InsaneJournal

There was something that didn’t set right with Savannah when she walked into her dorm room. The past two years she’d finally, finally had a room of her own for the first time since she could remember. As she looked around the room she’d be sharing with an as of yet unknown girl, she couldn’t help but be disappointed. True, the Academy was radically different from the foster homes she’d lived in while growing up, but it still seemed like she was backtracking, not moving forward the way she wanted.

With a heavy sign she dropped her bag on one of the beds. At least she was here first and could stake her claim before her roommate showed up. Within the next fifteen minutes she had set up most of her things, taking the bed farthest from the door as her own. Moving around so much as a kid had helped her to learn how to pack and unpack quickly, and this wasn’t any different. She was just starting to hang up some of her clothes in the closet when she heard the door open.

"... And we'll have to go over the map again." Rosie was babbling to Carl, rolling up alongside her as she opened the door to the room assignment they were given. It was exactly where Carl had said it was, which means they hadn't so much gotten lost as Rosie had decided to wander when something caught her eye.

It happened.

"Oh hello." Carl chirped up, alerting Rosie to there already being a person in the room. She smiled at the younger woman that seemed to already be setting up.

"Hi! Are you our roommate?" She asked, offering up her hand and nodding towards the little bit beside her. "I'm Rosie, this is Carl."

Savannah looked up in surprise when she heard what sounded like a robot talking to her. Was her roommate a robot? Was that a thing that happened here? As she looked, she saw a slightly older looking woman with what looked like a little robot rolling beside her walk into the room. It was a bit like looking into a mirror that was just slightly off center. They were of the same height, very similar features and coloring - other than the other woman being tan rather than fair like Savannah.

Despite herself, she found herself smiling at the other woman. The robot was a little strange, but very cute in its own way. She took her hand and shook it. “I’m Savannah, and it looks like I am. It’s nice to meet you,” she said, looking down at Carl as she finished. “And, uh, you too Carl.” She wondered if she would get any kind of discount for sharing her dorm three ways. Probably not, but it couldn’t possibly hurt to ask next time she spoke to someone. “I was just getting settled in.”

"That's good, simplifies the choices for us." Rosie answered as she went to the empty bed. It had been a very long time since she shared a room. In fact she wasn't entirely sure she had ever done it outside of trips. Well there were all sorts of new experiences here! "Carl, can you begin mapping for best distribution?"

"Of course!" He answered, rolling to their side and beginning his scans to build what would be the optimal move in process as well as location for all their stuff. She had downsized, what with the room sharing.

"What's your favorite kind of candy?" Rosie asked offhand to Savannah.

Savannah blinked rapidly in confusion as the robot - Carl - started rolling around scanning things. This was going to be a very interesting year. “My favourite candy?” she echoed dumbly, as she continued to watch Carl. “Um, I like Jaffas,” she said, as every candy she’d ever eaten was seemingly erased from her mind. “I like chocolate in general, dark chocolate the best.” She realized she was still holding the hanger she had been in the middle of hanging up when Rosie and Carl walked in, and hung it up. “Can you explain to me what’s going on with the robot, please?”

"I think I can import those. Carl, make note." Rosie mused, mentally adding whatever these jaffas were to her candy stash. But she was always happy to talk about Carl and knew that the little drone would take note of her request.

"Sure! Carl's scanning our part of the room in order to optimize space and efficiency for unpacking and setup. And if there's anything that we need to remove in order to best use our space. We only really had parameters to go off of, and that didn't include you or anything, so it's best to gather the data live."

Savannah felt knocked off kilter by her new roommates. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but this was not it. “That’s very… interesting?” Taking a deep breath she turned back to the closet to finish putting up her things. She didn’t have very many clothes, just the essentials. Money wasn’t something that she and her sister had in excess, or really much at all. “Did you make Carl?” she asked, after a momentary pause. “He -” she broke off, wondering if Carl was a he, or an it, or an other. “Er, he seems very handy to have around.”

"I did!" Rosie thought this was going pretty well so far if she said so herself. Maybe living with another human would be as exciting as she thought. "I'm a technopath. So I build things. Like Carl. He's probably the best thing I built. That's why I asked about the candy, my power runs off blood sugar and it's an easy boost so I always have plenty around if you want some."

