Welcome to Gaia! ::

Kiri sat silently in his workroom, busily focusing on re-wiring a faulty wrist-joint so that the lubricating liquid would be able to go through it properly. This boy had been overused, and was going to be resold to another client, just as soon as he found one that wasn't going to abuse the poor thing like the last client had.
As he worked, he adjusted the focus on his super-close zoom lens, the magical gear whirring as it worked to clear his vision, and increase it. Adjusting the tool he was using to reposition the tubing, now that the wiring was fixed, he was so focused on what he was doing, that he didn't note the time, or exactly what was around him.

Not to mention not noting the little black thing just to the side of his right ear. A thing that scared the living hell out of him when he looked up to figure out what that breathing noise was and...
OHMYGOODGODSIT'SAKID.
He scooted back quickly, knocking over the solid black child, and sending him - Kiri was pretty sure it was a him - to the ground. The small thing started to cry and Kiri, being a compassionate [sometimes to a fault] soul, knelt down and offered a hug.

"... I don't know how you got here, sweetheart, but it's okay... I won't hurt you..."

He scooped the crying child up in his arms, and rocked it back and forth. "Shhhhshhh.... What do I do with you?"
That last was mostly to himself.

After some deliberating, he decided to let the odd child rest in the back room for a while, covered with a blanket, and given a stuffed toy, a glass of water, and some fresh bread and cheese in case he... it?... was hungry.

Once that was done... he realized he couldn't put his business on hold. Besides - the little thing... child?.. had fallen asleep in the bed anyway, and didn't even stir when Kiri closed the door. Unfortunately, he rigged the lights in the backroom to turn off at a specific time, and it wasn't that time... but the shadow.. thing... kid... was sleeping like a baby nonetheless.

Leaving him like that, he turned back to his workshop, switching on all of the magic-enhanced machines to make retooling this boy's arm that much easier... and to let himself fall into rote repetition so he could deal with his thoughts in somewhat of a detailed fashion - almost like he dealt with building and repairing his beautiful boys.

... and waiting for customers. Gods only knew that living here in Gaia was going to take some getting used to... But the way he made androids? Someone was bound to at least pop in out of curiosity. Also, considering he was smack dab in the middle of Central Barton Park... which happened to be the only place he had permission to set up shop... he was bound to get some overly curious youngsters in as well.

The redhead pushed himself away from his workbench for the second time today - although a lot less hurried, as he heard the greeting and turned to face his potential clients. MY but that was an adorable child...
One of the animal toys he'd been working on, a mecha-magical bird, hopped about a bit in its cage, and tilted its head at the girl as Kiri made his way over and extended his hand.

"Good morning. I am Kiri, and I own this place. Can I interest you in anything?"

He gestured to the random boxes of gadgets and toys that he made in his spare time, as well as the shelf of order-forms for his... vastly more expensive androids. One of his androids came from the back, still unable to use his hand. Nonetheless, he stood beside Kiri, arm hanging limp, smiled, and waved at the small child, kneeling down.

Kiri's androids looked, acted, and even were constructed like the real thing. His nano-magical technology made this possible... as well as a vast application of genetic programming and a healthy knowledge of how to make a robotic part as small as a human cell.
A doctor would find his boys human - even though they were not. It was complicated.

The boy smiled at Maya and stood, taking the toy bird out of its cage, and holding it out to her so that she could see it. The BIRD seemed just as real as any other bird as well, only it was see-through at the moment, so one could see the mechanical organs at work. That, and Kiri hadn't put on the top coating yet.
The boy holding the bird out to the child was pale. His hair was a mixture somewhere between black and brown, and he had very, very orange eyes. His smile was genuine though, and he wasn't about to hurt anyone.

Kiri looked down at him and chuckled. "Ace, that's enough." he murmured, patting the android boy lightly on the back. "Don't scare the child."

"His name is Ace, yes. And I... don't have a last name." He smiled a bit, and knelt down to the child. "Yes, that's a bird, and no... you don't look like that inside, I'll bet. You look a lot different."

Ace released the bird's wings from where he had been holding them gently down, and the bird flipped them out, and began to preen. It did not, however, fly away.

"Actually, I can show you what you look like inside, sweetie." Kiri said, chuckling. "If you mother agrees, that is... I won't do anything without your mother's permission."

At the query, Kiri stood and thought, fingers curled under his chin as he did so. He looked over to Ace, then to the bird, then to the rest of the merchandise... all the while cursing himself internally for being 'soft' when it came to kids.

"Do you want that birdie, honey?"

With a grin, Kiri nodded to Ace, who drew a ribbon out of his pocket, handing it to his creator. The redhead took it, and shook it out a bit, reaching around to tie it into a neat bow around the bird's neck. He used a bit of magic as he did so, so that the ribbon was emblazoned with the name Maya by the time his fingers left it.

Winking at the guardian, he bent and handed the creature to the girl. "Alright. This birdie is yours now, and you have to take care of him. You need to give him a name, and choose a skin for him, too - unless you want him see-through, and then I have to seal his body with something to make it so that he's harder to break... okay? Do you want him to have feathers? Fur? Or to be like this?"

While the child was deciding, he stood back up and looked to the guardian. "No charge." he said clearly. "I like seeing her happy, and I make a lot of mechanical animals in my spare time. It will act just as a male bird does, but will never fly away from her. It will also never die. If it does get broken, just bring it back to me and I'll see what I can do. All my repairs are free."

He paused for a moment before continuing on another subject. "As for looking inside your child, I have a bit of technology that acts like a miniature ultrasound without the risk of radiation. If you're interested in having one for yourself, I can make you one... it will just take half a week to complete it."

