Gizmo
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Ryder grimaced as he came across the firearm. "Gonna be one of those days, I guess. I think this time I'll suit up before anybody shoots at me, though. Stand back, Black!" While the robotic beetle walked backwards a few feet the teenager adjusted the slightly elastic bottom of his hoodie to rest higher up, revealing the repurposed printer ink cartridge attached to his belt. He pressed the top of each chamber in sequence, prompting an enthusiastic computerized voice to announce, "CYMK! Dream in colour!" Arms outstretched at his sides, Ryder called out, "Chitin! Online!" With that his tousled strawberry blond hair and canary yellow track pants were sent flapping in the displaced air and swirling dust and debris from construction as lines of light emerged from the dimensional pocket accessed by his belt's technology. In moments a black jumpsuit wrapped around his frame, then silver and white armoured plates and mechanisms. As the wind died down and the lights faded the multifaceted oval eyes that dominated his helmet alit with a soft white glow. Bending down he pulled the gun out from under the unconscious man's bulk, taking a moment to prop him up against the wall a little out of the way. Chitin's footfalls echoed against the stairs as he descended, stopping in the doorway of the illuminated room. "Uh, hi?" Taking either end of the gun in his gloved hands he exerted in opposing directions, grunting while the servos in his armour amplified the force. With a sharp crack the cheaper components buckled and snapped and he dropped the remains to either side. "Somebody call for a mediator?"
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Chitin Stealth Check: 1d20+2 6
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Ryder watched the feed Black was sending him on his phone and hissed a sharp breath in when he saw the unconscious figure. "That can't be good! Sit tight, buddy, I'm coming in!" Keeping his head down he pushed the sheet in front of the open doorway to one side and slipped inside, doing his best to remain silent and undetected. He made his way to the foot of the stairs where Black was poking the sole of a work boot experimentally with his horn. Ryder crouched over the victim and tried to remember enough to the first aid class he'd taken to certify as a babysitter to be useful, whispering, "Hey! Mister!"
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Chitin Search Check: 1d20+6 11 Nooooot gooooood.
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Ryder shifted his weight from foot to foot, looking from the vans to the plastic sheet over the front entrance to the path around the building. "Maaaaan, I don't know!" He'd definitely found himself in a grey area of the social contract; he couldn't just abandon the order of smoothies on the sidewalk but exploring around the unfinished building seemed a little awkward. With a sigh he set the trays down next to the van and placed his palm outstretched next to the front pocket of his hoodie so the robotic beetle inside could climb out. "Black, could you take a look inside to see if there's people around? That's probably less weird than me just walking in. Right?" Black bobbed him head in an approximation of his own heavy sigh before hopping down to the concrete and scuttling underneath the plastic sheet.
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Chitin Craft (Artistic) Check: 1d20+3 19 Hey, pretty good!
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"Yikes." Chitin grimaced from behind his helmet. "Okay, no worries, though! I've got this, retro home computer aesthetic is totally my thing! Also, bugs, right?" Taking the computer's chunky mouse in his gloved hand the teenager navigated the presentation software's menu to select the limited pen tool. With measured strokes he drew a series of smiling stick figures in an erratic rainbow of colours, holding hands with each other. He positioned a lime green figure so that its hand appeared to be taking one of the demon's scorpion-like tails in a similar manner, while a bright purple figure had its crudely rendered arm linked with a insectile limb. After considering for a moment he added a series of arches overhead, creating a rainbow framing the cheerful group. Switching to the text tool he added a large caption at the bottom of the screen: "LeT'S BE FRiENdS!" Turning around to face the group Chitin gave them a pair of thumbs up.
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Chitin Notice Check: 1d20+5 10
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Ryder leaned over his handlebars and pursed his lips. "...huh." He pulled up the order's receipt on his phone and double-checked he had the street and number correct and scratched his jaw. "What do you think, Black?" The lid of the compartment suspended over his rear wheel rose enough for the palm-sized robotic rhinoceros beetle to poke its long horn through, followed by its head, which turned ponderously from the construction site over to silently regard Ryder. "Yeah, I guess I just need to go ask. There's a 'special instructions' field on the order form for stuff like this though, tch!" Gathering up the two large takeout trays stacked with drinks and letting Black scuttle into the big front pocket of his paint splattered hoodie, Ryder left his bike chained up to street sign where he'd be able to keep it in sight and jogged over to the closest of the work vans. He stopped by the back doors, realizing his hands were too full to try knocking. "Hey, uh, Smoothie Shack delivery?" he called in a raised voice, craning his neck to look for signs that someone way inside.
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Chitin had edged closer while Mara worked, trying to get a look at how she was going about her investigation but reflexively skidded back a step when she looked up. His helmeted head turned from the monitor to the open book still in his hand and back again before meeting her consternated expression. "Oh, uh, it was probably scanning this book of old-timey giant grasshopper people-face devil pictures? This one is sort of a metal scorpion with teeth?" He flipped through a few pages to check for anything that might better explain the situation. "That probably shouldn't have compiled an app, though. You don't just magically get a thing to happen by reading a book. Unless it's like a magic spell book, I guess. And if digitizing counts as reading. Oh. Oh!" He abruptly slammed the book shut and held it at arm's length. "That's not a thing, right?! That shouldn't be a thing!"
