trans_9 | She Lives! [open]

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She Lives! [open]

Most of the ship was asleep. He could hear them, tucked away and snoring loudly in their individual compartments, disturbingly comfortable in their meaty prisons. But this was no time to be hypocritical.

Just a few minutes earlier, Dustin had narrowly escaped Yoshimi’s room after falling asleep there, successful only because he happened to wake up while she was out. Perhaps she got bored of watching him. Perhaps she finally decided to call Shitface Kirk on him while he was recovering to take him to the brig—or worse, she could’ve contacted the Major. The Major was a downright scary woman, one that Dustin planned on avoiding even if he was forced to work for her.

Whatever the reason (and whatever the consequences), he was feeling a lot better now that he’d had food and rest and a new goal to accomplish. Said goal was something that he’d noticed when he first visited the Armory to get his primary tools; the genetic identification system not only picked out his personal items, but it also found a certain vehicle down in the hangar that was of extreme interest to its owner. Though Dustin had no intention of going down there until he found Codi, he was starting to…think differently, now that the initial shock had passed. This can be explained later.

He first made a stop at the Weapons and Possessions Locker, rooting around some of the unclaimed items further back. The large, silver thermos that Dustin happened upon surely wouldn’t be missed. With his prize, he then headed up to the Mess Hall, where he received his usual water shot and a tray full of slop. Dustin scooped the pile into his thermos, pocketed the utensil he was given, and crumbled up his crunchy plate into the mixture.

And then he left for the hangar.

A while later (after a brief stop in the City), Dustin was wandering around the huge space and fiddling with his phone. Without proper tools he wouldn’t be able to completely repair it, but for now he’d managed to reprogram and edit the genetic signature grid, which at least allowed for him to detect people that he’d already contacted intimately enough to receive some DNA from. This program was actually something of a prototype; it sounded good when Dustin first thought of it, but upon activation he realized that people spread their DNA around everywhere, either through shed hair or skin flecks or other such biological shavings; therefore it was hardly useful for distinguishing a single person from, say, their hairbrush.

This new program instead concentrated on densities of DNA samples instead of individual flecks, and with a slightly modified interface allowed for a completely different view of objects. It still wouldn’t work in the Pod Caverns because of whatever Stacy had set up in there, but it would work well enough in the hangar for finding the special item in general.

It came up clear as day on the scanner—Dustin’s sweat and blood might as well be essential parts to this machine, after all—and, shortly thereafter, he’d found it.

It was a wireframe skeleton, roughly the size of a large apartment but much more sleekly designed, patched with a rough layer of specialized insulation and plating in areas; everywhere else was coated in a thick sheet of wires. Compartments here and there bulged with tools and materials, thankfully spared from being taken away with the rest of his possessions. Even Dustin’s makeshift work surface remained untouched, surrounded on all sides by clamped wires and a hastily placed welding set.

He was taken aback, unable to do much else but stare for right now. Observers might notice that his dark green eyes are eerily glinting in ways that they probably shouldn’t be.

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Most of Yoshimi’s muttering and pondering went unnoticed, as Dustin had buttoned up his flame-resistant overcoat, put on a wielding mask, and was hard at work sealing the bottom plating. Admittedly he was nervous about prematurely closing these gaps before adequately testing the wiring system, but if the ship’s humidity damaged the epoxy resin enough to make the insulation peel away, the circuitry was sure get pulled apart in the process. It was Dustin’s own fault for deciding to close up the bottom beforehand—he hadn’t expected to be abducted by an interdimensional spacecraft in the middle of production.

And that much was understandable.

Dustin turned off the welding gun, brushing off a few bits of flaky slag with weak twitches of his prosthetic hand, and moved forward to a new work surface. His lower legs and feet protruded near Yoshimi’s current position.

“Don’t get me started, Robot Stalker,” Dustin chuckled arrogantly, “It’s not so much that I get poetic; rather, if I explained my thoughts of how I designed this child, your brain could start to melt.”

That has that damn eyebrow of hers arching, skepticism radiating off her in waves.

