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 Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 5:37 am
Dear Miss Garnet,
It is with regret that I inform you that your application to join the Mad Scientists Union has been rejected once again. While your accomplishments are formidable (even more so in light of your young age), and your father was a respected member of our organization, the Union is a brotherhood. The topic of allowing women to join has been raised and voted down several dozen times since its inception, and it is my belief that the board is not, at present, ready to change its views.
Please do not take our continual rejection as a comment on your skills. Were you a man, we would accept your application posthaste. Your work is top-notch, your recommendations all speak incredibly highly of you, and you passed the personality evaluation with flying colors. However, the situation being what it is, there is simply no way for me to admit you into the MSU. '
I advise that you cease attempting to apply, as you have become something of an annoyance to other members of the board. If you do not submit an application in the next applicant cycle, I will allow time for the issue to cool and then consult the board once more about the issue of allowing women to join our organization. It is my personal opinion that we are alienating some of the brightest new minds in the field (such as yourself) by upholding such mediaeval selection conceits.
Please continue to do the same sort of excellent work you have shown our board in the past. You have every qualification except for a Y chromosome.
Apologetically yours,
Dr. Rod Uranium
Director of Admissions, Mad Scientists Union
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Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 4:55 pm
She stomped on the pedal a few times more, causing the basket to clang loudly for emphasis. "******** male chauvinist pigs!" she shouted up into the rafters of the lab, and stormed off down a side aisle to find something to blow up. Playing with dangerous chemicals always helped her calm down a bit. The sound of her boots thudding against the poured concrete floors beat a steady rhythm that comforted her. The ability to be as loud and destructive as she liked within the confines of her own space was incredibly liberating.
She pulled on a pair of rubber gloves that she snatched hurriedly off a lab bench, pulled a wrench from her back pocket, and rapped it loudly against the side of a pre-fab storage unit plopped awkwardly in the middle of the mess. If Tune wasn't awake before, he was now. She kept marching, and heard her assistant stumble out of the pre-fab into the aisle behind her.
"Wha'd you do that for?" he called.
"We've got work to do!" she shouted at him over her shoulder.
"Union reject you again?" he asked, running up behind her. Tristan paused and gave him a long, not-amused sort of look.
Finally, when his blood was sufficiently chilled, she asked, "What do you think?"
He hesitated to reply.
"Don't answer that," snapped Tristan, and kept walking. "I am going to show all of them. I am going to invent something so amazing they will have to let me into their little treehouse."
"Got any ideas?" asked Tune, still walking behind her like a faithful dog. Tristan turned and grinned at him with a look of such malice that made him wish he'd never asked.
"Combat android," she said, and laughed wildly before turning on her heels and striding off into another part of the lab. She clapped twice as she went, raising a crackling electric field that prevented Tune from following her.
Oh, the wonders of having a mad scientist for a boss. Some days he wondered why he even bothered.
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Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 5:22 pm
The crate arrived the next day, much to Tristan's spectacular pleasure. She shoved it halfway up the loading dock on her own, and then rudely awakened Tune in much the same manner she had woken him the day before and ordered him to move it the rest of the way in.
"What's. in. this. thing?" grunted Tune as he tried to push it up the ramp into the lab. Tristan gave him one of her brilliant-but-insane looks that usually followed with him wishing he had never asked.
"A combat android!" she answered proudly. "Keep pushing!"
"Fully assembled?" asked Tune, shoving his shoulder against the crate. This moved it a grand total of about four inches, but also gave him a stupendously painful shoulder.
"No," scowled Tristan. "That's cheating. It's some assembly required," she explained. "The company sends you parts, and then you assemble it and customize it yourself."
She joined him in pushing, and together they got the crate up the ramp and into the workshop.
"I can't wait to get started," she explained ambitiously as he applied some of her miracle pain-be-gone lotion to his throbbing shoulder. She was already poking and prodding the seams of the box. "I'm not sure how to get it open, though," she added, frustration evident.
