Better Living Through Reckless Experimentation [Open]

[brainy-bot.livejournal.com]

Brainiac 5 hasn't been outside of his area of the labs much of late, preferring to keep working if at all possible and finding it easier than most others since he doesn't need to break for food or rest nearly as often as organic crew members do. Not to mention that the last few times he'd ventured outside, he'd gotten caught up in an altercation and, earlier, run into a particularly irritating girl who'd compared him to a vegetable of all things.

Therefore he's determined to stay in here where the company is infinitely better and continue working on his experiments in power sources. He's not, despite what others might think, sulking. He's simply working on something that requires a lot of concentration and--

His sensors beep faintly. Apparently his work requires slightly more attention than he's been giving it, because it's about to overload.

"Oh," he says. He has just enough time to throw up a forcefield around the device, his work station, and, by proxy, himself, so that nothing else in the area is going to get damaged. And then it explodes.

He thinks that the forcefield contained the worst of it before it gave out, but he's not entirely sure because he's busy describing a near perfect arc through the area before colliding heavily with the door. Which promptly opens and dumps him out in the hallway.

"Ow," he mutters. This really isn't turning out to be his day. Or week.

Comments

[madeofwyn.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, that happens." Wyn says sympathetically, nodding. "What was the energy source, if you don't mind my asking? I've just been using the bleedoff from the arrays to recharge the sort of battery-ish thing I've got, but that's really not quite feasible for everyone else."

"... well, that's good. I think." she continues, glancing through the doorway of Special Weapons at B5's version of 'contained'.

[brainy-bot.livejournal.com]

"Dani supplied me with some ecto energy a while back which might be a feasible option. I've been working with very small amounts, since it tends to be somewhat..."

He follows her gaze into the lab and the roughly circular blast zone centred around his workspace. "...sensitive to impurities, which seems to cause an extreme reaction. Unfortunately 'impurities' thus far have been including most of what I'm trying to use with it at the moment."

He sighs, clearly put out, but hastily adds, "however you'll notice I have been containing the damage."

[madeofwyn.livejournal.com]

"Seems, um. Volatile." Wyn's head tilts as she surveys the blast disapprovingly. "I'd suggest using magic instead, but it might be even more liable to explode if you don't know what you're doing. And apparently doesn't exist." The last bit is only teasing, but magic could be a slightly more viable power source. Maybe.

"And containment doesn't really help if you're getting sent flying into a door, though. Does that happen every time?"

[brainy-bot.livejournal.com]

"Yes," he agrees. "Apparently it works better with living or 'previously living' substances, but I wonder if there's some issue with how organic the substance is or isn't which might be causing problems simply from my proximity..." He trails off for a moment, then comes back at the mention of 'magic'.

"You already know my views on that," he says with a sigh. "Besides, why anyone would want to trust in a substance that, by the definition of the term most commonly used, cannot be explained, is beyond me."

He wanders over to the remains of his workstation and starts picking up the pieces of his experiment. Again. "Unfortunately my strongest forcefields have a somewhat... limited range. And it's only happened twice so far."

[madeofwyn.livejournal.com]

"Well, there's an easy way to find out, isn't there?" Wyn smiles cheerfully. You have organic coworkers, B5. One of them is standing right in front of you, offering to help.

"It's not like there are other options, really." Wyn says distractedly as she glances around the lab for something to pick up pieces of experiment with. She'd like to help, but she's not really in the mood to have severe burns on her hands. "... and it was kind of a joke."

[brainy-bot.livejournal.com]

"Oh... a joke." He does know what they are and even makes some himself sometimes, but he also misses them on occasion which is somewhat embarrassing.

"Well I suppose..." he says grudgingly, looking Wyn up and down. "The assistance might be somewhat helpful in at least determining if that is the cause of it. But you'll have to follow my directions exactly."

[madeofwyn.livejournal.com]

Wyn opens her mouth as if to say something, then clearly thinks better of it. "We'll work on it." she says after a moment.

Wyn returns B5's look with a very skeptical one of her own. "Believe it or not, I have been a lab assistant before. It's kind of how I make money." Admittedly, she's less willing to put up with b.s. than most lab assistants, but she's good at it. ... which is probably how she'd avoided being fired up until her abduction.

[brainy-bot.livejournal.com]

"Work on what?" he asks, momentarily confused. "On second thought, I'm sure it doesn't matter."

He turns his attention back to the fragments of his experiment and begins the task of repairing things enough that he can try the whole process again. "I've never needed any help in my work before," he says after a moment. "I'm normally more than capable of handling things myself."

[madeofwyn.livejournal.com]

Wyn gives him a tiny shake of her head. "It's not important."

"And no one's going to think you're less capable for needing a pair of organic hands to help out with an experiment." she continues with a shrug. "It's not a big deal, and I won't mention it if you don't want me to."

