Logs:Of Bots and Buttons (Or, The Ghost of Clubs Past)

Of Bots and Buttons (Or, The Ghost of Clubs Past)
Dramatis Personae Cassy, Kavalam, Spencer	2019-02-22 "This is kiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnd of a weird school."
Location Xavier's School - Workshop
A large barn-like building situated at the far end of the gardens from the mansion proper, this makerspace functions as a classroom for many of the more hands-on classes. An expanse of workshop space, it is subdivided into smaller segments for the different types of activities: Woodshop, Welding shop, Machine shop, Electronics, Bike shop, Screen Printing and Photography, Fabric Arts, and the Rapid Prototyping Lab with a trio of 3D printers. The space comes complete with a large host of tools available for use, although many of the more dangerous require prior clearance from administration to use -- students with appropriate clearance to use them can gain access to locked equipment with their student IDs. From sanders to MIG/TIG welders to soldering stations to industrial sewing machines to its own darkroom, though, this space is well equipped for teaching students how to make. It's Friday afternoon, but the campus is not quite as lively with newly liberated students as one might expect. This is not entirely due to the weather, but also the looming finals for the winter term. Spencer appears in the back of the workshop, where some old supplies are stored behind a partition. He seems to have misplaced his jacket, if he had one to begin with, and wears a sky blue t-shirt with the words "Shalom, Y'all!" printed beneath a cartoonish arc of rainbow over a long sleeve black thermal shirt, grey cargo pants damp around the cuffs, and dirty blue sneakers. He takes off his Princess Entrapta backpack and start methodically removing items -- each of which promptly disappears from his hand. One of the perks of the school having such a vast array of facilities is that when you need to sew a button back on you are almost certain to find what you need in the workshop. At least that's what Cassy assumed when she set off from her dorm room, rogue button in hand and jacket slung over her arm. Her lips are pursed as if whistling but no sound seems to be coming from them. Instead she's surrounded by the chirping of birdsong. But not just any birdsong, it's the sort of Dinesy-esque version that makes it seem like any moment a hand animated bird might try do chores. Kavalam /is/ in the workshop, but just at the moment he's not making himself particularly known. He has been inspecting the tools, until Spencer's arrival -- the abrupt appearance of Boy and disappearance of Things draws his notice. He makes his way to Spencer's side, puzzled -- first by the rapidly vanishing items and then by the sudden birdsong. Still skating just beneath notice, he swipes a crushed packet of cookies and a library book from the backpack. They vanish, too, albeit by a different mechanism than Spencer's. Spence seems satisfied when his backpack is mostly empty, and goes poking through some of supplies stored in the back of the workshop -- stepping around Kavalam without any sign of noticing the teen. At the approach of birdsong, he looks up from his rifling, a small flat remote in his hand. "/Whoa!/" His eyes are wide, and he smiles even wider at Cassie. "Are you doing the bird noises? That is /so/ cool!" "Am I doing the... Oh fudge that was out loud? It's... a bit too easy for me to say what I'm thinking now I suppose," Cassy replies, pausing in the doorway and flashing a rueful grin. "You don't know if there are rules about taking off cuts of thread to fix stuff do you? I can't imagine they'd want me to fill in a form for a teeny bit that'd be thrown away anyway but this is kiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnd of a weird school." When Kavalam does make himself noticeable, he's sitting cross-legged atop a work table, munching on Spencer's crumbling cookies and examining the library book. He wears dark jeans, a mustard yellow polo shirt and a slightly oversized blue cardigan unbuttoned over it. "Is this good?" His words are precise, though layered with a very heavy South Indian accent. "Do you think they'd even notice a snip of thread? Does someone come round to measure each spool in the mornings, do you suppose?" "Yeah, your comment about it was out loud, too." That would be easy to take as sarcasm if Spence's tone weren't so /very/ earnest. "Is that audiokinesis or are you projecting it into my /mind/?" He sounds remarkably undisturbed by the prospect. "It's /super/ weird, but don't think they care if you take some thread. /I/ won't tell, any -- /whoa!