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 Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 4:32 pm
The world was a perplexing place.
Blank eyes starred off into space, not paying attention to anything. It was the same blank, almost lost expression that a child might have, trying to comprehend the world turning.
I was hard to believe it because everything looked like it was standing still, but it was. The Earth turning at just over one thousand miles per hour, and the world itself spinning around the Sun at about sixty-seven thousand miles per hour. Everyone was falling through space and clinging; clinging desperately to the surface of their tiny planet, and if they let go...
Shad sighed, rubbing his eyes as he took another long sip of coffee. He had been oddly distant the past few days, though he was beginning to realize, or at least thought he realized, the answer. He came to the conclusion that his near mindless state was his brain off on vacation after a grand total of 7 years, 4 months, and 21 days working for ENCOM with no vacations; a situation he never wanted to experience again.
He wasn't unemployed for long. He had gotten a job working to create and maintain several websites for both local and big businesses. A situation that made him wonder what brainless nit-wits were being passed in the colleges these days.
Across the table from him, Kluster say with a portable game in his hands, his fingers moving across the buttons with lightning speed as his computer brain outmaneuvered the game's programing. Kluster hadn't been one for actual computer programming, so he just kept to playing games.
Shad noted that, with the Kybernetic's attention focused on the game, he seemed to have forgotten about the plastic spoon hanging from his mouth he had been chewing on earlier.
Shad turned his attention, for the moment, to his watch. The digital readout blinked: 6:15 am. It would be another few minutes until they officially opened, though the workers were nice to him, since he had been a regular customer since beginning his work at ENCOM. Needless to say, the employees treated him well.
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Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 3:26 pm
Akuma walked into the coffee house with Will trailing behind her, as if in a sleep like trance and headed toward the back room. Walking into the room Akuma grabbed her apron off one of the hooks and then through Will's at him, and still in his sleep like trance he was still able to catch and yawn at the same time.
As Will caught the apron he looked up again at Akuma, "Mom how did I wind up working here anyway. I never sated I wanted to work," he whined.
"You never told me anything different when I first started bringing you here. You would get up get dress, come with me to work and then you just started helping. And that is how you implied you wanted to started working. So stop with the whining and help everyone make sure everything is ready," said Akuma as she put her apron on and tied it.
Will stood dumbfoundly looking at Akuma, "did you just accuse me of whining? I would never do such a thing," said Will as Akuma just smiled and walked over ruffling his hair on her way out of the back. "Hey, that was uncalled for."
Akuma headed out toward the front of the shop and made sure that everything was ready for opening in fifteeen minutes. "Morning Shad," she said as she saw him sitting at his usual place with Kluster.
Akuma had never really met Shad, but he was a regular at the shop and everyone knew who he was.
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Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 3:30 pm
Shad turned his head as someone greeted him. He wasn't aware of anyone else entering the coffee shop, though that was no surprise in his day-dreaming state earlier.
It took a second, but he matched face and name, recognizing the person who greeted him as Akuma. She worked at the coffee shop, though he couldn't quite place how long she'd been working there. The shop had gone though a couple employment changes over the past seven years that he had stopped keeping track of the employees.
In addition, she was also one of the few people working under Doctor Brown in his field of Kybernetic Research. He had seen her name a couple times when skimming though the hardware notes. Appearantly, she had been given a Kybernetic that was a bit of an exception to the rest. He didn't know much about it since the notes on coding sentient brainwave patters and frame construction might as well have been written in Greek, Russian and Vulkan combined, for all he could understand it.
He gave her a quick smile before taking another boosting sip from his coffee. "Good morning," he greeted in return. "How has life been treating you?"
Kluster was still busy with his portable game, though not enough to not notice the visitors at their table. He gave a quick smile and nod to the girl, his Flash memory not pulling up a name to match her face, what with his power focused more on the game then trying to remember something.
His focus was temporarily shifted when he caught sight of the Kybernetic with the visitor. He sat, partly focused on the game, partly focused on the Kybernetic, whose information was also not coming to him at the moment.
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Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 5:30 pm
"It's been treating me nicely. And how has yours been treating you," replied Akuma answering Shad, as she took note on Kluster's friendly acknowledgement and smiling back.