"I appreciate your concern," she says drily, kicking his calf. Evidently, "concern" cues violent reactions. Better watch out for that, Dustin.

She's about to pace away again when something sinks in.

Crouching to peer under the ship, both eyebrows raised this time.

"Robot Stalker?"

Yoshimi’s getting a good view of the bottom of Dustin’s feet, one of them scrunched up because he was writhing in agony and clutching his calf. Although, it’s hard to tell that he’s smiling underneath that welding mask.

Eventually he recovered enough to pull back his protective shield with his gimpy prosthetic, rolling his head to the side with a pained grin through gritted teeth. It can be hard sometimes to show amusement at other’s suffering while experiencing physical pain.

“Yeah—‘Robot Stalker’,” Dustin explained slowly, as if postulating a formula for the fabric of the universe to a six-year-old, “See what I did there? Your designated name is ‘Robot Slayer, but you’re always stalking me, so I just replaced one with the other! Wasn’t that clever of me?”

He retracted his legs this time.

Yoshimi's mean side wagers that now would be a good time to yank him out from under the ship and rip his prosthetic off with the kind of violent precision reserved for people practiced in the destruction of false, anthropomorphic forms. Her nice side says that kicking him again would be a bit more fair. Her offended side agrees with the mean side, and her sense of humor demands that she cackle, because, you know, it is kind of amusing.

She fights all of these urges back, going with her usual approach - dry apathy.

"You're an ass," she says flatly, shifting into a sitting position, making no attempts to argue the fact of the stalking - after all, her following him here fits the technical definition of "stalking", and it's not as if she can claim a language barrier. The Translation Core is good for things like that.

Dustin chuckled to himself, pushing his welding mask back on. That was just short of him saying, ”Yeah, I know I am.”

And then he went back to work.

Dustin wasn’t used to having a captive audience. Every once in a while he would get one; at first they were scientists or engineers, or even other geniuses—all of them aware of his studies and his talent—but all they were interested in was talking. They talked and talked and blathered about how spectacular this was, or how skillfully done that looked, or how this stable compound should’ve decayed a long time ago, why wasn’t it decaying? It was entirely too much talking! Couldn’t they see that he was in the middle of something very delicate? Could they maybe stop acting like curious five-year-olds after watching mommy and daddy’s special videos hidden in the sock drawer?

Codi used to be like that, too. At the time Dustin was more tolerant of her, so he put up with the questions, the gawking, the ignorant observations…but she learned on her own. She was one of Dustin’s least frequent visitors; when she came, however, he found that her silent presence was the best one to have around. Sometimes they could even carry on a casual conversation—not about how fantastic his work looked, but, you know, just the daily stuff. ”Rick made pancakes this morning—banana and chocolate chip, the only good kind—and you’d think the man’s never cooked in his life! They were all burnt and gritty on the insides, which was still somewhat impressive. How does one manage to char the outside of a pancake while still failing to cook it all the way through?...”

Dustin suddenly yelped, dropping the welding gun and cradling his prosthetic. In his reverie he’d forgotten about the limb and was trying to use it to hold back a few loose bundles of wire, which was all well and good until his body decided that it would test out some of those new nerve connections. His segmented fingers were still attempting to curl into a fist with jerky, irregular twitches. Dustin spewed a continuous line of curses under his breath.

Having fallen victim to the comfort of silence, Yoshimi twitches rather violently at the abrupt noise, pupils dilating as her shoulders tense.

"What, d'you break yourself?" She almost sounds concerned, though she doesn't move particularly from her spot on the floor. Expression having eased, her eyebrows are lifted, and she looks rather unimpressed.

Frankly Dustin assumed that Yoshimi would’ve left a long time ago. Was…was she really that fascinated in what he was doing?

Ego immediately backed this up—well of course she’s interested in what you’re doing, idiot, because you’re a genius! Aren’t the ignorants allowed to gawk every once in a while?—but Reason, the intuitive fellow that he was, had a different opinion on the matter. What if Yoshimi was genuinely interested in him? Wasn’t that even a remote possibility?

…Nah.

