ic Field Test (IC)

[Fox]

"You have acceptable taste in accessories, Cricket." Nocturne sounded sincere enough, but didn't turn around - the observation deck's glass was largely gone but the underlying steel was giving her more trouble than it was worth. Her particles reformed into a great claw again, which went surging into the no-longer-protected room like a cat fishing something interesting out of a box. Nocturne's grin was predatory as it lashed closed around her target - hopefully her target, she was going to be very embarrassed if it wasn't - and started dragging her out through her own window. "I can see you. No escape routes for you, come down to watch your monkey get crushed."

[Fox]

GM

Nocturne's target didn't have a great deal productive to say - several words, none of them fit for print - but she did reach out and hit something on her console before she lost leverage completely.

 

The robot's body was broken but technically attached, which is to say that the mechanical monkey was wearing its own head as a necklace, wavering as it tried to get a fix on its opponent with its face bouncing on its chest. It had nearly collapsed before its maker hit a button, but now it reared up with an awful, broken grinding noise and - metal audibly popping somewhere down in its torso, and empty neck emitting a concerning red glow - it swung out with a back-handed fist in the hopes of catching Chitin while he was distracted.

[Gizmo]

Chitin caught the backhand in both hands, sliding back several feet under the force but staying upright as he took the force of the blow and stopped it in its tracks. "Your dream isn't worth hurting other people," he called to their host over the grinding of straining motors and slipping gears. He didn't sound angry exactly, just disappointed that it had come to blows after all. "You need to wake up."

 

Suddenly shifting his weight he left the robotic gorilla's arm crash into the concrete floor next to his while using it's bulk like a gymnastic vault, launching himself up into the air over its barely-attached head. At the apex of his arc he toggled the chambers of his belt again with one hand and the panels around his other arm and fist began to glow with charging power. The belt's electronic voice announced "CYMKudgel!” as he threw a massive punch straight downward, crashing all the way from the automaton's empty neck to its toes is a cacophony of tearing metal and exploding fuel cells, punctuated by a final resounding impact.

 

While the robot's head rolled about like a loose hubcap Chitin held a three point crouch in the centre of a scorched crater, surrounded by ruined scrap and guttering fires.

[Fox]

"Good job, Cricket. Very dramatic, flashy landing, solid seven out of ten."

 

Nocturne had a grin with entirely too many teeth, reeling the late robot's creator in through the air only to dump her, skidding to a short halt, on the floor. "And you missed it! No data for you, so sad! But you can still help us sort something out," she invited, spreading her hands wide. Her tide of wispy black and gold dust went with them, nearby objects hovering ominously. "I want very badly to find out if I can use you to make a hole in one of these walls. Cricket doesn't think that's a good idea! I think you should be our tiebreaker. What do you say?"

[Fox]

GM

Their mysterious host got up to her feet, making much the same impression that she had on a television screen: mousy brown hair, goggles, and a lab coat over a t-shirt and loose pants. She'd have fit in at the Freedom City University science department if it weren't for the metal gauntlets sticking out the ends of her sleeves.

 

"Not no data," she corrected, oddly calm. She was looking over the remains of her creation with sad detachment. "The neck clearly requires reinforcement; I didn't want to build the whole spine, it's a waste of space, but the actuators clearly didn't hold up. And the overclock under-performed, it was really supposed to melt down before you could smash it. How much force do you put out in that mode? You've miniaturized it very well."

 

She sighed, shoving her hands into her coat pockets and looking at Chitin with something like tired resignation. "Do you think she's really going to put me through a wall? It's all just stone past that cement, I don't think it's going to work that well unless she happens to hit a crawlspace or service corridor."