Will noticed Kluster sitting at the table with Shad, and decided to venture over from behind the counter and see who the other person was. Will had said a few words before to Shad, but never had really talked to the boy before. He thought it would be a good idea to talk to the other child now since the shop hadn't opened yet, meaning he still had time before he was to be put to work.
Moving steadily over toward the table he stopped and greeted the boy that was sitting with Shad, "Good Morning, Mr.Shad," said Will as he tried to fix the slight lean in his posture.
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Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:59 am
"I can't complain much. Working from home has it's advantages." He replied to Akuma. Shad closed his eyes again, taking another sip of his coffee. He kept a subconscious tip on the fact that Kluster has sent a glance in Will's direction.
He had figured a long time ago that, since he was a prototype Kybernetic, Kluster had been, in some way, interested in the other Kybernetics who had been designed with some purpose or idea in mind. He decided to leave Kluster be, for the moment, anyway.
He turned his attention to the same Kybernetic Kluster was. Shad set his coffee down. "Good morning to you, too." He smiled. "William, was it?"
Kluster sent a glance at Shad for a moment. It was interesting trying to play mind games with his father. Shad knew Kluster was interested in who Will was and Kluster knew that Shad knew he was intrigued.
He decided to stop his train of thought there. Usually ideas like that caused his mind to slow down due to the logical processors lagging.
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Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 5:24 pm
“Yes, sir,” replied Will as he stood in front of the table answering Shad’s question.
Glancing over at Kluster, Will decided he should ask the other Kybernetik’s name, “Hi I’m Will, and you are,” asked Will out of curiosity.
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Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 12:14 pm
Kluster had lost his attraction to the portable game as time went on, rather wanting to pay attention to the newer Kybernetic and his owner. He had
shut it off, set it down and now sat, leaning into the table with his fingers laced and his chin resting on his hands.
The Kybernetic stared at the smaller for a moment when Will had "pinged him and requested a designation", as Shad had called it at one time. Kluster still referred to it as a 'Hello, who are you?' greeting. Not having any information on the one in front of him made him feel a little awkward, for some reason. Then again, he figured that most humans felt the same way when talking with people they didn't know.
"Kluster," he replied. The Kybernetic raised a hand and gave a slight, yet friendly wave to Will. "Nice to meet you."
Shad let the two Kybernetics talk. Instead, he leaned closer to Akuma. "You still accept these, right?" He asked, holding up a stack of about fifty or so of the "Buy Ten, get the Eleventh Free" coupon cards he'd maxed out over the course of seven years.
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Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 5:07 pm
“Well nice to meet you too Kluster,” said Will as he smiled a bit. “What were you just playing there,” he asked motioning toward the game that Kluster was just playing.
“Yeah, we still do,” she said slightly gawking at the small pile that had formed. She knew he was a regular but didn’t realize that much of a regular.
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Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 8:26 am
Kluster's gaze shifted to his portable game for a moment. It wasn't anything special, a game bought used, actually. Still, it was pretty fun. "Just a racing game," he stated in an almost nonchalant tone of voice. He twirled the thing in his hand and tossed it to Will. "Here, why don't you give it a shot?"
Shad took note of Akuma's expression at the pile of coupons. He assumed, from that, that he'd been going there since before she worked there. "That's good," he commented, finishing off his cup of coffee with a content sigh.
He turned to the chair at his side, sitting the cup on it, along with seventeen other empty cups. He pulled two coupons from the stack. "I think I'll redeem two this time. One more caramel late` and a Gambino de Tropical, please." He smiled. Asside from the coffee served there, he was a near addict to the sweet fruit drink.
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Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 1:12 pm
Will caught the game right out of mid-air with no problem because ever since he had gotten his upgrade, his reflexes have been a tad quicker then usual. “I’ll give it a shot, fighters are more my style,” said Will as he turned the game on and slowly began to figure out the controls.
After playing the first race, he got the hang of the controls and played one more time to see if he could possible beat his first time through. Seeing that he did a bit better on the first race he handed the game back with a smile. “Thanks, I think with a bit more practice I could probably enjoy that game,” said Will as he handed the game to Kluster.