Kiri listened, and watched Maya's reaction while paying attention to her mother. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, crossing his arms in a thoughtful manner before speaking.

"I'm always told that I have a gift, but I'm not quite sure I believe it all that much." a soft chuckle. "As for your curiosities on Maya's physicality... I can provide you with a couple of medical instruments that will allow you to keep track."

Crossing over to one of his worktables, he slid open an entire drawer, and just.. brought the drawer over to the woman and child. He set it down on a nearby stool, and pointed to things, explaining them.

"You probably know what a stethoscope is, so that's familiar. The small, fat thing that looks like a tablet pen is called an S-wave. I'll demonstrate that on myself in a moment. There are also some blood-monitoring bandages, that have small microchips woven into the fabric to instantly run blood tests for you, and provide type. The bandages, S-wave and stethoscope can all be programmed to send data to a computer, phone, or television. Or all three if you'd prefer."

The silent android grinned, and nodded, crossing to one of the tables to record the information. He wasn't the one that made the bird.. but he HAD given him to Maya, and made the name appear... so it was appropriate he assumed. He took 'Ace' over to the bench as well, and set the bird down. The mechanical wonder hopped a bit on the table, but did not fly away, and always kept Maya in sight with those cute little beady eyes.

While Ace was filling out forms and such, Kiri had decided to demonstrate what he'd offered. He picked up the S-wave from the drawer, and flipped it on. It didn't take long for the device to 'warm up', and a second or two later the green light on the side flashed brightly, and stayed lit.
Once that happened, he held it up for inspection.

"The twisting section in the middle acts as a depth adjuster - how deep into the body you want to look. Turning it counter-clockwise reduces the depth, and turning it clockwise increases it. It takes a bit of fiddling to do it manually. However, if you can't be bothered by that, there are presets I can set and re-set right here in the workshop. This is a hand-held personal, and not professional, so it only holds ten presets. The professional hand-held models hold up to fifty."

He twisted the dial a bit, clearly knowing exactly what he was doing. Rolling up his right sleeve [as he was left-handed], he slid the comfortable point over his skin until it was resting right in the crook of his elbow.

"Once you turn it on from the top, usually it automatically sets up to project - I can show you how to turn it off and on manually, as well as play with the other settings."

He flicked a small switch on the back to re-instate the manual projection. Once the switch was on, a full color, fully lighted screen popped up, projecting out of absolutely nowhere. It showed the inside of his arm. What he had been aiming for were the veins and artery that ran through that area of his skin, and it showed them clearly, pulsing away with his blood. No lag was present at all, if she would be checking for that. Perfect timing, right with his pulse.

"Color can be turned on or off." He slid a switch at the bottom of the pen. "Color to simulate bloodflow, air-movement, and other things can also be added."

As he did this, red and blue splashes of color appeared, that showed which direction his blood was flowing. They vanished when he slid the switch back into neutral position.

"No side effects, it doesn't hurt at all."

He pulled the device away from his arm, and put it back in the drawer after turning it off.

"As to price - it ranges. Anywhere from five-hundred gold to six-thousand. Features and things vary, and the upper-level price-range is mostly for professional models for hospital use."

He took the drawer back to his desk, and slid it back into place.
"If you want me to get together one for you, along with the other digital stuff, it'll run you about one-thousand gold. Mind, this is high-tech. I won't give you shoddy work no matter what you end up paying me."

Ace had finished filling out the forms, and was waving to Maya before he moved back to the far side of the room to attend to the growth-tanks. They were thankfully covered. Maya wouldn't be able to see what was in them.

"Something like Ace there..." Kiri continued. "Would run up upward of fifty to one-hundred thousand. ALL my stuff is made from scratch. All of it. And as you can imagine, Ace there took a good chunk of time to completely build and iron out all problems. As it is, he's in for repairs, and simply decided to help me around the workshop while we're waiting for a shipment of synthetic bone."

Heaving another quiet sigh, Kiri cursed himself once more for being soft. But then again... "Wait." he started. "I... Well.... You won't have to pay a cent, actually. Turns out that I have some free time, and I could get together a kit for you... free of charge."
He looked down at the little girl, and a pang hit him somewhere in his chest. She was... curious, beautiful, and altogether the perfect example of what he'd once had. His lovely, gorgeous little Amika. He felt his heart give a lurch that was only all too familiar. No one knew of his secret loss. And if he had his way, no one would. Forcing a smile, he turned back to the woman.
"I've taken a liking to you and your daughter, so consider this a gift as welcome to my shop. As for Ace?"

He considered a bit more. "Ace was created as a companion for an ailing friend of mine. The man recently passed away, so he has no real owner at this point... I never scrap my boys, but I will have to find something to do with him. I can't keep him around the shop... Too much going on to give him the attention he needs. I can do his repairs, but after that, if no one claims him... He'll probably be deactivated, and stored with the other broken boys until someone wants him."
Nonchalant... Of course, he didn't want to do that to the android... Ace had been a good friend to Mr. Carrington, and he didn't want that to go to naught. Poor Ace himself was still choked up over the man's death, even though it hadn't exactly been sudden.
Kiri had already grieved... but Ace was still doing so.

"I suppose if YOU wanted to take him off my hands... at least for a while... I could let him go with you. He seems to like Maya well enough."

Indeed, Ace was running after the child and playing tag. Truthfully, the android looked merely seventeen - perfect age to be a playmate to the young girl. "Of course, I'd have to have written permission from you to continue his repairs if that was the case..." - and slip a certificate of ownership in to get a signature when the woman wasn't paying attention.

... The thought that he was giving away a one-hundred-fifty-thousand gold creation didn't seem to bother him any. Well, it did - but not overly. He was used to the random thoughts like this that ran through his mind.