[Gizmo]

Chitin rose slowly to his feet, one clenched fist practically vibrating with emotion. "There's plenty of 'data', right there! Look at them!" He pointed to the ragged group of hostages, silenced behind the reinforced glass. "You hurt them. Not just physically, you made them feel afraid and helpless! You hurt everyone who cares about them and doesn't know where they've gone, you hurt everyone who relies on them for support! And for what?!" He gestured around the space with both hands raised above he head. "Some third-rate androids and a middle school science fair flamethrower? I can tell you have skills but your output is garbage because your heart's not in it. This can't be your dream." He shook his head in frustration as he got closer to look her right in the face. "You could be making amazing things, things that help people, things that make the world better! But you never will until you understand that people's lives aren't proof of concept, it's always the production model." He extended a hand toward her. "That goes for your life, too."

[Fox]

GM

"Yeah, well." She looked bored, more than anything, tired and dissociated from most of her surroundings...but even she wasn't completely impervious to Ryder's words. She turned the robo-gorilla's head over with her foot, looking down at it with...regret? "Yeah. In my defense, do you know how hard it is to make something like that on a budget without making it lethal? If I had the resources for my best, you'd have seen it. But that isn't really how it works, huh?" She sighed, looking up at the enthusiastic Chitin and the increasingly murderous Nocturne. "Well, you got me, so I guess it's all done now. Probably in my best interests to not be a threat, right?"

 

She pulled up her sleeve to fiddle with a touchpad on the back of her gauntlet, and didn't even flinch when Nocturne made a warning noise. "Relax. You beat my gorilla, I really didn't have the parts for anything better. Here, you have your helpless people..." She pressed something, and the door popped open with a hissing noise - a couple doors, apparently, as the hostages could be seen filtering out of their makeshift cell and into the room proper. "...and you've got me."

 

She didn't press anything, this time, but there was a metallic noise from somewhere up around her shoulders as her arms...fell off, slipping out of her sleeves to clank onto the floor at her feet. "Literally disarmed, couldn't hurt a fly. I'd detach the legs, too, but they're real." She shrugged a shoulder to keep her coat from falling; it looked like she'd had practice. "Call the police or whatever, I know the dance."

[Fox]

Nocturne took a deep breath, pinching up her face like her inability to throw someone through a wall was starting to cause her physical pain. She had to think hard about that, for a couple long seconds, before she finally let the breath out and her floating objects settled back to the floor. "You're really determined to take the fun out of this," she accused.

 

"Yeah. It seems like the safe bet."

 

"I think I hate you."

 

"Alright. Oh - back door's the way the hostages came, it takes you into the sewers a couple blocks down. No traps."

 

Nocturne pinched her nose. "Cricket. Next time, I think I'd prefer the putting-people-through-walls option."

[Gizmo]

"I actually do know how hard it is to make something non-lethal on a budget!" Chitin retracted his proffered hand a little awkwardly now that it was clear she wasn't in any position to shake it. "And I know you were hoping to do the wall thing, Nocturne. I'll make it up to you! Ideally in a way that doesn't end in blunt force trauma?" He hesitated for a moment before stooping down to pick up the discarded prosthetics, not wanting just leave them lying around. "I have a friend you should really meet; she makes her own arms, too! Uh, do you feel like telling us your name? Nocturne could give you a nickname but I feel like you probably wouldn't like it very much. At this point it'd probably be pretty mean."

[Fox]

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Cricket." Nocturne had folded her arms and was regarding their villain with all the warm comfort of a steel knife. All her malevolent enthusiasm had left her, though, and she'd downgraded from theatrics to scowling. "I'll hold you to that, though, I do count my debtors. He's right, though. Name, now."

 

"May." The disarmed villain had crouched down, rolling the robo-gorilla's head over with her foot to inspect the base of its neck.

 

"Excuse me?"

 

"May. It's my name. Like the month, but, a name."

 

Nocturne narrowed her eyes. "No villain worth their salt does business with someone named 'May'."

 

"....Mechanica?" May - Mechanica - looked up, shrugged, and stood back to her feet. "We should probably go. Your hostages don't have serious injuries, but they're going to need to be checked anyway." And, off she went, walking slowly toward the back door, her own victims clearly not sure if they should intervene or not.