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Chitin skirted around the room's edge and crouched down once he had a clear look at Charlie's hiding place. "Hey bud! Don't forget this is a science lab and you know what science is all about? Making mistakes and learning from them! So, I mean, you're already basically a scientist. Right, Eira?" The armoured teen cocked his head meaningfully in the her direction, body language conveying the broad grin behind his helmet. In a conspiratorial whisper he added, "Plus that was a pretty good trick. Whenever I try to walk through walls I just smush my face!" Standing back up he turned over the top book in the pile on the desk and looked across the equipment connected to the terminal. "Oh, it's set up for turning books into documents. Like, digital one, I mean. Obviously." He flipped through a few pages. "Ha, this is a bunch of goofy medieval pictures of insects, weird! Like if the artist had never actually seen a grasshopper and was trying to fill in the blanks from a really bad description." He turned the book around with the pages open to show Eira and Mrs. Hunter-White. "Look at the face this one is making!"
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Chitin Diplomacy Check: 1d20+5 9 Going down to 2HP! Diplomacy Check; HP Reroll: 1d20+5 16 Notice Check: 1d20+5 20 Knowledge (Technology) Check.: 1d20+16 30 Knowledge (Life Sciences) Check: 1d20+8 26
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"Haha, that wasn't even my worst wipeout today, we're all good!" Chitin insisted, bounding to his feet then wobbling for a moment while he found his balance again. "Thanks for watching the other lab for us, Mia! Good job!" The armoured teenager pounded a fist into his chest twice then thrust it forward in an enthusiastic thumbs up; even without seeing his face it wasn't hard to guess who was behind the insectile eye pieces. He gestured over his shoulder to one of the walls. "Charlie ran that way when he thought he was going to get in trouble. Lemme see what I can see!" The soft glow behind those multifaceted ovals switched from an off-white to a sky blue. The view in Ryder's HUD was overlaid with information from outside the normal visual spectrum, including heat left by the recent presence of warm bodies. Simultaneously he asked over his built-in radio, "Hey, Yellow! Any sign?"
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“Hey, I didn’t map a dimensional rift onto my own biometric data because I wanted to put my pants on the safe way,” Ryder pointed out from where his helmeted face was stuck against Eira’s shin. ”Let’s find Charlie and you can make sure he’s okay and get better with kids! They’re really just like older people except they don’t bother to hide it when you upset them. Oh, and if you have to break one of my arms could you aim for the left one? I’m trying to sort of spread it out, y’know?” He made a thumbs up though from where he was trapped he wasn’t sure if the other teenager could actually see it.
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"Wow. That would be pretty cool if everyone wasn't so upset," Ryder remarked as he blinked at the wall upon which Eira had become stuck, grimacing in sympathy. He turned to give the security chief what was meant to be a reassuring smile and thumbs up. "But, uh, yeah! I'll get her down and then we'll find him no problem! Just need a little help with the elbow grease." The teen unzipped his hoodie, uncovering an oversized belt buckle that looked for all the world to be a printer ink cartridge. Planting his feet, Ryder pressed each of the chambers in sequence. As he did a cheerful computerized voice announced, "CYMK! Dream in colour!" Hands outstretched, Ryder commanded, "Chitin! Online!" A burst of displaced air kicked up around him, setting his hair and clothes flapping while ribbons of light bleeding through from the belt's dimensional pocket encircled his body. First a black jumpsuit materialized, then white and silver armour plates that audibly locked into place. A smooth helmet dominated by multifaceted oval eyes covered his face, humming to life with a soft white glow as the pocket closed and the wind died down. "Alright! Now I-- buh?" As Chitin took a step toward the far wall he found himself abruptly pulled off balance before flying through the air as if yanked by an unseen rope. With a clang he crashed into the same metal disk on top of Eira, the metallic components of his suit held in place. "Ow! So... 'magneter' is 'magnet', huh? Haha, whoops."
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"Oh, hi! I have a smoothie for you!" Ryder greeted, stepping out from behind Eira to wave at the holographic projection. "I don't think we were supposed to be babysitting? Eira said we were in exile or maybe just she's in exile and I'm still working my way up to exile. I'm not sure if babysitting ranks above or below exile. Maybe there's a chart. I'm talking a lot." The teen rocked back and forth on his heels while scrubbing a hand through his tousled strawberry blonde hair. "The soccer ball is still keeping an eye on Mia, right? Maybe I should have asked Yellow to stay with her. This room is extremely spooky. Do we have chocolate? Sorry, rambling, sorry." His attention was apparently bouncing rapidly between scanning for Charlie, trying to identify the objects on the shelves, answering Mrs. Hunter-White and looking to Eira for guidance.
