The trip to see the 'Dice Vet' as Chel liked to think of him was quick. Because of Lexx's status as a player, he was immediately taken into an examination room and Dash was looked over by an alien that seemed almost entirely made of tentacles. It made Chel's skin crawl watching it manipulate tools and hover around Dash.
For his part, Dash didn't seem concerned in the least. He was confident about what was going on with him and within five minutes, the 'vet' gave a garbled diagnosis to Lexx.
"It's not Tarlic," Lexx translated for Chel's benefit. He nodded to the alien and talked back in his language, pausing every few sentences to tell Chel what was being discussed. "Dash has an actual hard code glitch in his design. Apparently not all of his nanites are in sync with his code. They calculated a seventh side to Dash and since he lacks any actual setting or design for that size it defaulted him to side 1. It's been documented before and he's going to be fine with a little reprogramming. They'll also bring him back to side 6."
Chel smiled happily at the news and ten minutes later they were walking out of the office with a fully rolled Dash. Fifteen minutes and three hours was all it had taken to save his life. Once they were in an empty corridor, Chel wrapped her arms around the large dice and he promptly sat on his haunches to enjoy a hug.
"I'm so glad you're going to be okay, Dash!" Chel exclaimed.
"You're not the only one!" Dash purred.
Lexx hadn't noticed that Chel and Dash were no longer walking with him until he heard Chel talking to Dash. He turned around and looked at them oddly. She really cared for the dice. As much as Lexx cared for them, he couldn't imagine acting toward them like she did. It also struck him as odd how she so freely petted them. They talked, yet she still seemed to think of them as simple animals and they liked it. Every single one of the dice was sure not to scratch or get too rough with Chel, whereas Lexx had received a few vicious gashes from the dice on more than one occasion when they were in a bad mood.
'It cost a lot to get that reprogramming collar - if it wasn't for Chel, I would have had him terminated and replaced.' Lexx mused quietly to himself. 'I would've missed Dash.'
One thought on “August 16, 2005 (3 Comments)”
Keiya
HAH! Overflow error, I knew it!