 

Nocturne's eye was twitching, but she set off after May anyway. "Cricket, I hope your 'Mike' took more pride in his villainy than this. I'm starting to worry about this city's standards."

[Gizmo]

"He was pretty bummed out, too." Chitin shrugged his shoulders apologetically. "People sometimes tell themselves that they have to hurt people to succeed but when you beat them without being a jerk about it, then they didn't get what they wanted and they hurt people for literally no reason, which is pretty demoralizing." He sighed heavily. "Sucks. Hey May, wait up!"

 

As he jogged after her he scooped up the robotic gorilla head and added it to the pile of prosthetic limbs. "I'll put this somewhere safe in case you want it later. So I'm going to text to somebody about, uh, this. Okay?" He paused and looked down at everything he was carrying then tilted his head to one side. "Send message to Dragonfly." There was a brief pause. "Drag-on-fly." Another pause. "Hey! So, met a really good roboticist who made some not as good choices and did some kidnapping? She makes her own arms! Angelic should totally talk to her. Can you help maybe? Send message!" He turned to Mechanica, giving the distinct impression that he was grinning encouragingly behind his mask. "Oh, wait. Send message to Dragonfly. It's Chitin! We're in Southside! Thanks! Send message!"

[Fox]

With the hostages in tow, they found a hallway past the door, a stairwell past the hallway, a sewer basin past the stairwell, and a (mercifully nearby) access stair past the sewer.

 

Nocturne did not deign to walk along the sewer basin - she floated, very carefully, touching absolutely nothing until she could feel sunlight again.

 

As Chitin's text messages finally went through - received, without reply - sunlight was hitting the last of the hostages as they exited the alleyway maintenance door a fair distance from where they'd all started. Mechanica had already found the street and, with surprising grace and zero pomp, dropped down cross-legged to wait. "You can probably leave the arms," she said, somewhat belatedly. She'd turned around halfway, looking back at the rest. "They wanted them for evidence last time, they'll probably want them again. I don't know what happens to them after that. I guess they're making a collection."

 

"My clothes may never be clean again. I think I'll have to remake them." Nocturne was inspecting the trailing ends of her outfit, finding nothing and not finding nothing satisfying enough. "As for Mechanica...pathetic as she is, I don't much think I want to stay here and loom until the police arrive."

 

The last of the hostages had been the fallen hero, a truly androgynous figure in a torn, if still colorful, bodysuit. "We'll watch her," they said, leaning against the wall. Nocturne arched an eyebrow, and the pizza deliverer wandered off to make a phone call. "No, really. I mean, she's...she's not exactly a threat anymore, right? We can at least do that, there's a whole lot more of us than there are of her."

[Gizmo]

"Hnnh..." Chitin made a quiet noise of distress as he tried to figure out the proper response to Mechanica's blasé resignation. "Okay, well, I'll just put the arms here, then." He set them down as delicately as the oversized hands of the Kabuto Instar allowed. "I'm going to put the gorilla head somewhere safe though, like I said. I'd like to be able to give it back to you at some point." He paused to turn so that his back was to Nocturne's irritated expression. "I know you didn't have a lot of choice but thank you for opening the exit for everyone, May. Would it be okay if I checked on you later? Or asked somebody to?"

[Fox]

GM

"You already did?" May had to twist around again, though this time she'd cocked her head in something approaching curiosity. It was the kind of tone you'd use to idly discuss a minor hypothesis, not talk to your captor while sitting on pavement in the bad end of town. Her expression continued to be extremely, casually flat - she may as well have been waiting for the bus. "It probably would have been more efficient to ask for permission before sending your text message."

 

Nocturne made a face like the conversation was actively killing her, threw up her hands, and turned to walk back down toward the other end of the alley.

 

"I can't stop you from trying, but you may have a hard time finding me. Your friend can probably explain why, I think she knows how this works." She shrugged, turning back around to wait. "Thank you for not letting her accelerate me through several tons of cement and rock."

