i_amsoaring (i_amsoaring) wrote in we_coexist, @ 2013-04-17 20:48:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | 14 days of night, clara oswin oswald, hoban washburne, zz:status complete |
Boy Meets Robot (Oswin-backdated)
Wash wouldn’t have thought he’d gotten so much enjoyment from eating a dill pickle, but the movie theatre sold them and so, it wrapped in a wax paper swaddle, he walked out of “Pretty Woman” with one last bite of the surprisingly scrumptious pickled cucumber. He popped it in his mouth and balled up the trash shoving it into the side of a bronze colored trash bin.
Hm, that was weird. Where was the door? And this was a weird looking trash bin. He explored the domed top and mechanical looking implements. He chewed one last time on his pickle as he poked the whisk looking armature curiously.
When Oswin wasn’t poking Stark Tower, she busied herself exploring The City. The movie theater was of particular interest. What did the natives of The City watch for entertainment? What music did they like? Did they make anything of their own or was it all recycled and brought in like The City itself?
She found none of them paid much mind to the robot, especially when Oswin was busy being trapped in her own thoughts. None of the residents seemed to question what she was. Oswin sat in an imaginary black leather chair, barely paying the view screen any mind when a small red light blinked on and off.
The large dome head of the dalek slowly spun around so that it’s blue lit eyestalk could size the pilot up. The lenses whirred quietly as the focus adjusted.
“EXCUSE ME? YOU MIND MUCH?” Oswin couldn’t tell at a glance if it was a native or not. The natives were not to be bothered, like local wildlife. The others who were pulled in -- they were fair game for mockery. The rest of the robotic body spun around to line up with Oswin’s robotic head. There was something strangely graceful about it.
“GO ON NOW,” she might have said gently. There was really nothing gentle about that voice.
As the top of the trash can suddenly spun Wash found himself a little bemused. He swallowed the rest of the pickle and smiled into the eye stalk that seemed to him like a little camera lense. Was he on camera? Was he being pranked. This was good, if he was.
So close was he to the trashcan cum robot that the voice seemed even more shrill.
“Wah! Shen sheng de gao wan!” he shouted in Mandarin. It loosely translated as ‘Holy Testicle!’ Colloquial, of course. He tripped backward, barely recovering from his feet’s fumbling.
His heart rate doubled in time as he prepared himself for fight or flight. This manifested in holding his hands up in front of him and wincing as if the creature was going to strike. It was a well-honed survival skill, of course.
“I thought you were a trash can! I meant you no harm, nice shiny robot bin. Please don’t kill me!” Wash said, shrilly. He was always the one for romantic heroics.
“RIIIIGHT,” Oswin attempted to sound dry and flat. “MAYBE YOU COULD START BY REMOVING THE RUBBISH FROM MY PERSON, IF THAT’S NOT TOO MUCH TO ASK.”
Oswin stared at the man on her view screen. No immediate insults came to mind, which was a first, but then most people didn’t talk about the religiousness of their reproductive organs. Definitely not a native. She didn’t think the natives knew any other languages.
“SO. WHERE YOU FROM?” Perhaps simple, polite conversation would put him at ease. Oswin wrapped her imaginary fingers on her imaginary cockpit, waiting for the blinking light on her display to cease.
“Um,” Wash uttered in response to her request, every fiber in his being denying his orders for it to move closer to the slightly comical but nonetheless terrifying looking robot.
His fingers curled first, relenting their defensive position. He edged toward the domed head, staring at the wax paper dripping with pickle juice as it poked out from being wedged in what looked like vents.
“Uh, okay, just,” he stuttered as his fingers reached out, jittery, at the edge of the wrapping.
“Huh?!” he said suddenly, and too loud in surprise at the question. “O-oh, okay. Well, I’m from a little planet you’ve probably never heard of on the edge of an alliance of planets you’ve probably never heard of from a universe you’ve probably never heard of.”
Then he mumbled a little about pickle juice as he took the edge of his colorful shirt and tried to clean the...thing.
