ArchivedLogs:UFO

UFO
Dramatis Personae Harm, K.C., Marcus, Spencer
In Absentia	2018-02-16 "We are very normal humans here. Very normal human school. Doing boring human -- chess."
Location <XS> Forest
Quiet and shady, the trees rise all around here high and thick. In stillness, woodland creatures make appearances, though sudden noises scare them back into the cover. Dappled sunlight filters down between the thick foliage, and the ground underfoot is heavily overgrown, though here and there paths have been worn, by deer or years of students wandering familiar trails. Though the weather is unseasonably pleasant, this balmy winter afternoon has been persistently overcast, drawing fewer students outside. Most of those who have made it outside stay near the mansion, wary of potential rain. The lakeside and the forest are, therefore rather quiet, left largely to the wildlife at the moment. Amidst the rustling of leaves, chattering of squirrels, twittering of birds, and occasional splash of water, there's a low, erratic whirring noise near the edge of the tree line. The source of this last one is not immediately obvious, but the observant may trace it back to a small flatish ovoid machine painted in meticulous camouflage. It has no visible rotors, and is simply hovering in the air -- not very high up, nor very well. In fact, it is descending to a gentle but not very graceful landing in a raspberry bush. Walking down toward the shore, Harm is wearing a knit poncho in a gradient of flame colors that matches the fiery autumn leaves and loose, black hemp wrap pants. They have a satchel made of recycled bicycle inner tubes over their shoulder and carry a travel chess set (a sturdy wooden board hinged along the middle where it folds up to form a box for the pieces) in the same hand. In the other hand, they're twirling a single bright scarlet sugar maple leaf. "...but most of them got annoyed with me and some were very rude," they're saying to their companion. "I'm not sure if I'm breaking some kind of unwritten rule by asking to play out games that they've already called, or if online chess is just full of really impatient..." They trail off and tilt their head squinting at the trees. "Do you hear that?" Following alongside Harm, Marcus is quiet. Unobtrusively dressed in olive-drab cargo pants, black lightweight hiking shoes, a black and white colourblock hoodie; he picks his way softly through the woods, footsteps not making much sound. His large eyes are flitting up and away through the trees -- it makes it seem like he might not be paying that much attention to Harm, though at the question his head shakes. Turns to follow off where Harm is looking, brows furrowing quizzically. Spence has been sitting out at the end of the pier, not so much skipping rocks as just throwing them as hard as he can out into the water. Every third or forth one vanishes just before leaving his fingers, and appears far out in the middle of the lake before flying the expected distance and splashing down. A movement against the sky catches his eye and he follows the descent of the drone into the woods, squinting slightly against the backlit gray of the clouds. Then he scrambles to his feet, disappearing before he's fully completed the motion -- -- and reappears in the woods not far from Harmony and Marcus, somewhat closer than they to where the drone is now half-obscured by the raspberry bush (sadly bare of fruit, this late in the season). "Ohey!" he waves at them. "Is that yours?" Pointing at the drone. "No." This comes firmly from nearby. A little bit past where the drone has landed, K.C. is leaning up against a tree, blandly dressed in baggy pale jeans and an oversized New Leash on Life hoodie, a black newsboy cap pulled down on her fuzzy short-cropped hair. "No, mine." Harm picks their way toward the raspberry bush, booted feet crunching softly. They stop short when Spence appears abruptly, eyes wide, though they don't jump back. "Oh! Salut, Spence." Maybe they were about to actually answer the question, but at KC's reply they turn quickly toward her. "Mystery solved, then. Sort of. What /is/ it, anyway?" Marcus trails after Harm, also freezing briefly Very Still when Spence appears. His head shakes emphatically. He continues forward only after K.C.'s answer, crouching down by the raspberry bush to pick up a stick and carefully move some of the thorny branches aside to make the half-hidden drone better visible. After a long thoughtful examination, he pronounces dubiously: "/Terrible/ raspberry." "Whoa I didn't see you there, salut!" Spencer doesn't seem nearly as surprised to discover K.C. as the others are. "I think it's a drone," he says, padding over to join Marcus. "But you are not wrong!" Looking back up at K.C. "Did you build it yourself?" K.C. shakes her head, still staying where she is against the tree. One hand drums restlessly against the tree trunk, the