Tune massaged his shoulder gingerly and shrugged at her.
"You are such a wuss!" snapped Tristan. "Go get me a crowbar! I'm gonna see if the computer can figure this out."
Sighing deeply, Tune stomped out to go find the aforementioned tool, knowing there was no arguing with Tristan when she got in one of these moods.
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Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 4:34 pm
When Tune returned from fetching a crowbar, Tristan still hadn’t succeeded in opening the crate. She snatched the crowbar from him without so much of a ‘thank you’ and went back to work trying to pry it open. “Computer can’t figure out what it’s made out of,” she grunted, giving the bar a mighty jerk. “I figure it must be some kind of protective device,” she added.
“If you’re not smart enough to open it, you don’t need to be screwing with what’s inside.”
With a grunt and a heave, the crowbar went down. The lid of the container went flying in the air and then landed with a clatter several feet away. Tune and Tristan hurried to peer into the box.
“What is it?” asked Tune. Tristan wrinkled her nose in displeasure and took a step back from the crate.
“There’s been some mistake,” she said angrily.
“What?” asked Tune. He could tell that much – there were not robot parts in the box, just some sort of pathetic looking creature curled at the bottom.
“I ordered a combat android,” explained Tristan, in a restrained way that made her border on terrifying. “Some assembly required.”
The thing in the box was clearly not a combat android, some assembly required or not. Tune did not feel obliged to point out the obvious.
“They sent me a goddamn kid!” shouted Tristan. She hurled the crowbar against the far wall and stormed out of the room. Tune could hear her in the next room shouting into the telephone at some poor underling at the shipping office.
Tune looked into the box again, because he had not been entirely sure what was in it previously. What he had previously taken for a pathetic creature curled up at the bottom was beginning to resolve itself into a more human form, spreading out of its fetal position into something with the normal number of arms and legs. It still seemed groggy from transport, but as Tune watched, it sat up and shook its head. It had dark hair, chopped to a chin-length bob.
“Uh,” said Tune, clearing his throat. The thing’s head whipped around. It peered up at him with glimmering yellow eyes. Tune was taken aback. It wasn’t a thing – it was a little girl. Her features were vaguely Asiatic– almond-shaped eyes, yellow as a wolf’s, a small nose, and plump lips parted into a perpetual pout of surprise.
The only thing that indicated anything was slightly amiss about her was the numeral inscribed on her forehead. A metal ‘6’ was stamped between her brows.
The child blinked at Tune, then got to her feet with a slight whirring sound. She was dressed in a teal jumpsuit that covered her whole body, exposing only her fingers. Her legs were sheathed to the knees in heavy-duty boots.
She reached up a hand towards Tune. Her fingers were made of metal.
In the other room, Tristan slammed the phone down and stormed back in. Tune turned to look at her.
“They sent you a combat android,” he said. Tristan nodded unhappily.
“It’s just far younger than I expected it to be,” she answered.
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Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2009 6:31 pm
“You can’t give it a name,” said Tristan in frustration. “You’re so damn sentimental, Tune. It’s a war machine, not a human being.”
Tune cast a rueful glance at the little girl seated on the workbench, her plump lips slightly open, forming her mouth into an ‘O’ of surprise. He couldn’t tell if she understood what they were saying or not. She seemed pretty complacent so far, happy to sit wherever they put her.
“She’s a child,” said Tune firmly.
“It!” corrected Tristant. “It! It’s an it! It’s a robot! It hasn’t got a gender! It’s a combat android!”
“She needs a name,” insisted Tune.
Tristan groaned and turned to the child. “Serial number?” she demanded. The child blinked at her. “What’s your serial number?”
The child said nothing. Tristan glared sharply at Tune. “It doesn’t need a name,” she said. “I doubt it would remember if it had one. I haven’t got time for this. I have other work to do.”
