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 Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2010 6:15 pm
Heavy boots kicked up onto the armrest of the line of waiting chairs, crossed at the ankles. Black skirt draped lazily around dark leggings, trying to sit as comfortable as she could on these cheap seats with her back supported by the other side of the arm chair, light brown eyes over a blank, concentrating face, stared closely at a round mechanical object that she seemed to be taking apart.
Metal parts and small screws were places carefully on her chest, belly, and on the seat around her hips, a few sticking out the corner of her mouth.
Her eyes narrowed softly, slipping her screwdriver into the object once more to jiggle something around inside, and she made a noise of both annoyance, and understanding.
Waiting in the infirmary wasn’t exactly the most enjoyable pastime, but it allowed Faleen to get a little bit of her tinkering done. And aside from a numb a**, she didn’t really mind having to wait… so long as she had her tools…
one of her pokeball’s attacked to a strap around her thigh jiggled, almost impatiently, in response Faleen made a sudden grunt of protest at it, since she couldn’t make too much of any other noises, remaining stiffly in place as to not send her parts flying.
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Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 10:10 pm
"And you said what happened again?" A nurse walked out from behind a half-drawn curtain, heels tap-tapping briskly. She rifled through a sheaf of printouts, barely giving the sandy-haired man trailing after her a glance when he spoke.
"My Pikachu shocked it." He had a mild, pleasant voice and was wearing a grunt's uniform. The Pikachu in question was riding on his shoulder, and turned green eyes on Faleen as they went past.
"Your Pikachu shocked it." The nurse's voice was flat, disbelieving. "Zap Cannon?"
"Just a regular Thundershock. I think he just wanted to get it to do something."
"Well, it's not doing anything now." The nurse flicked the button on the Pokeball she was carrying, releasing an irregular chunk of blueish steel that looked hewn rather than cast. The Beldum floated about a half-foot off the floor, its single red eye focused on nothing. "I mean, look at it."
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Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 10:55 pm
Without changing the angle of her head, Faleen’s gaze shifted upward quickly hearing the nurse’s voice, hoping that it was the one that had taken her Umbreon back,
Her hopefulness was halted however when she noticed that it was not only a different girl, but she was already talking to another grunt. Sighing softly around the screws between her lips, her gaze was slowly returned back down to what she was doing.
That was, until she actually listened to what they were saying, and her curiosity peaked as she glanced up, wondering what the electric mouse had electrocuted.
Light brown eyes met the smaller green of the rodent upon its master’s shoulders, and she let it linger there for a while, until the flash of a pokemon being released caught her attention.
It wasn’t so much the shock of what she saw that caused her to move; well… yes maybe it was that she was surprised, but the good kind, most of it was excitement, she wanted to know what the HELL that was! she still had yet to see many pokemon, and this one was one of those.
but with her movement, a few of the parts fell from her chest and seat, scattering onto the floor.
“ugh! Frg!” she swore her profanity through muffled lips, yanking the other parts from her mouth, trying to peer down at the things she dropped.
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Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2010 10:01 pm
Switch watched the girl watching him, barely paying attention to the conversation. He wasn't in trouble - not that it mattered if he was - and the Beldum was even more uninteresting now than before he'd shocked it. But this girl was new, so he sized her up against various metrics, among them the probability of having food.
After a couple seconds he flicked his ears and came to some private conclusion.
"I'm looking," Hayes was saying. He had his hands in his pockets, stance relaxed but interested. "He's-"
"It," the nurse corrected.
"It," Hayes repeated. "Looks comatose. But it's not, right? I mean- one sec." He knelt to pick up a screw that had rolled their way. Switch sniffed at it as the Rocket stood and headed for Faleen, turning the bit of metal over in his fingers. When he got close enough he offered it to her, along with a friendly smile.
"This yours?"
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Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2010 10:14 pm
"With like, ten more that are not spread across the floor" she said, looking from the screw he was handing her up to him. Reaching up to take it into her palm, then dropping it in with the rest she had piled into the bundled bottom of her skirt.
"Thank you" she added, glancing over at his Pikachu as she pushed herself up to go search for the rest of her lost pieces, though her gaze fell back onto the strange floating pokemon with a slight tilt of her head.