other tapping, jittery, at the air in front of her. "No. Found it. Found it /first/," she adds, pointedly. "I don't think it wants to be a raspberry." Her nose scrunches up at this. "... but. I like those." Harm also approaches the drone, although a little more cautiously than the two boys. "We're not trying to take it from you," they say to K.C. "Or at least I'm not. I was just curious. Do you think it might belong to someone else on campus, though?" Marcus lowers his stick at K.C.'s words, frowning more intently at the drone. Eventually he pokes it again, carefully. Prod. Prod. Prod? He looks back at K.C., brows hiking up. One shoulder lifting in a small shrug, as his long fingers unfurl toward the machine curiously. "Still some mystery left, then!" Spence declares brightly. "But don't worry, I'm not trying to claim it, either. If it belongs to someone here, though, they'd /probably/ like it back." His eyes widen. "But what if it's a /government surveillance/ drone? There's tons of those around my house all the time." "No, mine." K.C. huffs, pulling away from the tree with a small twitchy shake of her head, a small twitchy shake of her hand. "Came over the wall. /I/ found it. I found it /first/." Her forefinger and thumb snap once more at the air before, somewhat self-consciously, she tucks her restless hands firmly into her pockets. "Are /your/ government drones like /this/." She eyes the drone in the bush a little skeptically. "Someone built this." Harm takes a step back at the suggestion the drone might be from the government. "From outside? Do you think it's dangerous?" They are eyeing the drone even more suspiciously now. "The US government likes putting weapons on robots." Marcus's eyes go a little bit wider. He's just been lifting his stick to prod at the drone once more, but at Harm's question he drops it quickly, scooting sliiightly back from the raspberry bush. Eying the drone warily. "Who?" His brows pinch close together. "-- Why? /Is/ it --" His long fingers flutter toward Harm, then make a gun shape. "Weapon?" Spence nods, several times. "Yours," he agrees, easily. "Our government drones come in all kinds of flavors, but most of them are rotor-driven. No weapons, mostly just cameras." He kneels down and peers at the drone through the autumn-thinned shrub. "/This/ one /hovers!/ I doubt it's from the government." Even so saying, he looks somewhat uneasy. "But if it /isn't/ from the government or the school...who made it?" "Raspberry flavour?" K.C.'s eyes dart quickly to Spence. "This one. Raspberry-lite." She trudges closer, shaking her head, again, again, again. "Don't know. Don't know. Don't think weapon. Still looking. Still listening." Harm relaxes a little bit, but still stays back from the drone. "Some reporters use drones, right? Maybe it's someone trying to investigate the school, like those people who were hanging around the gate for days back when school started." They blink at K.C. "You mean you think the drone is still looking and listening? Should we watch what we say?" Marcus rocks back on his heels, arms curling around his shins. His chin drops to his knees, eyes fixed on the drone. Eventually he leans forward, accent still heavy but his words carefully enunciated as he announces to the drone: "We are very normal humans here. Very normal human school. Doing boring human --" Pause. He glances around for a moment. "-- chess. Go away, s'il te plaît." "Oh I meant like different /kinds/ -- but oh maybe this one has a Raspberry Pi inside, not like an actual /pie/, like a computer chip, a lot of drones use those." Somewhere in this speculation, Spencer's concern has given way to curious excitement again. "Anyway if it only crashed because of repulsor failure, it's probably still recording and transmitting, right?" He crouches down beside Marcus and waves at the drone's camera. "You know this school has a media team, right? Secretly filming kids with a drone is /creepy/, you shouldn't do that. Though," this aside seems to be directed toward the teenagers, "it probably /can't/ go away right now." "Some reporters. Some /spies/. Some --" K.C. ponders this for a brief moment. "Old students." Though this last is a bit more dubious. "Kisha's robots are /better/. Way too ugly for B's." Cautiously, she reaches into the raspberry bush -- seeming far more wary of its thorns than the drone, really, as she works it out of the bramble. "Still listening. Still watching." She's taking off her hoodie, now, wrapping up the drone inside the well-worn fabric. "/Spies,/" Harm says, slightly hushed with awe. "That sounds way cooler than it actually is, I bet." Still, they suppress a chill as K.C. frees the drone from the bush. "Are you going to take it to the teachers? Or the um...you know, security people?" Marcus nods quietly along with Spencer, still peering at the drone as he leans back again. "Teachers would know. What to do."