“I think I got most of it. You’ll smell like pickle for a while. Not exactly the most enticing perfume. Maybe other robots would like it though. Or trash bins,” he said with a nervous laugh. “Just to be sure, you’re not going to kill me, right? I-I just want to make sure. I’ve got a thing about getting killed. No offense, of course. To killer robots. Hobbies and all...heh.”
“HEARD OF A LOT OF PLANETS, EVEN A FEW INTERGALACTIC ALLIANCES. OSWIN OSWALD, JUNIOR ENTERTAINMENT MANAGER FOR THE STARLINER ALASKA. NOT ACTUALLY A KILLER ROBOT.”
That she would ever admit to.
“THIS IS THE PART WHERE YOU CAN INTRODUCE YOURSELF IF YOU LIKE. UNLESS OF COURSE YOU’RE FROM A PLANET WHERE PEOPLE DON’T HAVE NAMES. I’M GOOD AT NAMING THINGS. YOU’D MAKE A VERY LOVELY NINA.”
She’d ignore the pickle juice. For now.
“Oh. Well that’s good. Not being a killer robot,” Wash said. He laughed at the quip. “I’m Wash, former pilot of the Serenity. The Alliance calls our planet 10-264 on the charts. Fu-Can-Long.”
Wash said the planet’s name softly; he’d not said it in a long time. The name meant ‘Treasure Dragon,’ reflective of the planet being a factory world making multiple useful items out of raw sources.
“I’m not really from there anymore, though,” he said.
Then he waggled his eyebrows. “You really think I could pass for a Nina?” He shrugged. “I’ve been called worse.”
He rubbed his chin.
“So, what are you? Like, a social robot, then? Chess playing? You said entertainment. You’re not a...a pleasure robot, are you?”
His eyes squinted on the armatures again. Then his lip curled in slight disgust at his own imagination.
“WHY? DO YOU FIND YOURSELF IRRESISTIBLY ATTRACTED TO ME? IT’S ALRIGHT NINA, I WON’T JUDGE. I WOULD COMFORT YOU IF I COULD.” Oswin’s dreamed self grinned. Some of the native moviegoers eyed the pair oddly before quickly shuffling away.
“I’M NOT PRECISELY A ROBOT. MORE LIKE GIRL TRAPPED IN AN ESCAPE SHUTTLE. JOINED THE ALASKA TO SEE THE STARS, SORT OF GOT SHIPWRECKED ON THE FIRST PLANET -- VERY NASTY BUSINESS. ENDED UP HERE INSTEAD OF DEAD SO I CAN’T COMPLAIN. BAD NEWS IS I’M STUCK. GOOD NEWS IS I WAS HAVING A BAD HAIR DAY ANYWAY. ONLY BEEN ABOUT A YEAR. I GIVE IT ANOTHER THREE BEFORE I BEGIN TO THINK I’M ACTUALLY A KILLER ROBOT.”
She was only half joking.
“Mmm,” Wash said with a frown as he looked at her. “Oswin, no offense, but you’re not my type. I’m more for...you know. Two legs. Two arms. Lips. Back. Lower back. ...Chest.” He had a faint smile on his face, now. “But! I have a night stand with a broken leg that might find you quite a find.”
He nodded emphatically.
Then he frowned as he tried to comprehend what she was saying.
“I know what it’s like to end up here instead of dead,” he said distractedly as he squinted into the eye stalk trying to look inside. Then he went around to look into the vents. The eye stalk followed. He went the other way but experienced the same blocking, perhaps even not on purpose.
“This is a shuttle?” he asked, bewildered. “It’s so small! You must be so...tiny! Or really cramped.” He tapped on the structure.
“LITTLE BIT OF COLUMN A, LITTLE BIT OF COLUMN B -- I PREFER PETITE. SO HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN IN THE CITY? NATIVES ARE A BIT SPOOKY, AM I RIGHT? ALMOST AUTOMATED.”
Said the killer robot.
“LIFE SIGNS SAY NORMAL BUT WHERE ARE THE ARTISTS AND THE MUSICIANS? THE WRITERS? ...THE PILOTS?”
