Players:
Summary: An break between classes for a few students leads to some conversation about Proto.
Date: September 13, 2011
Log Title: Good Morning Cupcake
Rating: PG
Xavier Mansion - Quad
There is a square side walk of pavement with a nice grassy area in the middle with a few stone benches and trees along the corners. The pavement leads to the paths to the grounds of the school, the Dining Hall in Xavier's and the Ramsey Dormitories. It's not particularly large but it's a nice place for students and teachers to relax and enjoy the outdoors.
It's still morning but the sun is out casting it's warm rays over the quad making it a nice place to relax, which is exactly what Sage is doing. Dressed in a pair of jeans, with his bare feet sticking out of the bottm, and a loose fitting green tunic shirt he ignores the text books and laptop sitting next to him in the grass and slowly strums away on his ukukele. Anyone whose heard the song "San Francisco" by Scott McKenzie will recognize the tune being played.
Quenton is actually atop the roof ot the dormitory, lying on his side, watching the rest of the students mingle and speak. His head leans against his fist, and he looks out over the crowd, sniffling briefly while scratching his cheek. At the sound of the music, his eyes zero in on Sage, and he sighs. Figures it's him. But he decides if he's going to be living with the kid… he rolls off the roof, and just before hitting the ground his body halts, turning itself upright slowly. He begins to walk towards the long haired boy, hands in the pockets of his jacket.
Theo has been in class, but he's working on Proto inbetween his classes. He stands on top of the small robot, the four legs carrying him along the sidewalk as Theo intently monitors something on his iPhone with a certain determined scowl across his face. He wears a blue polo today, with khaki shorts. Proto doesn't seem to be having too much trouble carrying Theo, but he is quite a bit slower than he usually is, not darting around energetically like a puppy.
Shane steps out of the Dorms, massive noise-canceling headphones clamped tightly over her ears, her hair an eye-searing pink in contrast with her dark, subdued clothes. Just as she's about to take a step, Quenton falls to earth not far away, prompting a startled leap to one side, ripping the headphones off her head and prompting a brief blast of History shows again and again how nature works out the folly of man~! GODZILLA!! before her iPod is shut off. "What the *hell?*"
The outburst from Shane causes Sage to jump and an ugly sounding string of notes to play on the ukulele as his hand slips. Looking up and around the quad he notices there's suddenly people there! "Good morning Quenton, Theo and I'm sorry I do not believe we met so I don't know your name. I'm Sage." He offers to Shane with a friendly smile. He puts down the ukulele and uses one of his dreads to tie back the rest of his hair. "The hair is quite smashing. I've never seen anyone with pink hair. So how are you all doing this morning?" Sage is definately a morning person.
Quenton glances aside at Shane, eyes scanning her over briefly. "Hey, cupcake," he decides to call her, before his eyes scan over towards Sage. It's noted that his right arm is a little stiffer than usual, and his right hand is clenched into a tight fist. His other hand is hidden in his jacket. He tips his chin towards the long haired boy. "Hey. You wake up pretty early." Quenton had came to their room late that night, at eleven o'clock. Just in time for curfew. His red eyes are right now covered by dark sunglasses. "I'm tired. And should probably work out sometime today." One of those guys.
"Hey," Theo greets Sage, not looking up from his phone. Shane gets a glance as her music stops. "Wasn't me," he pre-emptively defends himself. Proto stops walking for a moment, and crouches to the ground, then stands straight. "That isn't right." He hops off of and the dog sized bot instantly "unfolds" into a much more open version, and the technopath pulls an alan key from his pocket. He undoes one of the panels, and looks at the inner working of the little robot. "New?" The question is directed at Quenton, but he seems far too consumed by the robot to really indicate his audience properly.
'Cupcake.' For a moment, it seems, Shane doesn't quite know how to respond to the word, other than a general raising of hackles. Finally, she shakes her head, moving past the boy towards Sage, muttering 'beefstick' just loud enough for Quenton to hear. "I know, Theo. I did. Hi. Shane." This last, directed to the be-dreadlocked boy on the grass.
Sage nods to Shane with a smile. "Pleasure to meet you Shane. And actually Quenton I woke up quite late today. I got up at seven so I had some time to wash up and relax before classes. We used to wake up around five in the morning back home to do chores and such." He explains as he really is an early to bed early to rise type. "So how is your little Robot doing Theo?" The word Robot forms almost awkwardly on his lips, like it's a word he's not really sure about.
Quenton lifts a hand to rub his nape as he glances at Theo, working his tongue into his cheek, shrugging those shoulders of his. "Something like that," he defers, before he eyes the disassembled robot thingo. He spares another glance towards Shane and shrugs his shoulders, not offering much more then a single, perhaps enforcing her insult, grunt. "Yeah, seven in the morning. That's uh… late," he agrees, eyes lifting to the sky in exasperation. "So what is that thing you got there?" he wonders to Theo. "Something from the toy store?"
"This is Proto, and he is not a toy," Theo answers, pausing from his work to look up. Well, that might not be entirely true, but he certainly doesn't come from a toy store. "I built him to be able to adapt to situations, and he's a mobile suit of armor. He has a totally independent AI system, and I'm working on upgrading his rotary cuff strength so that he can handle a higher payload. I'm Theodore, most folks here call me Theo."
"Mmmn," Shane says in answer to what a pleasure it is to meet her… A rare comment on its own. "…What were you playing?" For the moment, she seems content to let the jock and nerd have their stereotype-off, dropping to her haunches a short distance away from Sage rather than make him look over and up at her.