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Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2010 10:31 pm
"Anything but comatose, according to this." The nurse tapped the sheaf of papers she was holding. "It's showing more.." She eyed the Beldum critically, trying to find the right phrase.
"Page file usage?" Hayes suggested, adding "Sure." to Faleen.
He got a blank look. "What?"
The blond backpedaled. "Er. Brain activity?"
"Not exactly, but close enough. Whatever you call it, something's going on in there."
"So what can I..?"
"No idea. Tests say it's fighting fit." The nurse huffed, eyeing the steel-type. This was getting frustrating. She felt an increasing urge to kick the thing herself. "You can monitor it, see if anything changes if it means that much to you. Or-" She set the Pokeball on the check-in desk with a clack, next to a tethered pen, "-just get a new one." Shaking her head, the woman disappeared into the back.
The Pokemon floated there, stoic as a pillar.
Hayes picked up another screw and looked at Faleen.
"It's a Beldum," he explained, noticing the curious look, and shuffled a hand through his hair. "Well. Sort of."
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Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2010 10:47 pm
She stood from her search when he told her what the pokemon was, silently impressed he could read her curiosity like that.
"Beldum... I've read about those"
with a slight c**k of her head, and a small half grin at his last statement. "sort of?" she repeated him in a questioning manner.
she gathered there might be something wrong with it from the conversation she overheard.
"so, there's something wrong with it? That Pikachu of yours do something to it?" she asked, dropping a few more screw into her makeshift pouch.
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Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2010 11:15 pm
Hayes shrugged, looking sheepish. "Yeah, it's.."
There was a word he was trying not to say: 'defective.'
Instead, he settled for: "..I don't know what he did." Hayes glanced at the rodent on his shoulder, who began to wash his paw in a clear 'I'm ignoring you' display. Apparently used to this sort of treatment and seemingly unbothered by it, he turned to face Faleen a little more fully.
"They're really big in A.I. research and multi-core processor development right now. Pretty much solid metal, but better than anything we've come up with - I mean, one of these? Fully evolved?" He tapped the levitating Pokemon to no effect. "Beats the Cray Jaguar. It's probably exascale. Heck, even zetta if you synch up a set." He was grinning by this point, and his voice was tinged with enthusiasm and pride.
His bright expression faded, to be replaced by a furrowed brow when he looked at the floating metal thing again. "This guy, though.. he was lagging even before this. Except you heard - everything's running fine."
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Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2010 11:32 pm
Her eyes slowly grew wider as she listened to this man talk. Her mouth falling open slightly, lifting a finger to point it at the Beldum "seriously? One of those?”
that was impressive. Seeing more interested in it now, she stepped over, to look at his
“Sure you would have to work to evolve it, but still… I didn’t know that they were being used for A.I research.” That intrigued her, she hadn’t gotten into A.I yet, her studies were cut short.
Though the mention that there was something wrong with this one confused her, if the doctor said it was fine.
“… and I’m guessing there are no screws attacked to this guy, can’t just take it apart and take a peek inside.” She added, lifting for the corner of her mouth and stepping back away from the Beldum.
“Can it respond to commands? Or does it just do this all day?”
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Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 10:46 pm
"Yeah," Hayes grinned, clearly glad to have found someone who appreciated this sort of thing. "They're pretty solid far as fighting goes, too." At her question about screws, he shook his head, sending stray wisps of hair brushing over his glasses.
"Pretty much solid metal. They've got joints and some kind of propulsion system, but they think it's all magnetism. Generating tiny micropoles and interacting with Earth's magnetic field or such." He watched Faleen approach his Pokemon.
The Beldum hung motionless in the air. A careful and hopeful listener might have heard a thrum on the edge of human hearing, but the source was the fluorescent lights. If the Pokemon was aware of the humans moving around it, it made no sign.
"This is it. The eye used to move, but it was slow as dialup." The blond bit his lower lip thoughtfully. "Maybe evolution might snap it out of whatever this is. Dunno. I mean, I'll figure it out-" The statement wasn't arrogant, just truthful. "-well, maybe. I might take it down to Robotics."