[brainy-bot.livejournal.com]

"It's not that I'm worried about what people will assume from my asking for help," he answers, "it's more that I'm... not used to trusting others with tasks like this." He thinks back to when Shrinking Violet aided him with surgery or Bouncing Boy's insistence on flying without the guidance systems he'd invented, and winces.

"I may be a little--" There's a definite pause as he struggles with what he's about to admit. "--overbearing."

[madeofwyn.livejournal.com]

"Oh, the 'if I don't do it it won't be done right, so I might as well just do it by myself' syndrome?" Wyn nods. "Yeah, I know how that can be. People will surprise you sometimes, though, if you give them the chance."

"You can't possibly be worse than some of the people I've worked with." Wyn says with a slightly lopsided smile. "I'm fairly certain you know what you're doing, at least." She's trying to be reassuring and isn't entirely sure it's working, but hopefully she'll get points for effort. Or something.

[brainy-bot.livejournal.com]

"I- Hey! I'm not that bad!" At least, he didn't think so.

...well she didn't need to be so blunt about it at any rate. He folds his arms and pouts stares at his project. "I can work with others just fine. And of course I know what I'm doing!"

[madeofwyn.livejournal.com]

"Um... you could be worse, that's certainly true." He could be more like his organic counterpart.

Tact isn't one of Wyn's strong suits. "I believe you." she says, raising her hands in surrender. "Now, c'mon, let's move on to science." Trying to be reassuring didn't work; maybe science will.

[brainy-bot.livejournal.com]

He wants to ask what she means by 'he could be worse', since it's not exactly reassuring, but on second thought, decides it might be better just to leave things be for the time being.

"Yes, we should," he sighs. "I'll just finish repairing the damaged components from the last explosion and then you can take over." As he speaks, he gets back to work putting things back to how they should be or reorganising them into a new arrangement that will hopefully prove a little more explosion-proof.

[madeofwyn.livejournal.com]

"Alright-- don't even think about touching that." The last outburst is directed not at B5, but at a small floating robot hovering very, very near the project. "I don't know how you turned yourself on, but I would back away slowly if I were you."

[brainy-bot.livejournal.com]

Brainy looks up in surprise at the outburst, then identifies the target and turns his attention onto it curiously. "Interesting. What is it?" he asks.

[madeofwyn.livejournal.com]

Wyn gives the smaller robot an exasperated look. "His name is VV. He's a scoutbot -- get. over. here. -- and he's far too curious for his own good." VV obediently zooms away from the experiment, circling Wyn's head at a dizzying speed.

"Stop that. Just because you don't get to poke the shiny thing doesn't mean you get to annoy me to death either." she mutters.

[brainy-bot.livejournal.com]

Brainy smiles as he watches the little robot circle Wyn's head. "I'd rather it didn't try to interfere with the experiment, yes. You built it?"

[madeofwyn.livejournal.com]

Wyn sighs. "I'm starting to regret it, but yeah, I built him." His point thoroughly made, VV floats over to B5 and hovers near his face. The little robot has tilted over on one side in a fair approximation of a headtilt, seeming very interested in this new person.

[brainy-bot.livejournal.com]

He watches the little robot with a mix of interest and amusement. "He seems understandably curious about things; I imagine his programming is relatively complex in order to reproduce that?"

[madeofwyn.livejournal.com]

Wyn noticed that switch from 'it' to 'he'. "N-- well, not especially. I had to compensate for some of the components I was missing with magic-- and before you say 'I told you so' I know what I did wrong-- and it had a... slightly unexpected result." she says quickly.

"And he's still technically in beta, although field testing's going better than I expected. He didn't get shot, which was nice."

[brainy-bot.livejournal.com]

"What kind of unexpected result?" he asks, dividing his attention between keeping and eye on VV and continuing to finish his repairs. "And what are you planning on doing with him if the field testing doesn't work out?"

[madeofwyn.livejournal.com]

"... well, the personality, for one. It turns out that using a programming language and an array that're almost identical is a good way to have things hybridize and to have the array shift the programming into something way more complicated than it was before." She had to get the magic and the tech to work together somehow; the only problem was that no one had ever really done anything like it before, so she had no idea of what would actually happen when she put her theory into practice.

Wyn shrugs. "If all else fails, he's the engineering department's mascot. I've got no intention of scrapping him, although I might try to make him a partner eventually."

[brainy-bot.livejournal.com]

"A partner?" He asks curiously. "You mean, a friend?" He's actually pleased that Wyn doesn't seem intent on destroying VV, though he doesn't show it. He's gotten used to keeping his own feelings on the treatment of androids, sentient or otherwise, to himself after all.

A moment later and the system is up and ready. "Are you sure you're ready to try this?"

[madeofwyn.livejournal.com]

Destroying VV would be kind of like killing a kitten to Wyn. (She gets a bit attached to things she builds.) "I was thinking more in the sense of someone to work with, but yeah. A friend."

"Absolutely." Wyn says enthusiastically. "VV, you're filming this, right?" The little robot floats farther away from the experiment, reorienting himself as he hovers farther away from the ground (and the experiment).