[Gizmo]

"Good point. I should have asked first. As for finding you..." Chitin spun the robot's head between his index fingers. "I'm pretty good at doing things people don't think I should be able to do. I think you probably get how that is." Tucking it under one arm he added more quietly. "And I don't think she was ever going to actually hurt you. Just don't tell her I said that!" He straightened up and gave a wave to the brightly coloured hero. "Thanks for keeping an eye on things! I better go after Nocturne. Cool costume by the way!"

 

He jogged off, his top heavy armour making it a little comical in motion. Catching up to his new friend he slipped past and turned around to face her while continuing to walk backwards. "C'mon, I just remembered something!" He spun around on his heel again and ran ahead to the end of the alley, ducking his head out and looking up and down the street before ducking back in. He toggled the chambers on his belt, producing a series of descending tones and in a flash of light and displaced air that tossed litter and detritus about the space his armour vanished, leaving a ginning teenager with slight dimples and loose waves of strawberry blonde hair with an oversized robotic beetle on his shoulder. 

 

"This way!" Ryder gestured for Nocturne to follow and started off in the direction he'd left his bike.

[Fox]

Nocturne stood at the mouth of the alley for a solid ten seconds, wondering how exactly her day had gone so completely wrong. None of these people did any of this correctly. Cricket was going to get himself killed at this rate, to boot, and she didn't want that to happen and even that fact alone was something she didn't want to think about too deeply. "Pride and control," she said, quietly, to herself, before setting her shoulders back and walking out into the street with all the aloof confidence she'd started this day showing.

 

After the kidnapping, anyway.

 

She wasn't going to think about that too deeply either. "If you think I'm going to change back into normal clothes in the middle of the street, Cricket, you're out of your mind."

[Gizmo]

"Oh, right. You probably don't have a change of clothes after the whole kidnapping thing, huh? Do you want to borrow my hoodie?" The garment in question was a grey-blue with the mostly faded logo of a gym in the centre, obscured by the myriad of paint colours splattered across it. Ryder tugged at the fabric in demonstration, his fingernails also painted in a mix of matte black, lime green and glittering lavender. "And I'm actually Ryder, but you can keep using Cricket if you want. Nobody's ever given me a cool nickname before!" Black made a few clicking sounds on his shoulder, skeptical of his definition of 'cool'.

 

The energetic pace Ryder set quickly took them the block or so to the front of the building Mechanica had been using, the unmarked vans still parked outside. "There we go!" He retrieved the takeout bag from the sidewalk and brought it over to a row of empty newspaper racks, unloading the contents onto the makeshift table. "I was the delivery guy she wanted to test," he explained. "Big oops, right?"

[Fox]

"Yes, I can see how they might not." That was mean, and less satisfying than normal. Nocturne wasn't sure why that was. She moved on, folding her hands behind her back and watching impassively. "First, I was not kidnapped," she lied, "and I'll thank you not to spread rumors otherwise. Second, you....you do understand how a secret identity is supposed to work, yes?"

 

She turned her head to the side, eyeing his very colorful outfit. "Taking off your helmet and sharing your name with someone you don't really know is an excellent way to get yourself hurt," she said, twirling a finger at him to indicate all of....that. "You don't actually know that I'm not some kind of villain myself."

[Gizmo]

"Sure, I figured it was like 50/50 with you knowing a lot about villain lairs and repeatedly threatening people with massive blunt force trauma," Ryder agreed with a breezy nod, depositing a pair of tall to-go cups onto the newspaper rack. "But you were worried about me getting hurt and have a cool style and I'd rather take a chance to make a friend and deal with whatever later if I have to. I mean, I've been told I'm, what was it, 'distressingly, possibly terminally bad at risk assessment' but I gotta be me, yeah? So I go with my gut!" He finished emptying the bag of two wrapped sandwiches, a heaping fruit salad and a container of vegan brownies before crumpling it up. "Dietary restrictions?"

[Fox]

"Not anymore."