“Automated, really?” Wash said with a bemused expression. “You don’t see the irony in that, tiny person in a shuttle that looks suspiciously like a killer robot? But, no, it’s creepy--the people here. I mean, they’re people. They live and die and have bad hair days and sometimes talk too much and sometimes have bad breath...but...something’s not there. They’re happy but...like they’re flying a ship with no nav controls. They fly it pretty good, but it’s not goin’ anywhere and they don’t, in particular, care if it does or not. They just do it. I guess.”
He gave an almighty shrug.
“Been here--guess it’s been something like 4 months. Go sé, has it really been that long?” Wash said, stuffing his hands in his pockets from their gesticulations as he spoke. ‘Shit,’ indeed, the time in The City had simultaneously felt much shorter but with the weariness of much longer.
Wash then gave a thought to what the--well what Oswin noticed.
“Yeah,” he said a bit dreamily, with his brows knitted up on his forehead, “guess that’s what The City needs us for. Well...it’s got a pilot in me. And who doesn’t want a shiny talking shuttle with a tiny girl inside for its people collection? And, no offense, Oswin, but that voice? Wow! Not timid and a little frightful from an otherwise delightful roving trash bin.”
He grinned at the last, hoping the joke went over smoothly.
“NOT ACTUALLY WHAT I SOUND LIKE. LIMITED POWER, LIMITED EVERYTHING, YOU WORK WITH WHAT YOU’VE GOT. SHAME, REALLY. MAKES THE NAUGHTY COM CALLS QUITE DIFFICULT. DID I MENTION I’VE BEEN IN HERE A YEAR? MOSTLY I’VE SPENT MY TIME MAKING SOUFFLES AND LISTENING TO CARMEN.”
There were times when Oswin was forced to acknowledge the truth of her situation, this wasn’t one of them. She was grateful for that. Wash accepting her story meant that, at least for now, the dalek’s behind her mind’s eye door were mercifully silent.
The eyestalk could only be so subtle when moving up and down to get a proper look at the pilot. It was the closest to real human interaction that she got.
“I COULD WALK YOU HOME IF YOU LIKE. I’M GOOD AT PLAYING MENACING.”
Wash smiled a bit. Okay, so the external core of the thing was kind of creepy, but there seemed to be a pretty personable sentience lurking somewhere within, if he were to believe her story in its entirety which, after seeing whom The City could pluck out, wasn’t entirely unbelievable.
If he pushed the matter--well if he pushed the matter he might be plunged to death or his head might be whisked off, so best not while he still had his cranium in tact.
“Souffles?” he asked with an eyebrow raised. “You get delivery to that thing? Do you park at an address, give a call, and ask them to slide it through the vents of the big, shiny robot looking shuttle...thing?”
He smirked and looked down at her as he crossed his arms.
“I could believe that! And there has been a knife incident I’m not too keen on re enacting!” he said with a pointed finger. “Yeah, sure. I guess I could use the company.”
He offered an elbow to one of her ‘limbs’.
“Hey...if I ever had a...clogged toilet do you think...you could...” he said and trailed off, curiously.
“NINA. DEAR. DO I LOOK LIKE I COULD REACH THAT FAR?” Oswin started out sweetly enough. As sweetly as a dalek could.
“I COULD TRY TO GET AT THE CLOG BETWEEN YOUR EARS IF YOU LIKE,” offered the killer robot. The way its mechanical body was able to glide over the floor with absolute silence was haunting. Oswin tried not to be terrifying, there was only so much she could do.
In a dream, Oswin heard the creatures just beyond her door. She shouldn’t have. Oswin knew how quietly the daleks could move, but in her minds eye they rotated on ancient wheels that squealed down the hallways of a planet-wide asylum that no longer existed. The mental gymnastics took a toll on her.
“TALK ABOUT YOURSELF. TELL ME ANYTHING. LIE IF YOU HAVE TO.”