/" He starts at Kavalam's sudden appearance. "Oh hey, are you a teleporter, too? I just finished reading that book it's sooooo awesome did you read the first one?" His smile hasn't dimmed, and he's bouncing a bit now, fiddling with the remote in his hand. "I'm like a living speaker system," Cassy explains cheerfully. "If that's what you mean by audokinesis that is." At no point has she actually moved her mouth. Sound simply seems to radiate from her entire body, causing a slight motion blur. "I've also got super hearing too, so no need to speak up." She winks. "At my old school rooms with anything dangerous like a sewing machine or shop tools would be locked unless a teacher was around... I guess I never assumed they'd mind about a little thread just... I figured we might not have access to just take some." "Teleporter?" Kavalam furrows his brows, shakes his head. He sucks crumbs from the tip of his thumb, and lowers the cookies to his lap. "No. This whole time I have been here. Is this a sequel?" Turning a small frown to the book, he deposits it on the table beside himself. "At /this/ school many of you are more dangerous than a sewing machine, hm? It seems a bit silly to lock the thread. Though," he concedes, "that does not /stop/ the teachers from being silly with their rules. Quite often." Spence stares at Cassy's mouth this time while she speaks. "Whoooooa have you met Ryan Black? I can introduce you if you want." His excitement doesn't seem to be in any way waning, though he does manage stop bouncing and clicking the remote. "Really?! Oh, do you turn invisible? Sorry I'm being nosy, you don't have to talk about that if you don't want!" He blushes a little, but keeps smiling. "Anyway yeah the first book is /Not Your Sidekick/ it's also super great. /Some/ of the machines here you need teachers to help you use them but not the sewing machines I've see lots of kids use them but also I'm not actually even a student here yet so..." He gives an extremely exaggerated shrug. There's a clatter and thump at the back of the workshop, as if some animal had knocked over the storage boxes. "Dangerous... yeah.. uhm..." Cassy replies awkwardly, tucking the hand with the butten so it's under the jacket and squeezing it a little. Then, brow furrowing she adds "It's weird but I thought I knew everyones voice by now. I guess my hearing isn't quite as good as I thought.. I'm Cassy by the way, nice to meet you both." "Met him? Oh gosh no. Heard of him though, he was all anyone was talking about a bit ago." She pokes her head back out the door and hrmms. "Pretty sure someone in the girls dorms is listening to one of his albums right now." "From down here you can make out the dorms?" Kavalam hesitates a long moment, his eyes narrowing slightly as he considers Spencer brief and dismissive but Cassy more thoughtfully. "I am --" It takes him a long pause before he finally delivers somewhat musingly, "Kavalam. I am... not invisible. Not so /very/ invisible." His shoulders slump, a little, his voice slightly weary. He turns his head at the thump, though he doesn't move from the table. He does break another small bite off of one of Spencer's cookies. "These," he informs Spencer appreciatively, "are quite good. Do you /know/ Ryan Black." He sounds quite impressed -- just as impressed when he adds, "He seems a great fool. I like his songs." "Oh yeah sorry, I'm still in middle school, in the city," Spencer admits this probably more readily than most middle-schoolers would, "I just hang around here a lot cuz my pa works here and stuff. Ooh cookies can I have --" He frown, looking more closely. "Hey, are those mine?" For a moment he seems conflicted, then gives a very small shrug. "Um, thanks! I made them. Nice to meet you Cassy, I'm Spencer. You want some cookies?" The brief awkwardness has increased the pace of his talking again, and he's struggling to keep his voice quiet -- by his standards. "Yeah Ryan is my friend. He's really nice, and people have be /so/ awful to him." He starts bouncing again, more agitated than excited this time. "And he's /not/ a fool." Though here he comes up short, frowning. "I mean he /knew/ it was gonna be bad for his career and safety, but he did it anyway so it would be easier for other people to be out, so I don't think that's /foolish/ that's --" Another rattle from the back, louder this time, and accompanied by a very faint whirring that Cassy can probably recognize as an electrical motor, though it's barely audible to the boys. Spence peers in the direction of that noise. "Can you tell what /that/ is, Cassy?" "Open window, but yeah kinda. Although it's mostly slipping into really low frequencies which makes it sound all warped. I /do/ need to actively want to hear in that range though..." Cassy explains with a shrug. "I'll pass on the cookies, I'm worried too many cookies is why my button broke in the first place." "That sound? It's... something with a bunch of wires.. Electrical hum, some kind of gears and... Must be some of the shop equipment or something? It's hard to be sure 'coz there are so many wires in the walls." "Which one is your father." Kavalam looks at Spencer suspiciously, now. At the continued rattling he