ArchivedLogs:Bated Breath
| Bated Breath | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia
|
2018-09-14 ' |
| Location
<XS> K.C., Marinov, and Paras's Dorm - FL2 | |
The influx of new students this year has led to a bit of overcrowding at Xavier's, and it is starting to show in the dorm arrangements, many rooms like this one refitted for three students where they had once been built for only two. The standard two closets have been joined by a large armoire against one wall; three dressers have been moved in, three desks. A bunk bed on the left side, a lofted twin with its desk underneath it on the right. The side of the room with the lofted bed has been decorated brightly -- a multitude of elaborately embroidered scarfs has been repurposed as drapes, curtaining off the underside of the bed when not pulled back. The hutch of the desk has been papered in photographs, the books on it (largely not in English, save for the collection of textbooks) neatly arranged. The lower bunk is generally crisply made up when not in use. Beneath the bed boxes upon boxes of supplies are stored in clear plastic organizers; beads and findings and all manner of tools. A large colorful basket sits underneath the desk nearest to the lower bunk, the desk itself often a messy disarray of half-finished jewelry or knitting projects. Near the head of the bed, a pair of food and water bowls covered in cheerful pastel pawprints sits on a large plastic placemat. K.C.'s books have been pushed aside to make room for a flat ovoid drone, which until recently has been half-disassembled on her desk. She's in somewhere in the latter stages of /re/assembling it -- or its innards, at least, eyes narrowed and focused more on the air just to one side of it for the moment than on the drone itself. Humming quietly to herself as she flicks restlessly at the air. On the floor beside her, Suga Mama dozes, one ear flicking intermittently as her paws twitch. A slender young man with dark brown skin and glossy, if unruly, black curls on his head appears beside K.C.'s desk, leaning against the wall with lanky arms folded across his chest. There's no transition -- he wasn't there one moment, and the next he was. He's dressed in a button-up shirt in black with bright electric green turned cuffs, collars, buttons, and stitching, a darker green satin vest with a tessellated hexagonal pattern, and black pleat-front slacks. "Do you intend to reactivate it?" he asks without preamble, the faintest hint of an English accent in his voice. K.C.'s fingers give another small flutter, her head bobs in a slight nod, her gaze still fixated off into the air a moment. "Have to. It's quiet now. Not talking to me." The sudden appearance of Man On Her Desk seems to bother her not at all, except for the following sudden demand. Almost suspicious: "Is it talking to you?" The shake of the man's head is so minute that it might easily be mistaken for an attempt to resettle his hair (though his hair does not, in fact, unmuss itself at the gesture). "Not since its systems failed the day you found it. The administration would expect me to report this to them." There is no hint of a threat in his tone here, purely matter-of-fact. "I will do so if it shows any sign that it might successfully infiltrate the network. That seems improbable as matters stand, but even so, it might be able to obtain information on you and your --" He turns one hand gracefully at the empty room. "-- immediate environs." He leans over to peer down at K.C.'s hands as they work, his expression impassive.. "Though not if you leave its sensory equipment disconnected. Any insights on its origin so far?" "It'll be fixed. Soon. Soon I'll fix it. Then it'll talk." K.C. leans a little closer to the drone, frowns. "To /me/. Not to /you/. Not sneaky-like. I'm /careful/." Her hand drops, putting two gentle pats on the open casing of the robot. "You can come here, though. And talk to it. /Direct/. Maybe," she conjectures solemnly, "it's just lonely. Needed other friends. Totally innocent robot. Highly likely." Her head shakes briefly. "Didn't come far." "I cannot deny I am powerfully curious," the man admits easily enough. "It is so very different from other surveillance drones we usually get." He taps his smooth chin with one slender index finger, thoughtful. "Brilliant. I am sending up a proxy, something I threw together for just the sort of potentially risky interfacing. Just by way of warning, it will come in through the vent." K.C. can detect the susurrus of an encrypted data stream long before she hears the quiet taps and whirrs on the inside of the ventilation duct that terminates directly behind where the man's calves. The vent cover lifts away from the wall and drops to the floor, revealing a foot-long robot that resembles a crude mechanical pillbug, its articulated carapace and eight limbs rubberized and grippy. It curls up into a ball and rolls out onto the floor of the dorm room, uncurls again and starts to climb up the side of K.C.'s desk. "It is…not a physically robust specimen." The man stoops down to pet Suga Mama, though his hand does not dimple her skin or her admittedly short hair where it makes contact. "I would appreciate you discouraging her from /interfacing/ with it, in her own fashion." "Different," K.C. agrees, head bobbing. "News drones are boring." Her bobbing grows a little faster when the pillbug rolls in, a soft hoarse breath rushing out of her. "Do you learn from B, does she learn from you." One foot stretches out to curl toes against Suga Mama's belly, actually stirring her short nap of fur this time. "She can be gentle." Though a quick dart of eyes is taking in one - two - three mangled and destroyed toys scattered in bits around the room. She turns back to the drone, sucking her cheeks inward. "I think I can on it." "Quite a lot of both, I think," he says petting the pillbug bot as it reaches the desktop, "but this one was inspired by B's designs and not vice versa." The pillbug rears up to expose an array of sensors nestled between its insectoid legs, aiming them at the partially disassembled drone. "At your leisure. I wait with bated breath."
"Information, generally speaking." Cerebro -- or, rather, his digital avatar -- does not miss a beat. "Though this does not preclude worms of /some/ varieties." The partially reassembled drone, partially reactivated now, emits a faint whirring noise. K.C. can sense the staccato stutter of electrical fields as it attempts and fails to switch the rest of its sensory and networking components back on. Its camera swivels in its track and focuses on K.C. For the next minute or so, it just sits there running automated diagnostic sequences as, presumably, it was programmed to do when unable to activate its propulsion, communication, and sensor arrays. Then, abruptly, it stops. Its processors kicks into full, but K.C. can't discern exactly what it's doing. The camera refocuses, and moves again, stopping to take in the pillbug bot before sliding back to K.C. "Mm..." Cerebro's avatar strokes its chin thoughtfully. "No network connection. We may have a ghost in the machine here." | |
