To switch something on again or bring it back into working order after it has been shut down

📝 The technician managed to reactivate the old computer after replacing its battery.

📖 As the story opens, Roz is reactivated in a repair facility — switched back on after the damage that ended her time on the island.

A failure to work correctly; when a machine breaks down or behaves wrongly

📝 A malfunction in the lift meant we had to climb all twelve flights of stairs.

📖 Roz has arrived at the facility because of a malfunction — she was badly damaged and no longer working as she should.

Relating to finding out exactly what is wrong with something

📝 The mechanic ran a diagnostic test to discover why the engine kept stalling.

📖 Technicians run diagnostic checks on Roz, examining her systems to find every part that needs repair.

To take something apart piece by piece

📝 It took an hour to dismantle the old bookshelf and pack it into the car.

📖 To repair her, the workers partly dismantle Roz, separating her damaged parts before rebuilding her.

The system of connected electrical paths inside a machine that make it work

📝 A single loose wire in the circuitry stopped the whole robot from moving.

📖 Deep inside Roz's circuitry, her memories of the island somehow survive the repairs — she has not forgotten.

A set of equipment or tools used for a particular purpose

📝 The science lab was filled with strange apparatus for measuring temperature and light.

📖 Roz is surrounded by the gleaming apparatus of the repair facility — machines built to take robots apart and put them back together.

No longer used or useful because something newer has replaced it

📝 Once smartphones arrived, many people thought paper maps were obsolete.

📖 Roz is an older model, and some at the facility treat her as nearly obsolete — a robot from an earlier time.

To adjust a machine or instrument carefully so that it works accurately

📝 The scientist had to calibrate the scales before weighing the tiny samples.

📖 The technicians calibrate Roz's repaired systems, fine-tuning her until she moves and senses the world correctly again.

Having a fault or flaw; not working as it should

📝 The shop replaced the defective toaster because it kept burning the bread.

📖 To the company, a damaged Roz is simply defective stock — a product to be fixed and put back to use.

To save or rescue something useful from damage or waste

📝 They managed to salvage a few photographs from the flooded house.

📖 Rather than scrap her, the company chooses to salvage Roz — repairing her so she can be sent out to work.

One of the parts that together make up a whole machine or system

📝 Each component of the model aeroplane had to be glued in the right order.

📖 Every damaged component inside Roz is replaced or repaired until she is whole enough to function once more.

Able to feel, sense, and experience things; aware of oneself and the world

📝 The film asked whether a robot could ever become truly sentient and feel real emotions.

📖 Roz blurs the line between machine and sentient being — though built in a factory, she remembers, misses, and chooses for herself.

Made by people rather than occurring naturally; not real or natural in origin

📝 The artificial flowers looked almost real until you touched the plastic petals.

📖 Roz is entirely artificial — built, not born — yet the love she feels for her son Brightbill is anything but fake.

A machine, especially one shaped like a person or animal, that can move and act on its own

📝 The museum's clockwork automaton could write a whole sentence with its tiny metal hand.

📖 To the workers, Roz is just an automaton on a repair table — but she is far more than the machine they see.

A clue early in a story that hints at something that will happen later

📝 The dark clouds on the very first page were foreshadowing the storm that would strike the village.

📖 Roz's lingering memories of the island are a kind of foreshadowing — an early sign that she will one day try to return home.