stands up on the table, peering off toward the back. "Hello? Who is back there?" His fingers tap against the side of his leg. "Does the shop equipment usually just. Use itself? That is probably also against the rules, yes? Tools don't get student IDs." "Jax Holland," Spencer's smile returns readily enough, "he teaches art and health and stuff. Also makes like, 90% of the desserts in the rec room. I help sometimes!" He heads toward the source of the noise. "Stuff doesn't /usually/ turn itself on. I mean sometimes people forget to turn things off, but this stuff is storage from the old Robotics Club." Stooping down, he peers up under a tarp covering the source of the noise. "It's just like a pile of boxes with parts --" One of those boxes topples forward, spilling its contents onto Spencer, who gives a startled 'eep' and disappears, reappearing closer to the two teens. The edge of the tarp lifts and a meter-tall robot totters out, moving with a stiff, jangling gait. It's very bare-bones, just a metal box with four legs and two arms coming out the sides and extending down, and two sensor packages in plastic hemispheres, one on top and one on the bottom. "Cooooool!" Spencer blurts. "I can't hear anyone other than us in here," Cassy admits, taking a few more steps into the room and shutting the door behind her. "Maybe there's a student with remote control over machines? Or telekinesis and they're just goofing around or..." And then the robot bursts out. "That. Whatever the hell that is." At this answer Kavalam's eyebrows pinch together, lift quite skeptically. "Your /father/?" He doesn't have time to pursue this line of questioning, though. He clambers down off the table, backing /up/ a bit when the jangly box-o-parts starts moving. "What." Despite backing up, he's peering toward it curiously. "What do you suppose it was meant for? It looks. Ugly. Sort of Wall-E but without -- mm. Charm." Slowly, he's returned to munching on the last of Spencer's cookies. "I didn't even know there was a robotics club. My father would be pleased to know." "It's a robot!" Spence is practically vibrating with glee. "I've never seen this one before it doesn't look like one of B's, maybe it was a collaboration? Or someone's entrance projects? There's not a Robotics Club any/more/," he tells Kavalam, deflating, "but you could start it back up, I'm definitely going to when I come here in the fall. Oh hey maybe this is its remote!" He waggles the device in his hand. "The buttons only have numbers though I have no idea what any of them do..." This doesn't stop him from poking one. The robot straightens up, as though coming to attention, the cameras inside its sensor packages turning a full circle each before it abruptly charges the nearest person -- currently Spence himself. "Ohnowrongbutton!" he blurts, teleports out of its way, then frowns down at the remote. "Uhhhh I have no idea how to operate this --" The problem is quickly remedied, though probably not in the way that Spence was hoping: the remote vanishes from his hand. "Oh crap!" Meanwhile, the robot turns towards the next nearest person, paws at the floor with one foot, and charges. Perhaps she was too focused on the strange noises the robot was making or perhaps she wasn't really aware of the danger but as Spencer reaches for the remote Cassy takes a step closer. So when the machine starts to flail she jumps backwards, hits the edge of a work bench and trips letting out a brief shriek of surprise. A high pitched siren of a shriek that, while only lasting a moment, is loud enough it causes a few bits of glass in a pile of spare parts to crack and is exceptionally unpleasant to anyone close by. "If you do not know how to operate it," Kavalam begins a touch crossly, "perhaps you ought -- /aiee/." He clamps his hands over his ears, wincing and scrambling back up onto the table. "Where did you put the remote? Where is its /off/? What on earth use is a spastic robot?" He tilts his head, one ear pressed to his shoulder as he picks up Spencer's library book to throw it toward one of the robot's cameras. Spencer winces and covers his ears. The robot, though, doesn't seem much affected. It gallops toward Cassy and staggers a step sideways when the book hits it. "Uhh it might be in my closet?" Spence dashes over to where the robot had been stored and grabs the tarp. "Or in a parallel dimension or the Pacific Ocean, I don't even know." The robot recovers, and turns to charge at Kavalam. Cassy scrambles backwards, trying to put one of the tables between her and the rampaging robot. "Ohshitoshitoshit," she exclaims, voice still dialed up to eleven. "Wait! There's no-one outside the workshop, can you teleport it high up in the air and about four foot past the wall there?" Her hand sticks up in the air to point towards one of the walls. "Then it'll fall and smash. Robot terminated." "What? What on earth use are /you/?" Definitely cross, this time, maybe