All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy [Open]

[helipack-jack.livejournal.com]

Jack Spicer's in engineering at a workbench, repairing the probes the crew damaged when fighting their way through Stacy's immune systems. He has to admit, they're nicer than his own bugs and as he's repaired them he's seen how elegantly put together they really are.

He's a little jealous, really.

Click click click goes the probe in Jack's hands as he replaces broken parts, realigns ones that have been shifted, opens and closes movable pieces to make sure they work smoothly. Who knows what they might need them for again?

And in the meantime, he considers how he hasn't had time to get down to any proper evildoing since waking up here, how there's a guy here who's clearly an awesome villain that he needs to scope out, how there might be nobody but him left from his universe, and (this only occasionally coming forward, but still there) the fact that somebody he had known died on the last mission and that on some deep, human, and entirely unvillainous level he feels bad.

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[not-prncss-tldr.livejournal.com]

Lafiel enters with her pet project over her arm: the same quasi-technological arm sheathe (http://i35.tinypic.com/2n8y5fp.jpg) she'd shown the chief.

She looked for a clear workbench, seeing scraps of projects everywhere. She was wary of upsetting them, knowing how touchy some of the engineers could be about it. What to her looked just like a random arrangement of parts could very well be someone's genius equation in the making.

Then she spots Jack, sorrounded by sensory probes and looking happy as a clam. She supposed this was good. The last time she'd seen him he was obviously angry and hurt and acting like a complete child about it. "Hello Mr. Spicer." She greeted him.

[helipack-jack.livejournal.com]

"Whuh?" Jack, fully absorbed in his work, didn't notice her come in. He looks up.

"Oh, hey," he says. "What're you doing?"

[not-prncss-tldr.livejournal.com]

Lafiel holds the thing up. She knows what needs to happen, she just doesn't know the specifics of how. "I'm trying to modify this to make it more universally compatible."

[helipack-jack.livejournal.com]

"Good luck with that," says Jack. "You should see some of the stuff we were cannibalizing out of W&P. You'd need forty different adapters or something just to deal with a fraction of the stuff in there."

He's not exactly optimistic, Jack. Or helpful.

[not-prncss-tldr.livejournal.com]

"Oh." Lafiel's face fell. "But surely it wouldn't be difficult for someone of your abilities?" She said, displaying the diplomacy a good ruler needed.

[helipack-jack.livejournal.com]

Jack scoffs a little. "Well, sure. I know I could do it. But what do you know about machines?"

Yeah Lafiel, your team mate's a bit of a jerk. Sorry.

[not-prncss-tldr.livejournal.com]

Lafiel did her best to surpress her Abriel temper. "I was a pilot trainee aboard the Gosroth. After that, I commanded a vessel in two campaigns for the Imperial Star Forces. I'm not an engineer but I can program a data crystal and am familiar with all aspects of the running of any number of vessels, terraforming equipment and personal effects used in space. And if I can modify this piece of equipment, i'll be able to control any machine it plugs into as if it were my own hand and see through its sensors."

[helipack-jack.livejournal.com]

Jack just kind of slooowly raises his brows. 'Well excuuuuuse me, Princess!' says his expression.

"Okay, well just keep it away from my stuff when you do. You obviously know what you're doing and don't need help from little old me."

[not-prncss-tldr.livejournal.com]

Well that...didn't work.

"I still would appreciate some help. This is your specialty, after all."

[helipack-jack.livejournal.com]

"Well, I guess I could help you..." Jack says.

"Lemme see that thing."

He has to know how it works if he's going to be any help, and examining it ought to help him some. Even if it already looks like Weird Future Technology.

Jack's started to get better at Weird Future Technology.

[thehollycopter.livejournal.com]

The nice thing about being a close personal friend of one of the smartest centaurs in the world? Getting all your fancy and expensive police gear fixed for free. Worst thing about it? Not having that centaur around when you need them.

In this case, it was Holly's wings that were malfunctioning. They weren't deploying smoothly, and the flapping was a tad choppy. Not a good thing. Holly had come down to engineering in hopes of finding someone who might be able to help. If not, she could always take care of basic maintenance, but if it was anything more serious, that was a problem.

Holly walked up to a workbench and set down the back-pack like machine that housed her retractable wings. She was about to crack it open and take a look, when she glanced up and -- oh, no. She'd set her wings down on a bench right next to that annoying red-haired human boy she'd met when she first woke up. She couldn't help but groan.

[helipack-jack.livejournal.com]

Jack looks up at the sound and quirks an eyebrow.

"What?" he asks. That had to either be directed at him, or the backpack-like thing. Which... Jack hasn't seen before and is keeping half an eye on now.

New machines are interesting.

[thehollycopter.livejournal.com]

"Nothing," Holly replied, a bit quickly. She pulled an omnitool from her belt and gently opened the mechanical wings' case.

"Am I just a magnet for weirdly smart human brats, or what?" She muttered under her breath and she inspected the machine.

[helipack-jack.livejournal.com]

"Okay then, what's that?" Jack asks, gesturing with a tool at the wings.

He's hard to distract when cool robots are involved.

[thehollycopter.livejournal.com]

Holly wasn't too surprised. She was pretty used to smart yet oblivious people.

"It's..." she thought for a moment. Foaly had some sort of scientific name for the technology, but she'd never really cared enough to remember it. "It's a pair of mechanical fairy wings. Since only sprites are born with natural wings."

[helipack-jack.livejournal.com]

"Okay. So you can fly. That's cool."

Jack keeps working on his probe then, only occasionally stealing glances at the wings so he can see what he can learn.

"I can fly too."

[thehollycopter.livejournal.com]

Holly noticed him sneaking looks at the wings. She wasn't very happy with that - in her experience, humans plus fairy technology equaled bad times for everyone.

She looked sharply up when he mentioned he could fly. "Okay, mudboy, I'll bite," she said, "how can you fly?"

[helipack-jack.livejournal.com]

"I made a helipack when I was ten," says Jack nonchalantly. "I kept making improvements, so I got this baby." He pats the backpack, sitting on the work table nearby.