 

Nocturne was fairly certain this was some kind of trap; that was the only thing that made sense. "Hypothetically," she said, "I now know your face, your name - which is uncommon - and where you work." Her finger had settled to pointing at the branded cups; she was closer to them than she had been a minute ago. She didn't remember doing that on purpose. It had been a while since she'd eaten. "I could have not wanted you hurt because you were useful to me, at the time. It would be pitifully easy to find out your full name, and where you live. You do understand that you flipped that coin for...everyone, yes? Employer? Friends, family?"

[Gizmo]

"Oh, super easy, yeah. It's my family's restaurant, so there's a time saver!" He gave a short laugh but cleared his throat ruefully when Black gave him a reproachful series of mandible clicks. "Anyway, you wouldn't want to mess with my sister, believe me. But also maybe it'd actually be a really good thing for you to know where I am if I was in trouble, yeah? I just think treating people like they're bad is the fastest way to get them to act like they're bad."

 

He paused to consider for a second and blinked in mild alarm. "Oh! Is this putting you in like a weird, awkward position? 'Cause you totally don't have to tell me any of that stuff, I wasn't trying to make you feel obligated or anything. You've obviously got a certain comfort zone and I respect that. Although I guess there can't be that many pretty girls with gold eyes running around the city." He shrugged again. "Maybe I just need to make sure I stay useful to you. You want mango-pineapple-chocolate or the super food berry blaster?"

[Fox]

"Remaining useful to me is strongly recommended," said Nocturne in a tone bordering on imperious. "You'll last longer. .....mango and chocolate sound interesting, I'll try that, assuming you haven't poisoned them somehow."

 

There was a lot you could do to a drink that wouldn't technically be 'poison'; she squashed the paranoia as best she could. "I'm certainly not compelled to tell you any of my secrets, and I'm still not entirely convinced you're real. Nobody gets to be your age and is still as nice as you are. Are you a robot? Some kind of clone, or alien?"

[Gizmo]

Ryder's grin faltered a bit and he looked down while sliding the indicated smoothie in her direction. "I'm being weird and making you uncomfortable. Sorry. People tell me I'm sort of 'a lot'." He let out a heavy breath and took a sip from the remaining drink. "It's not like nobody's been crappy to me my whole life or something. I have to make an actual effort not to let thinking about those times make me be crappy to other people, if that makes sense? Like, I've already decided I'm going to try to give May another chance and that's probably going to be, like, frustrating at best. Didn't tell her my real name, if you didn't notice. But it's like building stuff." He reached up to pet Black's carapace, the robug leaning into like a cat. "You have to go in knowing that you're going to set some stuff on fire and break an arm and whatever else before you make something really special. I guess that's just worth it to me."

[Fox]

"Ah, so you're a martyr," Nocturne mused. She picked up her smoothie and, somewhat reassured that it was probably not poisoned or laced with truth serum, took a sip. "That makes more sense. It's probably going to get you killed."

 

The smoothie was worthy of her attention for a few moments. It almost managed to make her smile, the corner of her mouth turning upward by a fraction before she caught the reflex. "You do understand that building things is not supposed to break limbs? And fire should be rare. Perhaps your science could do with fewer mistakes and more testing. Not Mechanica's testing, but testing that doesn't get your arms broken." She paused, mid-sip, adding, "....you do understand that they're not going to let you see her? They're going to be very busy keeping her in prison while also keeping her from getting killed."

[Gizmo]

Ryder's grin returned with an added note of something else, something a little sharper and reckless. "Well, they're not going to let me see her, sure." He broke one of the brownies off from the pre-cut square of them. "You'd be surprised how few security firms plan for an invisible robot orchid mantis. Or I guess maybe you wouldn't be." He took a bite and continued to talk with his mouth full. "I like people a lot but c'mon. Our whole prison system has some major issues. Otherwise May would have gotten the help she super obviously needs the first time she was arrested." He swallowed and made a waving motion with the hand still holding most of a brownie. "And it's not like I break my arm a lot! That was just an example. If you know ahead of time that you didn't make any mistakes it's not an experiment it's just... following a recipe. Boring."