at Spencer's answer or at Cassy's continued loud projection, it's hard to tell. Even harder to tell given that only part of this sentence is noticeable. As the robot boxes up at Kavalam with its flailing arms he swipes kind of ill-advisedly, ill-temperedly back down at /it/, yelping more in alarm than true pain when his arm comes in contact with the robot's limb. The shake-up in his focus jars him back out of the other students' conscious awareness -- and starts to pull the robot along with him, rendering the boxy pugnacious thing sort of dreamlike and slippery at the edge of notice. Hard for them to really pay attention to -- though it'll snap into very sharp focus in the moments it actually happens to /attack/ either of the others. "Oh, that's a better idea than mine," Spence admits, but I'm still gonna throw this tarp on it first!" He rushes back and comes up behind the robot, flipping the tarp up and...looking kind of at his target and kind of past it. "Wait, what was I doing with this?" He bites his lip. "Oh right...robot?" He looks to Cassy in mild alarm but mostly confusion. "Or something?" "I don't see you hel... ping?" Cassy replies, bravely cowering behind the desk. "Wait why am I on the floor.. Oh I guess I dropped the button... Wait robot? What..." Bumped off-course by Kavalam's flailing, the robot dances a small half-circle and goes after Spencer instead, waving its arms wildly and bumping into his side. As tackles go, it's not actually all /that/ powerful an attack, but Spence wasn't really braced for it and staggers back, falling on his rear and half-covering himself with the tarp he's still holding. Face scrunched up with a worry that -- would be distinct if anyone could /see/ it, Kavalam mutters something low and concerned to himself that is not in English. He gnaws on the edge of a fingernail, frowns uncertainly at the robot, then at Spencer, before finally -- reluctantly -- scrambling down off the table to grab at the tarp and fling it toward the clunky bot. "/Please/ pay attention," he's trying this urgently, leaning down to shake at Spencer's shoulder to augment his unsteady efforts to keep himself -- and the robot -- in a very slippery focus. "You were going to drop the robot and break it. It deserves breaking." Spencer looks kind of bewildered at the sudden disappearance of tarp from his hands. The robot, now covered up, starts rotating in place -- perhaps some pre-programmed response to sensor blockage. At Kavalam's touch, Spence makes a small startled noise and turns to him, wide-eyed. "Whoa! Hey..." He does, however, focus. "Drop the what? Oh /that/ robot! Right how did I forget.." He doesn't bother getting up, just scrambles forward to slap his hand against the robot's tarp-covered side. The entire mess vanishes and instantly reappears upside-down near the ceiling in the center of the room. It falls to the floor, smashing hard on contact and going still, legs sticking up in the air and neatly contained in the tarp that is now underneath of it. Meanwhile Cassy decides to bravely keep inspecting the underside of the work bench she's hiding under. Ewh. Someone put gum there. The confusion does at least give her the time to calm down enough to be quiet again. Kavalam scrambles back as the robot disappears, ducking against the workbench that Cassy is hiding under. He hides his face against his shoulder as the thing comes crashing down again, relaxing only once it's clear they aren't being impaled with debris. Slumping back against a leg of the bench, the "Thanks" he offers is kind of futile as he fades back into obscurity. "No problem," Spence answers kind of automatically. Then frowns, looking around. Shakes his head as if to clear it. "Wow, that was weird! I bet this thing was made for like a bot battle or something. I'll have to ask my sib." Belatedly, he peers under the workbench. "Hey, you alright?" "Uhm. What exactly just happened?" Cassy muses, still carefully tucked under the desk. "I mean... I'm fine but... Did we just have an encounter with a ghost? Only you were talking to someone just now but.. wasn't it just us in here? I didn't hear anyone leave.. And the school is /just/ like the ones from those haunted house shows..." "I'm not sure!" Spence sounds at least moderately cheerful in his confusion. "I came here to pillage parts left behind by the old Robotics Club..." He looks around and catches sight of the defunct robot. "I don't /remember/ dragging that out into the middle of the floor holy crap it's the ghost of Robots Club past can robots even /have/ ghosts this is /so cool/! I gotta go tell my sib byyyyye!" With that, he grabs his backpack (forgetting his library book) and vanishes. Poking her head out from under the desk Cassy surveys the room and sighs. "I wonder if it's the powers which make us weird or if only weird people get powers..." she muses to herself. "Now I better grab that thread before anything else goes wrong...."