"I prefer to be up early." Sage says to Quenton. "A sunrise is quite a magical thing to watch, though I missed it this morning." He watches Theo with Proto for a bit and opens his mouth after a moment of hesitation. "What does A.I. mean? I assume it stands for something?" He doesn't even know what a rotary cuff is either but figures he'll just ask the one question. "I was playing San Fransico, I do love that song. I've never been out to San Fransico though I know it is somewhere here in America."
"Proto," Quenton echoes, staring at the robot. He'd nudge it with his toe if he thought he could control his strength. It'd also probably make Theo excessively angry, but neither of the angry boys know each other. "Huh. An independent AI? What's the difference between that and other AIs?" he wonders to the boy. "And I'm Quenton. Some people call me Q. I don't care what anyone calls me," he says, pointedly, eyes flicking towards Shane a moment. Then he furrows his brow as his cell phone goes off, and lifts it from his jacket. "Ah, crap. You people have fun." And then, just like that, he takes off, flying over the school gates and off.
Theo arches his brow at the question, not thinking it's foolish, but surprised about it as well. But then he heads out to…wherever. "Okay, see ya," "A.I. means artificial intelligence. In other words, a computer with a brain."
"Other side of the country," Shane says, raising an eyebrow at the Brit briefly. "Like three days' drive, at least. More like New York than LA is…" Glancing at Proto, then Theo, the girl tilts her head up in the SoCal 'sup?' greeting. "…So now he's armor, too?"
"But we're in New York now, right?" Sage asks as he still hasn't seen New York City so he still doesn't fully graps the concept of New Yokr and /New/ /York/. "Artifical Intelligence? How does that work? I…I don't think I should consider that for too long I think it would just make me go all barmy. I saw the armour a while back, bloody scared the pants off me. I thought he was attacking the school."
Theo grins, "Yep," He walks in front of the little bot, and extends his arms. Proto leaps up and grabs onto Theo, wrapping around him. Within a couple of seconds, the armor is complete around Theo's body, clicking closing closed. "I wasn't even doing anything, I was just walking through the woods," he defends himself.
"New York State," Shane grunts in answer to Sage's question. "You'll know when you're in the city. Forty-damn-story buildings right next t'you." She seems about to say more, but Proto's demonstration, naturally, grabs hold of her attention. "….Hhhhhuh," she says, once the armor locks closed. "Looks good. Got a paint job in mind?"
Sage tenses up a bit as Theo dons the armour, just because it's strange to him. "Yes, that is the armour I saw. I didn't say you were attacking it was just after we had all those warnings after the school was attacked and Ms. Frost was injured. It just started me since I didn't know people…or robots…or any of this stuff existed." Sage explains as his eyes linger on the armour still uncertain about it. "Forty story buildings?! How do they bloody stay up? Wouldn't they fall over if they were that tall?"
"Hadn't really thought about it," Theo admits. "I guess I could paint it. I'll have to fiture that out. Not going with red and gold though, that's for sure. Gotta come up with something for myself." Proto unhooks and drops back to the ground, folding back up into his more mobile form. "Yeah, it's called engineering."
Shane eyes the armor again, before it folds up, pursing her lips in thought. "…Blue and black," she murmurs, making a mental note to get hold of her laptop after class. Looking to Sage, the girl shrugs. "Someone figured out how back before my parents were even alive. Worked so far. Dunno how old the Empire State is, but it's older than Bugs Bunny, so."
Sage seems quite lost in the conversation so he looks down at his ukulele and starts to softly play it, tuning it just a tad. "Wow, I haven't seen a building that is more than two stories. All the shops were just one and our house back home is just two stories. I didn't think buildings were taller than that. Why aren't you going with red and gold Theo?"
"Yeah, there's been skyscrapers around for a long time," Theo agrees. "Red and gold is Iron Man's colors. He's also my boss. Don't want people to think that I'm just a copy cat. They probably will anyway, but whatever."
"Superhero," Shane clarifies. "Flies around in red'n'gold armor. Anyway. Should go to the City sometime. Probably see a whole bunch of things you never saw before, not just buildings."
Sage is about to ask who Ironman is when Shane clarifies and he nods. "Thank you, I'm not familiar with Ironman. So you work for a superhero? That is pretty impressive. Right?" Sage asks as if he's not sure if it is really impressive or not, or should be. "I keep being told that but honestly I'm a bit afraid from the things I've heard. It sounds overwhelming."
Theo shrugs. "He's not a superhero to me, I guess it's impressive. Most people here think it's pretty cool. He is a pretty cool guy, but I never really think about him as Iron Man, I just think of him as Tony Stark." He sticks his phone into his pocket. "Well, I gotta jet, classes are about to start for me, so I better get to class. See y'all later." He looks down at Proto. "Go get my backpack," he tells the little robot, which does so. It rushes back to the steps of the dorm, where Theo had left it. After retrieving the bag, it rushes back to Theo, who is already on his way to the main building of the mansion.
"Later," Shane says as Theo turns to leave, and levers herself to her feet, with much popping of joints. "We better get going too. Dunno 'bout you, but my History teacher hates it when people're late. And they know where we sleep."
"Cheers Theo!" Sage says watching Proto follow him like a puppy. "I dislike American History quite a bit, I have trouble following most of it." Mainly because he's not from America. "Your right, I have math soon and I shouldn't be late." He says standing up and picking up his book, tucking his ukulele under one of his arms. "I'm going to drop this off at my room but it was a pleasure meeting you Shane. I hope to see you around again. Cheers!" He says as he makes his way to the dorms.