With that, Tristan pivoted on her heels and stormed angrily out. It was a pity, reflected Tune, that the MSU wouldn’t admit her – she was perfectly suited for the job of Mad Scientist in every way, shape, and form. Her very mannerisms exhumed essence of twisted genius.
A slight sound startled him. He turned his attention back to the girl-child on the table.
“Sorry about her,” he said. The child blinked. “Have you got a name?” he asked her.
She blinked again.
“A name,” he repeated. “What you’re called.” Tune pointed to his own chest. “I’m Tune.”
The girl pursed her lips and furrowed her brows a bit, the most expression he had seen out of her since Tristan’s angry outburst began.
She opened her mouth. “Ahhhh,” she said, and closed it again, looking hurt. She shook her head ‘no’. Tune frowned.
“We’ll have to find you one,” he said, and the girl blinked at him. “A name, I mean. We’ll have to name you.”
The girl frowned at him for a minute and then nodded slowly.
“You do understand me, don’t you?” asked Tune, and received an inconclusive response. He sighed heavily and considered the girl for a little while in silent contemplation. If he gave her anything that sounded like an actual name, Tristan would reject it outright. But he couldn’t simply refer to her as ‘it’.
A few minutes later, it came to him. “Six!” he said happily, and the sudden noise caused the child to flinch back. “I’ll call you Six, because of the marking on your forehead.”
The child blinked at him, apparently not sure whether she understood or not. Tune sighed and motioned to himself. “Tune,” he declared. He motioned to the girl. “Six.”
The girl was picking up on it now. She raised a hand and pointed to herself. “Six,” she said quietly. She pointed to Tune. “Tune.” She pointed to herself again, a slight smile crossing her features. “Six.”
Tune nodded, feeling a degree of accomplishment wash over him. The girl understood. She could be taught. She was an android, yes, but that didn’t rule out her status as a human being.
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Posted: Thu Jun 11, 2009 7:58 am
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Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 1:21 pm
“Tune?” called Tristan. Tune looked up from the radiator he was tinkering with. He could hear his boss’s boots stomping around a different corridor in the lab, only a few yards away. “Tune! I know you’re in here! We need to talk!”
The young man put down his tools and hurried to the end of the row. Tristan met him there. She did not look pleased.
“What about?” he asked.
“Six,” said Tristan. There was a note of distaste to her voice.
“What about her?” asked Tune. Tristan’s face twisted into a snarl. Combined with the halo of frizzy hair, the results were almost leonine.
“Six is not a ‘her,’” corrected Tristan. “It’s not a child, Tune.”
“It looks like a child,” he replied, and felt weird calling Six an it. Six was most definitely a she.
“It’s a sophisticated piece of combat technology,” she replied, “and you can’t just take off to let it play on swings at the park with normal children.”
So she had heard about that. Tune tried very hard not to flinch.
“It needs to stay here,” continued Tristan. “It needs to train and it needs to be secluded from outside influences. I can’t have you teaching my projects morality when they’re supposed to be streamlined machines of destruction!”
This struck Tune as wrong. Mechanical or not, Six had the mind and body of a little girl. That much was clear to him from interacting with her. If Tristan couldn’t see that, then it was because she was truly heartless. “Why?” he demanded. “So you can send her to assassinate a president?”
A sly look flashed across his boss’s face. “I hadn’t thought of that one,” she said. “But it’s a good idea. Thank you, Tune.”
Tune sputtered in frustration. “I didn’t mean to suggest it,” he floundered. “I mean, you can’t do that! She’s just a kid!”
“Six,” said Tristan harshly, “is a weapon. Six is not a she, a living being, or a child. You are not to take it to the park, to the museum, to the movies, or to the library. You are not to read it books or play monopoly with it. That thing is my ticket to the Mad Scientists Union and you had better not screw it up because I will never, ever forgive you if you do. Do I make myself clear?”
Tune simmered with anger but nodded reluctantly.
“Good,” said Tristan, and turned on her heel. She headed back into the lab.
It was then that Tune resolved he would steal Six.
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