The communications center was badly damaged but it was able to hold itself together by perhaps providence long enough to warn the villagers that there was a way out. Shiori did not fare well then, Olgav's resistance gave her the Intel to find a bomb, but she was easily taken down by the ne'er do well that was guarding the device. It cost Shiori her life. This was her first time since that fray, the communications center was still a mess. She could see the burn-marks on the floor, something she could not see before as she could only feel the heat. Shiori let out a shivering breath as she pried the circuit board off from one of the desks. It was a tangle of wires inside, brightly colored and frayed. She was strangely sober this morning, she was not going to start drinking until noon.
She had no idea what she was doing, she could barely use her legs properly as she tried to get re-acclimated to this new meat-bag. She was tired of being an incompetent and she was finding herself confused, there was a disconnect now between what valued then and what she valued now. She thought she was human, she thought that she had feelings. It was not love, it was a social construct of what she thought love should have been. She emulated the people around her, and tried to become what she thought she was. Now she felt hollow, her mind told her how her heart felt but her heart was numb.
She sat down on the floor, cross-legged as she blew off the dust from the underside of the circuit-board. It clouded the air in front of her. She started braiding the wires on the underside. She pulled back the burnt plastic coating from the wires and extended it with a fresh piece of wire. The colors were not right but it appeared to be the same width. Hopefully nothing was going to blow up. She scraped at the burnt residue left on the metallic surface with her nail and rubbed it clean with the pad of her thumb. The wires were too long and too numerous to fit within the casing but she pushed the circuit-face onto the top of the desk. She pulled back the corner of the circuit board so the intestine-like contents spilled out through the small open she had made. She continued in a similar manner with the rest of wires, monitors and receivers. They were larger than they needed to be, and there were 'extra-parts' by the time she was done, but everything was intact after several hours of work.
She finally looked down at her wrist, it was 9:00 pm. It was a lot later than she had expected, and still not a drink for the day. She could feel a minor tremor in her hand. Strange. That was probably not good for her. SHe was going to need that drink sooner than later.</COLOR></FONTFACE>
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