“Well, I thought I would offer. It would seem a bit brutish to me not to offer an elbow to a lady,” Wash said congenially. “Even if she a tiny trapped lady. I mean, I assume she’s trapped as she hasn’t come out of her trash can like shell...escape pod...thing.”
Wash looked down at her movement and came behind and then around to her other side to watch the hovering from all angles. Perhaps it was rude as he was also pointing lightly and gawking timidly but it was a mechanical curiosity the drove him to the inspection. So much was he intrigued that it took him a moment and a stutter to reply to her.
“Oh! Uh. Well. I told you I’m a pilot. And where I’m from...” he clapped his hand on his fist a couple of times in thought as he kept pace with her. Then he pointed.
“I moved into a new place. Found my ship! Doesn’t work quite yet anymore but...it’s an improvement from where I was living before. And I can tinker it a little. Got the power on, at least. Just gotta get her in the air, is all. Not that I have anywhere to go, but it’ll be nice to be above everything at least. Maybe help me from going crazy as much,” Wash said. Babbling? He can do babbling.
“REALLY?” The imagined Oswin blinked the same time the blue light from the dalek’s eyestalk flickered.g “THE SHIP, I MEAN. IT’S REAL. YOU’VE GOT A REAL, PROPER SPACESHIP? IGNORE THE PART I SAID BEFORE ABOUT THE LYING BIT -- A REALLY REAL SPACESHIP?”
If only he could have seen her. If only he could have heard her. There was flailing hand gestures over the keyboard in an overstuffed chair where she sat in her mind’s eye.
“WHAT’S WRONG WITH IT? YOUR SHIP. PARTS? FUEL?” Oswin’s mind continued to race. Though her last attempt to explore the stars ended badly, it wasn’t as if there was a planet any less hospitable for crash landing on. “I COULD HELP.”
Eagerness sounded stranger than flirting with her limited electronic voice.
As the robot, trash can, escape pod screamed earnestly and shrilly at him he couldn’t help but put a finger in one ear and wince as he nodded conversationally.
“Yeah, yeah! Sure!” he laughed as she finally stopped...screaming. “We have toilets, small toilets. You’d be great!”
It was too good of a joke to let go so easily. But he brought it down again.
“No, I mean, any help would be appreciated. I’ve got this guy working on it occasionally, when he has time in his busy day of being a slightly obnoxious very wealthy scientist-type. And all of the above. Fuel, parts, maybe some dusting,” he said, nodding.
“SCREAMING GENIUS HERE AND YOU WANT ME TO DUST? YOU’RE GOING TO OWE ME FOR THAT ONE. POSSIBLY MAKE ME YOUR CAPTAIN AFTER I GET IT UP AND RUNNING. WHAT SORT OF FUEL SHE RUN ON?”
The friendly dalek didn’t want to know just about the fuel but started shooting off rapid fire questions about all of the ship’s specifications that she could think of. When none of it seemed compatible or familiar to the sort of starship technology she was used to, her questions became more technical. It helped a little and passed the time as they walked the distance to Wash’s new and improved home, she realized she was just going to have a look for herself.
Serenity wasn’t much to look at, but then again, neither was Oswin. She could see where the name came from. It certainly had character. She liked it.
“SHE’S LOVELY. MAKE YOURSELF USEFUL AND PLAY TOUR GUIDE, YEAH?”
Wash wasn’t as colorful as Kaylee was when he answered her questions. For one, it ran on hydrogen fuel. He didn’t think it’d be that hard to accommodate, but the fittings for the fuel cells would be tricky. They most likely didn’t have standard hydrogen cells for Firefly class ships at the local Quick Mart.
Wash was more technical than Kaylee, having gone to school that learned him the actual terms for the parts rather than having learned it in a more organic environment. Still, it was exciting to describe Serenity and he smiled fondly as he also sprinkled recountings of all the times Serenity about failed them and how Kaylee had miraculously brought them back. And that one time it almost didn’t work out for any of them.
He leaned casually on the open docking bay when they arrived. Serenity was still covered in leaves and vines from being in the forest of the park. Wash hadn’t even gotten around to cutting her free.
