Mei immediately took a fighting stance and raised her electromagnetic lasso, although the battery down here flickered threateningly. "Forget it, Zhao. The robot stays with us. If you get in our way, you'll get to know my hoverboard up close – and I don't mean the top side."
Zhao only laughed hoarsely as his henchmen raised their compressed air rifles. The hissing of the mechanical valves sounded in the narrow alley like a swarm of angry snakes. "Tough act for a girl from the uptown. But look around: your fancy lasers have no juice here. My scrap rules this sector."
Lu stepped forward, sweating, hands raised placatingly. "Wait! Zhao, right? You're a scrap dealer. You recognize quality when you see it. This robot is not ordinary tech junk. It has... a consciousness. And it can optimize things."
Zhao raised an eyebrow. His ticking eye patch rotated a bit faster. "Optimize? There's nothing to optimize down here, kid. Down here there's only dirt, hunger, and..."
"...a catastrophic malfunction in your cybernetic visual implant", Bao interrupted calmly. The small robot had rolled unnoticed to Zhao's boot. "The gears of your analog eye patch suffer from acute lubricant deficiency. The clock frequency deviates by 14.2 percent from the standard. This causes you headaches in the temple area. Correct?"
Zhao froze. The henchmen looked confused from Bao to their boss. "How... how do you know that, you walking toaster?" Zhao growled, visibly thrown off.
"I am not a toaster. I am Bao, culinary logistics assistant of the highest class", the robot explained proudly. A small mechanical arm extended from its casing, at the tip of which a pipette gleamed with a thick, dark brown liquid. "Allow me an immediate measure using highly viscous, fermented soy sauce extract. It has excellent creeping properties."
Before Zhao could react, Bao fired a tiny, precise drop of the sauce right into the exposed gear of the eye patch. The loud clicking stopped immediately. It was replaced by a buttery smooth, almost silent hum.
Zhao's eyes widened. He blinked three times, touched his temple, and stared at Bao as if he had just performed a miracle. "The... the humming is gone. And I can see the rats in the fog sharply again!" A broad grin spread across his scarred face. "Alright, uptown gringos. You have my attention. Let's talk business."