“Quite….quite the opposite!” Dustin grumbled, gingerly pulling back the sleeve of his overcoat to get a better look at his twitching prosthetic; two metal tubes protruded from his stub of an elbow, connected by thin yet sturdy-looking sheets of opaque polymer, twisting around one another in an amazingly accurate representation of one’s radius and ulna (if without muscles). “This is a good sign—it means my nerves are starting to grow back. As if they didn’t take their goddamn time…”

But is it really impossible, Dustin dear? Yoshimi's subconscious begs to differ.

"Well, damn. I was hoping your arm had fallen off and you were bleeding critically," she intones, shifting slightly to get a good look at the uncovered prosthetic. Honestly, the damn things still creep her out, though it's definitely a comfort to know that something that basically mechanical couldn't possibly be hooked up to Dustin's brain via ID chip. "No such luck, I suppose."

Wishing vaguely that he wasn't under the goddamn spaceship, she inches under the thing, short arms reaching for the artificial limb, her interest piqued enough that her usual respect for personal boundaries is thrown to the wind. She's vaguely concerned with the uncomfortable twitching, but mostly she's fascinated by a prosthetic operated by a natural nervous system, rather than computer chip. Hopefully he won't beat her over the head for tugging his arm and pinning it to the ground so she can poke around the exposed mechanism.

Dustin clucked sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, that’s too bad, isn’t it? I was hoping that maybe you’d developed a soul, but I guess I was just aiming too—what—“

It was about then that he noticed Yoshimi was trying to crawl underneath the ship. Cue the classic, ‘What the hell are you doing’ face, please.

“—Are you high? Get the hell—away—from—“

She reached out at him. Paranoia kicked in and Dustin tried to scuttle away, instantly forgetting that he was still lying on a creeper—which, of course, conveniently decided to slip out from underneath him. Though some sort of series of freak events, Dustin opened his eyes and realized that he’d somehow ended up flipped over and crossed on top of the Robot Stalker, sprawled out and receiving a lot of negative feedback from his sensitive nerves.

Because this kind of occurrence wouldn't be awkward enough between normal people, it just had to happen to Yoshimi and Dustin.

Fighting the urge to claw his eyes out and then retreat from the spreading pool of blood with all haste, Yoshimi groans loudly, trying to shove him off of her. Her face is contorted into the kind of horrified expression reserved for antisocial women who haven't come into contact with a man in any real way for four years, and she wriggles ineffectively, hating herself for indulging in curiosity for once.

"What is this, a shoujo manga? Kami-sama," she mutters, not particularly caring for his "sensitive nerves" as she shoves indelicately at his side. Really, this is an awful angle for trying to use one's upper body strength.

Oh, also, blushing.

"Get off me, asshole."

Dustin grumbled a second stream of curses under his breath as he slowly lifted himself—and then promptly fell as his back hit the underside of the hull.

“Sonofa—“ his face was pressed against the ground, voice muffled in a mouthful of his own hair, “—@*&$! Okay, okay, look, we need to coordinate this better.”

He tried again, continuing to curse as his prosthetic refused to work with him.

“So here’s the plan: I stay up like this, and you crawlOOOF!”

That would be the sound of Yoshimi shoving Dustin in the side. He landed heavily on her face.

Least. Coordinated. Thing. Ever.

Muffled curses can be heard as she tries her hardest to shove him off of her, her flushed face likely burning a hole in his stomach. The fluid swearing slipping from her lips isn't being translated, garbled as it is by the Dustin on top of her face, so he'll be hearing some odd word fragments until the situation is resolved.

Which, fortunately, doesn't take long.

Slipping her arms underneath him, one on his sternum, the other on his abdomen, she pushes up, essentially bench pressing him in order to slide out. When she is free, she retreats quickly, straightening to sitting beside the ship, her hair a tangled mess of pink.

"Kuso."

An airy gasp left Dustin’s lungs as Yoshimi…essentially bench-pressed him into the bottom of his ship. This got no better when she finally freed herself—and let the frail man fall abruptly onto the hangar floor.