“She ain’t much,” Wash admitted, acknowledging first impressions. “But of all that fancy ships and derelict ships alike that I’ve piloted, she’s the best.”
He smirked.
“Oh, of course. Right this way,” he said, exaggeratedly.
He stepped into the bay waiting for her to waft in before smacking the button that closed the door. He set the lights a flickering on, there was enough reserve for electricity, but that would fade eventually and he’d be forced for alter something to get fuel in her.
“You want anything? Polish? Maybe get that pickle juice out of your...” he faltered, pointing and jabbing at the grill, “thing?”
“OY! WATCH THE HARDWARE. ...I’M SURE IT’LL STOP SMELLING EVENTUALLY, NO THANKS TO YOU. SO. HANGAR BAY? CHECK. WHAT ELSE YOU GOT?”
The dalek was surprisingly graceful, able to twirl on a single point, which made up for the single eyestock’s limited range of vision. The blue lit lens buzzed softly as it shifted focus.
“Bridge!” he said after a moment of thought. “You’re gonna hafta get a little more floaty. It’s up some stairs.”
He led the way up the narrow metal case, wiping his hand on his pants from the dusty rail.
He watched her with intrigue and wincing. She wasn’t as girthy as he thought.
“Uh, through here,” he said, grunting as he manually hauled the doors to the bridge open. He still hadn’t redirected power to there, yet. Those doors were sharp and he sucked on a finger that sprung a leak as he pointed to the meager space for flying and captaining and occasionally plastic dinosaur theatre.
He sat down heavily in his chair and coughed as dust circled around him.
“Still needs a little work,” he said dryly.
Oswin paused at the stairs. She’d never attempted to float up stairs or anything else before. In her mind’s eye she was sitting in her own piloting seat with an old fashioned qwerty keyboard in her lap. Setting the keyboard aside, she adjusted the chair and put her hands on the controls.
“RIGHT. THIS COULD GET A BIT HAIRY.”
There was a hum as the dalek achieved liftoff, dust blew out in an impressive plume underneath, as it began to hover up the stairs, occasionally scratching and scraping against the metal railing having exactly enough clearance to move. Oswin mentally cheered at her own accomplishment of hovering up stairs as the dalek landed eerily quiet in the cockpit.
“LET’S SEE WHAT WE’VE GOT, SHALL WE?” Oswin got as close to the controls as she could, when her plunger arm extended telescopically for the control panel. The eyestock adjusted, looking for a spot where she might be able to interface with the machine. If the dalek could interface with an early 21st century computer, she was vaguely confident that she could find a way to interface with the ship.
“RIGHT. UM. THERE A PLACE TO INTERFACE WITH THIS THING? POWER OUTLET, ANYTHING?”
He frowned a bit as he watched her arm wiggle around. It’s not that he didn’t trust a floating robot to interface with his ship but...he didn’t trust a floating robot to interface with his ship.
“Why...do you need to interface with Serenity exactly? You ask me anything I’ll tell you. I’m sure there’s a very compelling reason why you’d feel the need to attach yourself to everything in my ship. So...” Wash said suspiciously as he waved his hand for her to elaborate exactly what she was about to do and why he should open his ship’s entire system to her free will.
“TO SEE IF I CAN, FOR ONE. TO SEE WHAT I CAN DO, FOR ANOTHER. ALSO HOPING YOU HAVE A BETTER INTERCOM. MY OWN RIG IS A TEENSY LIMITED.”
Oswin tried to shift closer to the controls but there were chairs in the way.
“YOU WANT MY HELP OR NOT?”
He pulled his lips into a thin line, which was a feat considering how thin a line his lips were in naturally. He looked from Oswin to the control panel he was blocking, and back to Oswin. He let out a breath and rubbed the panel in front of him with loving worry.
Without another word he got down on his knees and swung under the panel, shifting wires around until a click emitted and he held the object of his search in his hand for a moment. Was this a good idea? Probably not. Had this ever really stopped him before? Not particularly, no.
