fandomhigh | Applied Inventiontronics, Period 4

Today, Inventiontronics was in the Danger Shop. Said Danger Shop looked a lot like a rural 1950's American town. Nice, normal little town, except for that creepy floating dude, and the fact that all the people were robots in various states of disrepair.

The zipperheaded man responsible was standing under the welcome sign, notes in hand, waiting for everyone to gather around.

"Hello, class!" Gosh, he was cheery. "Today, you're going to be repairing the good folks of Milltown. They're all ready and able to tell you how to fix them. Think of it as a walk-through. Ask them whatever questions you need to, they don't bite ~~no matter how angry they look in the icons~~ and are waiting with tools over there."

Glitch pointed over to the main street where six robots, counting the weird floating one, were scattered on steps and porches. Each one had a toolbox sitting near them.

"You can work together, if you like, or work alone. It's up to you. They'll let me know how you did when everyone is finished. Now go on," he started to herd them towards the robot people, "start working!"

[ooc: ~~Wait for the~~ OCD of roboty doom is up!]

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Emily stayed still, not knowing that eventually it would be an eerie thing to be doing.

She also stayed quiet. Gears were tricky things, and she didn't want to startle him.

The tip of Anders's tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth in concentration as he worked, and though he didn't realize it he was holding his breath. Carefully, carefully . . . the gear almost slipped off the tip of his screwdriver as he worked to move it back into place, and he'd notice in a couple of hours the sore spot where he'd bitten his tongue in reaction to the near-mishap.

He wasn't used to this kind of fine motor control (no pun intended), but he thought he was beginning to enjoy the challenge.

Finally the gear slotted back into its rightful place, and he craned his neck to take a good look at the cluster where the second gear needed to go. This would be more challenging.

"You can take a moment, hun, if you need to."

She was smiling, but as still as ever. "Rest your eyes a bit. Don't want to strain 'em for a few old gears."

Anders nodded, deciding that was a good idea, and went to work reconnecting some of the wires instead, first. "What exactly do you do, anyway?" he asked.

"I'm a Nurture Unit. Tasked to be a parent for one that couldn't have her own."

She had no idea how creepy that could sound, and was in fact very proud of her momly status.

Anders had seen, in a copy of some old propagandist literature from the Cylon War, photos of Cylons pushing baby strollers juxtaposed with photos of Cylons opening fire on groups of civilians. He was trying very hard not to think about that now, but the slight shiver was palpable -- though, he hoped, not visible.

Just a simulation, he told himself.

"Oh," he said, fingers suddenly less than cooperative as he struggled with a twisted wire. "Sounds like a challenging job. Is it hard?"

Emily noticed the shiver but didn't say anything.

"As much of a challenge as she ever made it. I was programmed to love and care for her, though, so I suppose it wasn't hard, exactly."

She would have shrugged, but that would upset his work.

Stupid fingers. Stupid, stupid fingers -- Anders lost his grip on the wire he was trying to fix and had to go back into the tangle after it again. He wasn't sure how much he liked the idea of it being possible to be programmed to love.

"Well," he stammered as he finally got the last pesky wire reconnected and picked up the screwdriver to get that last gear back into place, "I just meant, y'know, kids take a lot of patience and keeping up with."

"Don't have much of a temper to lose, darlin'," she said, still and smiling sweetly.

"Kind of a safe-guard in the programming, I suppose."

Again, Emily was oblivious to how unsettling the things she was saying were.

He held back the shiver this time and just nodded. "Guess that's a bonus, huh?"

The screwdriver in his hand twitched, though, and the gear slipped. "Dammit."

Applied Inventiontronics, Period 4 - Week 5

Re: Fix some Robots! - Emily (2/4)

Re: Fix some Robots! - Emily (2/4)

Re: Fix some Robots! - Emily (2/4)

Re: Fix some Robots! - Emily (2/4)

Re: Fix some Robots! - Emily (2/4)

Re: Fix some Robots! - Emily (2/4)

Re: Fix some Robots! - Emily (2/4)

Re: Fix some Robots! - Emily (2/4)

Re: Fix some Robots! - Emily (2/4)

Re: Fix some Robots! - Emily (2/4)