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Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 7:57 pm
She hummed softly in acknowledgement, and almost disappointment that they couldn’t be taken apart. They were living creatures… she guessed, sort of… heck she didn’t quite knew what the heck this was. Whatever it was man didn’t make it.
“Seems like it would be difficult to evolve a Pokémon that can’t be trained easily”
she said, though more wondering to herself.
She reached a hand out to it, but didn’t touch it, just hovered her hand over its metal exterior. Her lips parting softly, then turning down into a light, confused frown, before she pulled it back toward herself awkwardly, rubbing her fingertips to her thumb.
Looking back to the young man she was talking to. She hadn’t really taken in his features much since she kept looking at his pokemon, the human was more important after all, in her opinion. She was about to introduce herself when something he said caught her attention.
“There is a robotics here?” she asked, with peaked interest. “What do you think they could do with it?”
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Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 12:11 am
"Pretty much," Hayes said absentmindedly, leaning back on the heel of his left foot. It'd be nigh impossible, in fact. Feeding it Rare Candies was a slightly unethical option, but it would work.. if he had any idea how the thing ate. One hand wandered into his hair again as he mulled over the possibilities.
The Beldum's surface was cool, enough to draw heat from Faleen's hand across the air between. This close to, it had a faint sheen, and subtle striations threaded through its body. Here and there were tiny specks, mineral impurities, and its surface was not smooth but finely textured, like unrefined ore.
Switch watched her in the vague hope she might kick it, for the entertainment that would bring.
"Hm?" Faleen's voice snapped Hayes out of his thoughts. "Yeah, there's a robotics sector. Doesn't turn out the crazy stuff those Kanto ops use, but it's there. As for what they can do.." His eyes - hazel - strayed briefly to problem Pokemon and back. "If I knew that, I'd be doing it myself." The mild grin, which had crept back across his features as he spoke, turned a touch sheepish. "I tinker, but I'm more the software end of things."
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Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 12:46 am
Her features changed as he spoke, and for a long moment she wore the expression of child like hopes and wishes, after so many years of disappointment, finally coming true. this alone seemed to bolster her confidence around this man.
"I assumed you might be a techy from when you were talking about what this thing could do. I didn't really know if you-"
she grinned,
"sorry. Robotics is a passion of mine, haven't been able to get the hang of the programing and software part..." she trailed off, blinking again in surprise as she had blurted all that out almost excitedly.
now was the time for her to look sheepish, shifting a little from one boot to the other.
"not that I wasn't interested. my schooling didn't get that far till I stopped going"
She looked to the Pikachu who was still watching her, tilting her head a little, giving it a puzzled look, before looking back over to the man.
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Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 1:50 am
This was boring - they were getting along. Switch twitched his tail at Faleen. "Chuu." I see you; do something interesting. She didn't look like the type, though. The Pikachu leapt from Hayes' shoulder, landed on all fours, and wandered toward the exit. The blond glanced his way, but seemed unconcerned.
"No worries," he laughed, lightly and not at all unkind. "I'm from programming, yeah. Hacking, if you want to call it." He shrugged, with a little smile. "There's not a lot of difference. Name's Hayes." He extended a hand to Faleen.
"School didn't work out too well for me either. It's tough. So you're self-study right now?"
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Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 2:33 am
After looking to the Pikachu as it took its leave, pokemon were strange, but since the owner didn’t seem to be acknowledging it either, she assumed it was just normal for it to do that.
She didn’t say much to that about her schooling, lifting a corner of her mouth, and shrugging in a way that could be taken as an agreement, but the grunt did not elaborate. Not that she needed to when the man introduced himself and held his hand out to her. She looked from his hand then up to him as she reached out to take his offered greeting into her own grip, wasn’t much hesitation.
“Faleen” She introduced herself informally, smiling, still quite happy with the topic they had early brought up. She used to go to school with hackers, she didn’t get anything they worked on, but it was still really fascinating to her. Even she had to admit she was quite excited to meet another hacker.
“I suppose you could say I’m self studying, not so much with robotics anymore, I know my way around hardware, for now I just tinker when I have time off from training. What about you? You a hacker for Rocket then? Or is it just something fun you do between training?”
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