That was actually pretty interesting. Sav hadn’t met many powered people in her daily life up until this point, other than her sister and Lottie from her last foster home. “It’s powered by your blood sugar? How does that work?” She’d never really considered what fueled her powers, other than her words. It most likely stemmed from her will, but even that was a nebulous thought. Where did her will come from? She knew if she over exerted herself that she would feel drained, and often would need to sleep off a migraine, but she didn’t think it tied back into anything as solidly physical as her blood sugar. “Thank you, by the way. I don’t think I would want to take it from you though, if you needed it that badly.”

"It's a caloric conversion. It really depends on the type of energy I consume. Kind of like exercise but with technology and." Rosie wiggled her fingers to emphasize her point. "But candy takes way better than vegetables and it's a lot easier to take on the go. And don't worry about it. I always have plenty, Carl keeps track of my levels pretty much at all time and orders based on trends. So there's not really much of a risk especially since we're not going out in the field yet."

“Based on trends in candy, or how your blood sugar is reacting?” Savannah asked, turning back to face Rosie now that her things were all put up. “I’m able to make people do things,” she said, feeling suddenly shy. “I try not to, but I don’t really have a way to turn it off. I just have to be careful with what I say.” She reached out and fluffed her pillow, then sat down on her bed to watch Rosie and Carl. “But if you feel like you’re doing something that you don’t want to do and you’re with me, maybe just say something.”

"My blood sugar levels. Passing out is no fun, but Carl makes sure I avoid that." Rosie took a seat on her own unsheeted bed as Carl finished up his scans. She looked over at Savannah and studied her for a moment. Compulsion powers. Fascinating. "Does it only work on humans? I can have Carl keep an eye out. If you want we can monitor and see if we can catalog common triggers or anything that we notice?"

“Do you know,” she started, pondering the question. “I’m not certain. I’ve never tried to get a robot to do anything. I haven’t really been around a lot of robots, if you can believe it.” She eyed Carl, it probably wouldn’t work. She knew she couldn’t command animals, so it stood to reason it was human only. She was glad to hear that Rosie wasn’t concerned about being roommates with her, it had occurred to Sav that it might be something people wouldn’t trust. “That would actually be great,” she said, her face breaking into a beaming smile at Rosie’s suggestion. “Then I would know what I need to avoid.”

"Wonderful!" Rosie clapped her hands together. "You can give Carl your email and I'll work on setting up a program. He'll send you any analysis at the end of every day!"

"I've finished my scan for move in Rosie!" Carl added happily.

"Even better!" Rosie popped up for her feet and practically beamed over at Savannah. "This is going to be a great year, I just know it."

---

Savannah flung the door to her dorm open, looking more like a blur than a woman as she dashed into the room. “I’m never going to be able to pass Physics!” she called out dramatically, flinging herself face down on her bed. “Why do I even need to know this in order to use my power?” she asked, her voice slightly muffled by the pillow her face was buried in. She’d never imagined that being a Hero would take so much book learning. She went through each day feeling like her head was overflowing with information. As soon as she learned one thing, another thing fell out - lost to time and space.

Rosie was in the middle of working on some of Carl's innards, his chassis open as she tinkered inside. Looking up from her desk, her goggles focused in on the person, Savannah.

"Is this a bitch about physics or is this a Rosie can help with physics?" She asked honestly, not entirely sure what was appropriate in this situation. "Because I am good at it, so I can help. But I can also bitch about it."

Savannah pulled her head up hopefully to look at Rosie. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t think of asking her for help, clearly Rosie would be the perfect person to help her. “I mean, help would be great,” she said as she flipped over and sat up on her bed. A few months before it would have been surprising to see her wrist deep inside Carl, but at this point it was practically normal that her roommate had a talking robot assistant. “I just feel so out of my depth. Math was never my strong suit, and all this theoretical stuff is more than I can wrap my mind around.”

"I'm not sure how good a teacher I am, but I'm great at math." Rosie pointed out as she pulled her hands out of Carl to wipe the grease on her pants. She'd wash it out later. "Do you have an assignment or something? I mean. I could just hack the academy's grades and give you an A but I feel like they'd notice that sooner than my high school did."

She perked up at that thought. All the benefits at none of the work sounded really nice. It wasn’t like she was going to use any of this in her daily life after she left school. Then she thought about how hard she had worked to get into the Academy, and how awful it would be to get kicked out because she had her roommate fake a grade for her. She slumped back down, she was going to have to do this the hard way. “We have a test coming up over a few chapters, which is made all the worse by the fact that I didn’t understand the chapters that came first,” she said glumly.

