This is not a date 01 (Antonella Fan Fiction) (Patreon)

Author: Will Castellano, with editing and inspiration by Antonella Carmine

*** Part 1 ***

Will works diligently on fixing his beloved old “toaster Mac” from his college days while live-streaming the repair process on social media. He works out of his small computer repair shop on the main boulevard in Port Solei, his new home. The repair shop is a small storefront sandwiched between a coffee shop and a deli. Sometimes business at his repair shop can be slow, so he augments his income with a side hustle making instructional videos on computer repair. 

“Now here you’ll see me apply a small amount of solder to reflow the joints that connect the sound chip, and with lots of luck, we should hear sound emitting from the Macintosh’s internal speaker.” Will quickly slots the motherboard back into the case and connects the speaker wire, power connector and SCSI drive ribbon cable.

“Here goes nothing!” With the stream still running, Will plugs in the power cord and flips the power switch. The Mac SE/30 comes to life and emits a loud chime as the familiar “Happy Mac” is displayed on the screen, indicating that the machine successfully started up and found the operating system on the hard drive.

“Yes!” Will pumps his fist in the air and starts dancing a little jig around his workbench. He couldn’t believe that he got the Mac to work, and he even captured the whole process on the live-stream. With all of the commotion and dancing, he fails to notice a potential customer walk into his shop. He hears a faint giggle and quickly looks up from behind the workbench. 

Will notices what appears to be the head of a beautiful young woman floating on some sort of fleshy stick. The head is smiling and has long red hair and a simple application of make-up. Without missing a beat, he welcomes the new customer. After all, he has lived in Port Solei for three months now and has already seen many mutant women in town.

“Oh hello. Sorry about dancing around like a total goofball. I just got this old machine from my college days working again. It means a lot to me because it still has my fan fiction stories on them. How can I help you?

Antonella looks at Will with her tail head and then turns around, revealing her complete self to Will. She’s holding a nondescript PC laptop in her middle pair of hands. “Can you please replace the battery on my laptop? It no longer holds a charge. The big electronics store wants to charge $200 for a new battery replacement and labor costs, but my computer is pretty old and I’m not sure if it’s worth it.” 

“Absolutely. May I take a look at your machine?” he says as she nods with her main head and hands him the computer. 

Will quickly plugs in the laptop and it boots to the Windows login screen. “Can you please enter your password so I can check the battery settings? By the way, I’m William but I usually go by Will.

“My name is Antonella. Nice to meet you. You’re the new guy in town, right?” Antonella uses her top set of hands to quickly enter her password as her middle set pushes the hair out of her tail head’s eyes.

“That’s right”, replied Will. “I moved out here to start a new life and a small business after working as a software engineer for a decade and a half. It’s been pretty relaxing and a little quiet, but I love it here. Now let’s see.” Will examines the battery settings. “Wow, your battery has over 950 cycles on it, no wonder it’s time for a replacement. 

“Yeah, I tend to work in the coffee shop a lot since I’m a freelance writer”, replied Antonella. “How much is the replacement battery?”

“Oh wow, you’re a writer? That’s a challenging job, doing freelance. It’s pretty cool, too. I enjoy amateur writing… you know…fan fiction stuff.” Will looks over at a pile of parts and thinks for a second. Antonella’s tail head rises up a bit to get a better look.

“Wow, look at all this cool stuff!” exclaims Antonella’s tail head as she extends her tail high above her main head to get a glimpse at the items on the highest shelves.

“Right? It’s a bit of a mess, but if you look closer you may find...”, Will pulls a fresh battery out of the pile. “…an unexpected treasure. This battery has zero cycles on it - it’s brand new.”

Will gets to work and unscrews the bottom of the Antonella’s computer and removes the aluminum casing, exposing the internal battery. He quickly swaps out the old battery for the new one and reassembles the bottom shell. “That should do the trick.”

“That was quite fast”, remarks Antonella. “How much do you charge for this service?”

“This one is on the house. I had a spare battery and it literally took me a minute to swap it out. I do have a small favor to ask.” Will hands the computer back to Antonella, who looks at him a bit nervously.

“What do you have in mind?” She pauses.

“Well, you’re a professional writer and I’m a computer geek who can barely put two words together. Can you help me with my fan fiction and give me some pointers on how to improve my writing skills?”

Antonella’s faces both emit a sigh of relief. “Of course! I’d be happy to help you improve your writing skills. But just to be clear, this is not a date.”