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Ryder ran out into the hallway after Eira, startled by the abrupt discarding of her frosty indifference to the children. "What?! What-- oh, jeez." He raised both hands to his hair as he read the sign, nail polish dripping onto the shoulder of his hoodie from the brush he was still holding."Hey Charlie? Buddy?" he called into the expansive room, hesitant to enter without knowing what he was looking at. That indecision lasted only a moment before the teen squared his shoulders. "Yellow, see if you can spot him down one of the hallways, okay? I'll take a closer look here." The robotic wasp buzzed in affirmation before zipping down the hallway and around the corner. "So probably a 'don't touch anything' situation?" he asked Eira while moving to walk past her into the impound room.
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Ryder froze, raised brush slowly dripping nail polish onto the paper towel he'd put down. "Uh. That... is a pretty good trick." Charlie apparently having super powers might have helped to explain what he was doing around the HAX building in the first place but that didn't really help tell him what the appropriate response should be. "Does he know to come back...?" he asked to no one in-particular, looking over the Mia and then Eira. "Are there more or those security balls? Should I be trying to run after him? Oh jeez."
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"Sure sure!" Ryder conceded with a short laugh, hands raised in surrender, the tall caps of nail polish bottles held between his fingers. He thought about asking more about how she'd spontaneously changed the colour of her nails but between the data spike embedded in her forearm and the piece she was currently working on it wasn't much of a leap to guess that it might be a touchy subject for the prickly engineer. He got the children seated across from him at work table, putting down paper towels to protect against what seemed like inevitable spills or splatters. Yellow buzzed about, setting down on a shelf and then the corner of a whiteboard but always cautiously staying out of reach of little hands. "Anyway, what I was going to ask," he called over to Eira while concentrating on applying a smooth coat of glittery 'pink lemonade fizz' colour to Charlie's thumbnail while shooting Mia a look before she could fidget with the midnight blue that was still drying on her own hands, "if hanging out in a cool lab with cool equipment doing cool science is 'exile' what does 'not exile' look like?"
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Ryder looked over his shoulder at the lab equipment with a conflicted expression that only Eira could see. When he turned back around to face the children, hands on his knees, his smile was as sunny as ever. "I think that'd be okay, sure! Could you get some paper towels from the washroom for us, Charlie?" Retrieving his threadbare backpack from next to the utility sink he rummaged about the bottom to scrounge up whatever bottles of nail colour he happened to have stowed away. "How about you, Eira? I could spruce up that prosthetic arm you're working on while I'm at it!"
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“Neat!” Ryder enthused, apparently viewing materials sourced from extraterrestrial cultures and a positive smoothie review with equivalent delight. “Not the ‘exile’ part, though, that sounds like—“ He was interrupted by the reappearance of the little boy and another child. “I’m loud? The toilet’s loud! Is it loud? Public ones can have a little more oomph than the ones you’ve maybe got at home but I could probably fix it if it’s louder than it should be.” He was already rolling up the sleeves of his hoodie, drawing attention to his cheerful robin’s egg blue, soft pink and lime green nail polish. “I’m Ryder!” he told the girl with the ball. “Do you guys have, like, a grown up with you or...?”
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"Probably not!" Ryder agreed, seemingly oblivious to any sort of implied insult. "I was like, 'Is that shunting kinetic energy generated from self-replication along a macro-micro axis while ionizing for directional control?' but the transmission noise doing that would be, like, embarrassing, right?" The teen laughed brightly and craned his neck to check down the hallway for any other small children or an accompanying adult. "But a super dense data-reactive lattice structure that can act as a processor or storage on demand would obviously make more sense! Super cool stuff." Turning back around he took a few bouncing steps back into the lab. "I like kids! They're not afraid to really go for their dreams!" He pumped a fist enthusiastically but stopped with it raised in the air as he considered Eira's scowl. "Oh. Uh. Is... there somewhere else you wanted to be?"
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Chitin Knowledge (Technology) check.: 1d20+16 19 Knowledge (Galactic Lore) check.: 1d20+6 19
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Ryder's expression as the data spike extended from Eira's sleeve could only be described as delight. "Holy smokes! I figured you meant an RFID scan or something! How is that even actuated at that size?!" Yellow seemed similarly intrigued and took off again to land on the corner of Eira's worktable and cock her head while examining the partially disassembled arm. Further inquiries were put on hold by the pounding on the door, leaving Ryder blinking down at the child. "That is an excellent question. Not in here, I don't think. Eira?"
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Ryder snapped his fingers and nodded. "Got it. The key lime one has honey so scrap that. Ooh, here we go: think spicy drinking chocolate but a milkshake. A hundred percent cocoa, you could eat with a spoon but no dairy. Bit of an advanced one but you seem like you could handle it." He gave an enthusiastic pair of thumbs up then looked over to where Yellow was shifting from side to side, not breaking multifaceted eye contact with Eira. "Oh, yeah! Yellow's a she. 'Cause, y'know, wasps," he replied as though the explanation was self-evident. "She's kinda the skittish one, though. You okay saying hello, Low?" The robotic insect buzzed a few times uncertainly but leaned forward toward Eira in what appeared to be cautious agreement.