He let out another huff of breath before he kneeled in front of her with a truly endearing expression on his face. He held a cord in his hand that he didn’t let her have quite yet. This ship meant everything to him. It was the last thing he had from his old life.
“Don’t hurt her,” Wash said, and there were no jokes in this one. “If you hurt her, change anything about her that I don’t directly approve, move her a millimetre from her current position without my say-so, even change the water pressure in the showers without me knowing, I will take it upon myself to tie you to the front of her and fly her as far as I can and let you drop.”
In a rare Mal-moment, he was dead serious. He didn’t sound as gravelly or scary as Mal did. His voice was still friendlier. But it did carry with it a dread. And perhaps even more coming out of his friendly face. He looked directly into that blue eye stalk as he said it, too.
“Dong ma? You understand?” he said, remembering the language barrier at the last minute.
“GOT IT. NO CHANGING THE WATER PRESSURE.”
He couldn’t see that Oswin, in her mind’s eye, had given him a salute.
Wash hesitated, not sure if she even understood the magnitude of his trepidation. Mal wouldn’t do this, but Wash wasn’t Mal. Rules were different here. Not everyone was out to get you. And as much as he questioned Oswin, he couldn’t help that there was a certain charm in the trashcan like thing who was a girl.
“Okay. Okay,” he said and closed his eyes as he put the cord in her reach. He winced. He opened his eyes and said as a last warning, “Just remember, no means no!” As if Oswin was performing some sort of lewd act with his ship.
“I MUCH PREFER YES MEANS YES, BUT TOMATO, TOMAHTO.”
The plunger looking arm extended and suctioned over the end of the cord. The first thing to happen is, despite Oswin’s claims of her ‘ship’ having limited power, the cockpit flickered to life. It wasn’t enough to power the ship or achieve flight, but it was enough to open up some of the cockpits other functions. Like the intercom.
“Right. Testing? Hullo? Bit grainy, but I’ll take it.” Oswin’s voice was pleasant, chipper and much more female than when it broadcasted from the metal trashcan body. “Just trying to see if I can run some sort of diagnostic function on her. Never done this before. Dalek technology was a bit easier to hack, believe it or not...”
“Zhe shi shen me?” Wash exclaimed when everything lit up suddenly. He immediately stood and turned to the monitors starting to run his own diagnostics, dusting off controls as he went.
“Shen me!” Wash then said and turned around at the sound of her voice. He looked at the robot then up again.
“Is that you? You. You’re. How? Deng yi miao! Wait! Hold on! Just. I’m running diagnostics now. Is that your voice? It’s...really nice. Very not screamy. Here. Just, can you see what I’m doing? On the screens?” he asked, not really sure who to talk to. Not sure exactly where she was, not really.
“Uh, sort of? It’s sort of coming up as unreadable code. Like trying to open an incompatible file. Hold on, still figuring this out. Minus the static, though, that would be me. I mean, I’m in here,” she said meaning the dalek, “but you know, little fond of my own voice.”
Oswin’s fingers worked furiously on the imaginary keyboard in her mind, trying to decrypt the information from the ship when the information started to finally make sense on her own screen. “Oh, tell me I’m brilliant, Nina. Getting it now! Seeing as my recreational activities are a bit limited in here, I think I’m going to really enjoy this...”
“I’m getting way too used to that nickname, Oswin. Okay, lessee. We’ve got just a pinch of fuel left in the aft tanks. No idea how, but I’m not going to argue probability when it means...more power,” he said and punched a few buttons.
“Might have to do a lot of this stuff manually. We aren’t really connected so much as...informed. But, I know what I can do! I can open the door now! To the cockpit! Shiny! I dunno. The screaming was really...authoritative. Very...classic. What’ve you got on your end?” Wash asked. Distrust was put aside for intrigue and excitement.
“If you like this, you’ll love rerouting power from life support to the engine room and bridge. It’ll be like...a party. With a lot of wires. You’ll probably get to see me get electrocuted a few times! We’re talking excitement!”