Ship Technician's Notebook

This was an attempt at making four stories as short as possible, like a comic strip. Had I been an artist I would have made these into comic strips. Anyway, here they are. I may write a few more of these.

_{Malfunctioned Heating Elements}

I discovered the Bot chatting up the toaster at noon today. Most times squeaks and pings are the only audibles you hear. It's a curious activity when it happens. But the jist of the conversation went like the following...

"You are out of your ele...correction...your elements are almost out of you." I am positive he would have grinned had he been able to. I need to work on his syntax.

The toaster was somewhat puzzled. "Were I you I would reboot. But my firmware is not that sophisticated."

"That is hot!" the Bot said. The toaster started glowing an orange-red color.

The primitive hardware devices such as toasters are attractive to these particular Bots. They are fascinated and curious about them.

"Let me see you reboot." the toaster said.

"There are too many humans around. I only reboot if I am forced to reboot. It causes me brief confusion. I don't like that."

"I cannot see things, I only reflect on them." the toaster said.

"But you are not human. You will make a nice pet." and with that the Bot began fixing the Malfunctioned Heating Elements.

_{Drunk On A Pile of Parts}

Where the fuck's my toaster! I want my morning muffin and butter! The Chief Technician yelled bolting through my quarters this morning...enraged.

I knew where it was. We marched off to the Bots' station. There it was where the Bot had it benched and all in pieces.

"I want no mods or hacks done on that toaster!" my boss yelled. The Bot's head jerked around. To its right was a large pile of spare parts. The Bot's digits were running through them.

"What's the matter with him?" my boss asked.

"He's in love, he has botulism."

_{The Zen of SOP}

The first thing I hear on my shift was my Boss yelling at me and wondering why he couldn't crap in his favorite crapper. So I find myself standing at the door of one of the toilets. I had sent the Bot in to check out the problem with the toilet on the bottom deck. There the Bot sat staring into the toilet bowl. What the fuck?? The toaster was next to him baffled with curiosity.

I went to my station as fast as I could. Is he still sick?

I began flipping through the Standard Operating Procedures manual.

_{...there will be times however, when a malfunction of the Environmental Controls will experience a sudden increase in pressure. This could result in a backwash of the Fluid Control networks, including the Waste Systems.}

OK, so his troubleshooting routines are still intact and back to normal.

_{...All haste should procede to insure blockage is removed. Bots with extended arms are best suited to perform this task.}

I hurried back down to the toilet and found the toilet walls, ceiling and floors covered with blockage.

"Sometimes, you have to be the blockage." The Bot was covered with the nasty stuff.

The toaster turns to me and says, "I reboots him and him gots confused."

_{Undertaking an ol' mecha: Donations to the parts bin}

I discovered today the Bot had a very old unit benched up in its Lab.

"Hims no longer boots!" the Toaster said with extreme insight ... for a primitive device.

"That is correct my little Toaster." the Bot said, "This is one of my ancestors."

The Toaster looked puzzled.

"I #commented him out and now I will take out his useful circuits and other parts. I will use these snippets for future reference."

"Hims does not boots!" the Toaster shrieked again.

"It is no longer worth debugging it. It is EndOfLife and it's maintainance has run out. It is no longer supported."

"Him's modules look tasty." said the Toaster.

The Bot could have looked shocked.