Cerena had run out of cytec and her corite nanotech skin somehow had liquified.

She had failed before. Three 8800 Series replicants had to be aborted due to cytec shift, the devastating softening of cytec due to loss of cohesiveness.

And so, she was about to seal Registry no. 8855 in a stasis box and send it to the recyclers.

Orela's half-finished body looked like some ghastly dream of decaying green-blue flesh. She was sealed in a clear membrane that preserved her cytec, making all of her shiny as lights reflected off of it.

Cerena was angry. She was not used to failing but these replicants were awfully complicated, particularly thier power systems as she found it three years ago when 8850, who was never named, immolated on Merisa's old worktable, ruining it.

She called her chief cytec supplier, hoping that they had at least enough to finish Orela. Much to her dismay, they had none. They said that the manufacturer had a fire at thier main facility and were slow to recover. No-one else made cytec, well, Commonwealth approved cytec.

Those cheap Emperical knock-offs of cytec were poor in quality and suffered shift problems, particularly when the android picked up something heavy.

With a sad heart, she loaded the stasis-box into her groundcar's cargo area, to take to the recylcers down the street.

As she was tying support threads to hold it in place, someone tapped her on the shoulder.

She turned to see the strangest thing. A delivery man in the dark uniform of the Star-Three Freight Service held out a recieved pad for her to sign and imprint. "You are Merisa Cerena?," he asked.

She nodded, confused. She didn't order anything. "Um, yes. What's this?"

He shook his head. "Don't know. Its heavy and semi-liquid. I'd dare guess it was raw cytec."

She scoffed, not believing this. "Cytec? From where?"

"Um, don't know. Ms. Cerena? Please sign, I have other deliveries to make."

She signed for it. "I want documantation as soon as its unloaded."

He nodded and hurried off to his massive groundcar to work some robotic systems.

Five 70 gallon blue plastic barrels were quickly carried to her workshop's delivery area by a huge cargo loader robot that hissed with every movement. Hydraulic, how quaint, she thought.

The delivery man returned with a hardcopy print of the documantation and gave it to her. "Have a good day, Ms. Cerena." He hurried back to the cargo groundcar and drove down the street at once.

Cerena looked at it, seeing that it was from...., she gasped. It was from her father, Aldan Cerena. That was just impossible. He had been dead for 500 years.

She shook her head as she saw that it was from the Institute named after him. They had tons of cytec in storage and were obligated by rules written by her father to provide her with any if she should need it.

She smiled. She could finish Orela. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The work was hard. Raw cytec had to be processed and molded. Cerena had not done any processing since she was a teenager, learning how to.

She slipped and severely burned her left hand, having to go to the hospital for treatment. She was not usually clumsy, clumsiness could get her killed in some of the work she did.

When she returned, the cytec had set and was ready for molding. Her hand still hurt as she got to molding pieces. She had always wanted to get an assistant but she never could afford to employ anyone. She could barely afford to feed herself.

Nobody was paying for Orela. She would be a great help here. Cerena was building her new assistant. But problems continued to plague her. Cytec had shifted because it had not been processed right. A couple of machines failed and had to be fixed by an expensive repairman. She had cracked two bones in her left hand in another processing misshap.

She did finally finish the cytec work and started grafting it onto the half-finished body. As she was carefully organizing and sealing Orela's cytec muscle system, power failed to her entire facility.

Cerena wanted to scream. What was this? She usually had good luck. She got out the powerful generator that ran off the expensive solar-powered energy source on the roof of her facility and proceeded quickly before something else went wrong.

It didn't take long before something else did indeed go wrong. She was working on the corite skin when a spring snapped in her worktable's holding claw. It swung back and smacked her in the face, knocking her out. She fell to the darkened floor, no-one around to help her.

Boid came by and found his friend laying on the floor, a nasty bruise across her right cheek from where the holding claw had hit her.

He picked her up and took her to the hospital. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cerena was now beyond angry. More had gone wrong on this project than in all of the the last 8 years since the Oelia incident.

Her normally cute face was restored. Her hand was fully healed. Fortunately, one did not pay for healthcare in the Commonwealth or else she would really be broke.

She got back to work on the corite skin, hoping nothing else would happen. The corite reformed as the nanotech infused within it conformed to thier memory-shape programmed by Aldan Cerena long ago.

Merisa still marvelled at his artistry, even now. Orela was beautiful, if a little pale. Nothing could be done about that. Nanotech corite skin was notoriously resistant to coloring.

As she put the finishing final touches on Orela, she suddenly felt sick. She barely made it to the bathroom and managed not to throw up on the floor. She retched for 45 minutes in intense pain.

She had not eaten anything out of the ordinary. She couldn't fathom what made her sick as she sat miserably in the doctor's office.

It turned out to be her allergy to the sanitary additive in the cleaner used to purify bathing water in her town.

Normally, her facility had its own water supply but apparently that had gone dry without her knowing. She came back, sick, tired, and upset. This had been the worse 3 weeks of her recent life.

Cerena was able to finish Orela and install her AI Core without incident and prepared to activate her only to find that when she entered the start-up code for 8855, Orela flopped twice and lay slack like a child's gel doll. In alarm, Cerena checked her scanners and scanner her, finding no power coming from her power cell. She broke down in tears. This could not be happening.

Merisa slid to the floor, crying. Her face in her hands.

A hand patted her on the head.

"H-hello? Merisa? Its me, Orela," a soft female voice said.

She was astonished. She stopped crying and lept to her feet. "Orela?! You're online!"

The replicant blushed, an automatic reaction caused by the nanotech to make her seem more life-like. "Yes. I had a dry cell, making my power fail for a moment. It will not happen again." She sat up, covering her bare breasts.

Cerena blushed, embarrassed. "Oh, I'm sorry. i should have put something on you. Um, wait here. I'll get you something."

She hurried to the android clothing room, tripping on a box on the floor. She caught herself and didn't fall.

She selected a lavender and grey jumper and appropriate undergarments and shoes, taking them back to Orela, who sat, looking at her hands.

Cerena gave her the clothing. "These are for you. Um, what are you looking at?"

Orela held her right hand out, showing a severe crease in its palm. "Is that normal?"

Cerena didn't have the heart or inclination to tell her no. It wasn't serious, just an asthetic goof-up on her part. She would have to remove the hand to fix it and replicants' hands do not readily come off just as real peoples' do not. "It's okay. Is it uncomfortable?"

Orela shook her head. "No." She quickly dressed and stood up. "Why is it so dark in here?"

Cerena chuckled. "Power went out."

As she said that, power came back on. "Well, what a project this was. Would you join me for a meal?"

Orela nodded. "Certainly."

Finally finished, Cerena went to her kitchen area, only to find that there was no power to the entire area as well as no water.

She merely shook her head and made sandwiches. At least that didn't go wrong.

� 27 Feb 04 Gregory Thompson