“One Caramel Latte’ and Gambino de Tropical coming right up,” said Akuma as she took the two coupons from Shad and headed for the counter to get the drinks.
Placing the coupons into the register, she prepared the drinks with ease, and brought them back to the table for Shad and Kluster. “There you go,” Akuma said as she set the two drinks on the table.
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Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 12:51 am
Kluster analyzed. Whenever he tossed the game to someone, he always added a small tilt to the trajectory of the device, an act that made most human teens drop it when attempting to catch it. Will was different.
He caught it without dropping it and seemed to have some amazing reflexes. He had surpassed his first practice race in the game and beat Kluster's old record, solidifying his theory of enhanced reaction time.
He stopped his thinking there and simply saved all the information he had gathered from the little test. Shad had always said that over thinking could break your brain. Despite if Shad was being satirical or not, Kluster didn't want to test the theory that his computer brain may be over clocked if he thought too hard. After all, it seemed to always have that effect when working on them back at ENCOM. "Probably..." Kluster replied with a diminishing tone.
Shad sighed off Kluster's actions, not really caring how he tested the other Kybernetics. He was more interested in his new coffee and cup of Gambino de Tropical.
He removed the plastic lid from the fruit drink and poured a bit into his coffee. A few swirls and he had a fruit salad flavored hot cup of caffeine. He stifled a laugh at the memory of the original manager of the coffee house telling him about mixing the two drinks. "Thank you." He paused a moment.
"Your Kybernetic seems a bit different from the others I've seen. Is he a custom job?"
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Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 9:31 am
“So Kluster, do you play any other games beside racers,” asked Will as he tried to gather some more info on Kluster’s likes.
Will didn't like to see or hear becoming sad so he always tried to veer their ideas to something a bit more happy to avoid emotional conflicts.
“Yeah, Will’s a custom to an extent. There’s not another Kybrenetik like him, but Doc Albert told me his abilities are based off of those of a Pirate,” replied Akuma to the best of her knowledge.
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Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 9:51 pm
"I dunno...I usually just play games to see if I can out think the computer programing." He replied. "I...haven't really given any thought to what kind of games I prefer."
It was true, mostly. Kluster had always gotten random assortments of games and all to outwit the computer in order to beat the game, which wasn't to difficult, given the extent of the games that he played. Some where better, however. He thought for a moment. Would difficult games be an appropriate answer?
Shad raised an eyebrow at Akuma's reply. "I'm sorry, I think my hearing is going out...did you say will was based off a pirate?" He looked at her with a dumbstruck expression.
He wasn't trying to berate Will or anything, far from it. He was trying to contemplate what the doctor was thinking when he designed a Kybernetic with a pirate in mind. And that thought lead him to wonder if the Doc, perhaps, built a Ninja one...
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Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 8:54 am
“Then in that case which ones do you find the most difficult, if any,” said Will as he listened to Kluster talk about how he liked to beat them.
Maybe if Will kept Kluster talking like this and finding out, maybe he would could drag Jordan in one of these days and have him met Kluster.
“Yeah, Will is based off a pirate known as William Turner. That’s one of the pirates off of that movie Pirates of the Carribean,” said Akuma as she tried to jog her memory of everything, and headed toward the front of the cafe and flipped the open/closed sign so that OPEN read.
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Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 11:14 pm
Kluster thought for a moment. "Technically, the most difficult ones I own are all ones in languages I don't have the software to translate," he started. Shad's previous trip to Japan had netted him with quite a few games in the language and Kluster had yet to learn how to fully read it.
"Then there is one game that's kinda difficult. Some kinda drama, puzzle game where you solve courtroom cases," He made a face at the portable game's second game slot. "I'm still stuck on the last chapter."
Shad made a face as well at Akuma's description of Will. Not only was the Kybernetic Pirate-themed, but based off of a fictional movie character to boot. He didn't know if it was because the character was a major character in the movies or if the Doc did so out of pure fandom, but something told him the latter was correct. And wasn't Will's creation, in general, considered copyright infringement?
He decided not to say anything, to Akuma, who had left to tend to the coffee shop, which had just opened.
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