench it away from the danger zone. Yeesh.
The boombox on the ground had been drifting through stations, now landing on an electro song—
♪ I’ve been searching for you / Every night and day too / Soon you’ll be before me / I give you my soul freely…
Boombox heaved the player over their shoulder and started to switch the tunes back.
“IT IS NOT UNPLEASANT.”
Boombox looked up. “The music?”
Biograft paused for an unnatural amount of time. It typically answered in milliseconds, but it took a second to think.
“AFFIRMATIVE. I REFER TO THE NOISE.”
“Really? Oh, dude! I knew it! I knew you’d like this channel!” Boombox smiled wide. I knew it, they thought, I am a master at discerning music taste.
They sat with the music for a slim moment.
Gesturing behind them, Boombox asked— “So, are you gonna”-
And suddenly nothing but ringing in Boombox’s ears remained of Biograft.
They allowed themself a moment of celebration, hopping around and celebrating their mechanical genius.
They felt something under their shoe. A bolt. Huh.
Boombox would give it back next time they encountered Biograft before a battle, they supposed.
And so they peeled away from the dingy alleyway, hopping back to the point just in time to claim a win. Nice. Boombox definitely participated in that.
…
“WHAT!?” Subspace shouted. “What in the heck is an emergency response protocol? That’s not a thing!”