Snapping the chassis plate back in place, Rosie set Carl aside to let him power up. "Do you have any previous tests and homework? And did you notice if the homework reflects the tests? Because that will give us a starting point on what to focus on. If they don't, that also gives us a starting point because we can look at what else is covered in the chapters."

Savannah pushed off from her bed and went over to her work area, sorting through her papers until she’d found a handful from Physics. Sighing slightly she took them over to Rosie and mentally prepared herself for a long night. Even with Rosie’s help this wasn’t going to be fun.

---

"Yes Carl, I know." Rosie chattered as she opened the door to the room and smiled bright as she saw Savannah there. That meant Carl didn have to actually send the message she'd been working on, she could just ask now "Oh good you're in! Are you free this weekend? Have you been skiing?"

Savannah had been messing around on her phone when Rosie walked in. Most of the time it was easy to forget how different their lives had been up until this point. Not so much when Rosie walked into the room asking if she’d ever been skiing. “No, I can’t say that I have,” she said, laughing a little at the thought. “I am free though. What’s up?”

"I'm meeting my parents up at our cabin this weekend and wanted to see if you wanted to come along." Rosie answered easily as the door clicked behind her and Carl. She should probably think on if she needed to pack anything, but she could just have Carl come up with a list for her. "We've extra equipment so you wouldn't need your own if you wanted to give the skiing part a try. Or you could just hang out at the cabin. There's a hot tub and a fully stocked bar."

She’d be lying if she said she was upset about some of the perks that came with being roomies with Rosie. Not only did she have someone to help her with her homework, she had a friend that invited her to go to her family’s skiing cabin. She’s really hit the jackpot with roommates. “That would be so great!” Savannah jumped up and gave Rosie a quick hug. “What all should I bring?”

Oh hugs were good. Rosie liked hugs. She happily gave a warm one in return. "Warm clothes and anything you might want to have with you. Other than that it'll all be taken care of. Carl, can you let mom know Savannah will be coming?"

"Of course!" Carl chimed happily. "I'll have the itinerary sent to Savannah."

---

Savannah looked around the room one more time, making sure that she hadn’t left anything behind. She never would have thought a year ago that she’d be sad to leave this little shared room behind, but now that it was time to leave, she felt a little lump in her throat. She would have thought she was used to packing up her things and moving on, but this seemed different somehow. Of course, she would be back next year, in a similar room, but it wouldn’t be with Rosie and Carl, and she was going to miss both of them dearly.

She looked over at the two of them and said, “It’s going to be so strange to come back and not see you two every day.”

Everything was packed up with precision. All space used to it's ultimate efficiency. Rosie was just going through her last checks when she looked up at Savannah. She smiled a bit sadly at the sentiment. Rosie had never had a roommate before. It was a strange, confusing, and wonderful experience in many ways. And now it was ending. There'd be another experience with it next year, but this right here was novel and new. And now it was over.

Rosie wasn't entirely sure how to process that so she decided not to.

"You'll still be able to see us around campus." Rosie offered even though she did know that wasn't the same. It just seemed like the kind of thing a person would say in this situation.

“I would hope we see each other more often than that!” Savannah said, shaking her head at Rosie. “We can still hang out, even if we aren’t living together,” she continued. After a year of living with her, she knew that this was Rosie’s way of trying to express emotions. It wasn’t like Rosie didn’t want to see her, she just wasn’t always fully able to articulate how she felt. It was honestly something that she would miss about Rosie. She never had to worry that she was saying one thing and meaning another, or that any of her compliments were back-handed. She could just take what she said as what was meant and move on. “I’d be very sad if I didn’t get to see you at least once a week.”

"Once a week is more than doable." Rosie nodded in assent. Because it was. They could definitely still spend time together, it just wouldn't be automatically built into the day. It'd be new, different. "And if you get bored on break, you can always reach out and I can send you a ticket if I'm doing anything!"

“And if you get bored while you’re jetting around the world,” Sav said teasingly, tossing her pillow over at her friend. “You can always come hang out with me and my sister. We’ve got so many activities planned, like working, eating beans and rice, and working some more. It could be fun for you to see what it’s like being a waitress for a night or two,” she grinned at Rosie. “Either way, we’ll see each other in just a few months.”