There was something definitively wrong with how that situation ended, but Dustin was in no mood to highlight his bruised ego (and lungs). He silently rolled his way out from underneath the hull, coming to a stop on his back with an unmistakably exasperated glare plastered to his scarred face. Said glare, though covered with about two inches of scruffier-than-usual locks, was pinned sturdily at Yoshimi.

He was blushing. Probably not as furiously as the pink-haired girl also involved, but it was noticeable enough.

“…the hell was that all about?”

She is tempted to accost him about the light, pinkish flush coloring his cheeks, because hell, only people with souls are allowed to blush, but she refrains, mostly out of a desire to not discuss the abhorred blushing instinct. A small part of her also just... doesn't feel like bothering him about it.

"Well, hell if I know, Sparky. You're the one who flipped out. I was just trying to get a look at your arm." Her tone suggests that this is the most obvious thing in the world, and that, yes, he is an idiot.

Dustin got oddly suspicious following that statement, quickly scuttling onto his backside and cradling his still twitching prosthetic. He then proceeded to backpedal as far away from Yoshimi as possible.

“Well shit, you could’ve given me a warning or something?” he snapped, desperately trying to repress the blush that he just now noticed spreading over his cheeks and crooked nose, “You can’t just go up to people and mess with their automated replacement limbs without saying something beforehand! Where the hell are your manners?”

Okay, so that last part was really hypocritical. Dustin honestly didn’t care.

That elicits a bark of a laugh from Yoshimi.

"Really? You're gonna talk to me about manners? You?" More laughter follows, her head shaking as her posture relaxes. "Anyway, you can't blame me. I don't claim to have social skills, and I haven't gotten to touch a prosthetic that isn't operated via ID chip. I get excited by mechanics."

And, of course, she doesn't get the innuendo that she's just uttered, because her brain said it in Japanese, and... it can't be twisted the way that it is likely to be twisted in Japanese. If she knew, she would kill herself right then and there, because "ohmygod, I just said that in front of Dustin."

There was a long pause.

…Aaaand Dustin’s laughing at her.

He laughed for a good two minutes, eyes tearing and chest heaving for air, during which time he promptly forgot about his aching prosthetic and the previous encounter. This was…oh this was fantastic! How could this possibly get any better?

“D—do you now?” Dustin gasped when he was finally able to catch his breath long enough to express cohesive thought, “Well it’s no wonder you’re always following me around, what with your creepy robot fetish! What—what the hell—“

He took a second to wipe his eyes.

“—What the hell did ‘Robot Slayer’ stand for? Was it really that bad?”

There is a long pause.

...Aaand Yoshim is confused.

"Wh...what? What the hell do you think it stands for, 'Pizza Delivery Girl'?" She is giving him a look that simultaneously questions his soundness of thought and her own speech faculties. What could she possibly have said that would cue... paroxysms of laughter and... mockery?

Ah, metaphor. Ever do you confuse the masses with your convoluted nature.

Dustin blatantly ignored her confusion in favor of more contemptuous laughter.

“Whatever, whatever,” he waved her off and heaved himself to his feet, still chuckling quietly to himself, “If my prosthetic really…excites you that much, maybe I should give you some time to calm down, eh? Not around my ship, if you can help it.”

The scruffy man turned his back to her and toyed with the settings on his soldering iron.

Yoshimi's confused stare solidifies into one of her typical, outright glares, eyes flashing.

"What the hell are you talking about? You're being an asshole again, but I don't know what about. You're not allowed to be an asshole unless I know what you're mocking me for." Yes, that is indignance sounding strong in her voice, and yes, she is snatching the soldering iron from him, avoiding the hot end with the practiced ease of an avid mechanic. "So shut up, neh?"

Dustin was more playful than usual, partially because of finding his ship and partially because Yoshimi was so damn fun to tease. How could he possibly be expected to restrain himself?

“Look,” he snapped with mock seriousness, pointing incriminatingly with a metal finger that spasmed every few seconds, “I’m allowed to be an asshole whenever the hell I want to be. I don’t need a reason.”

And then he edged over to retrieve his stolen soldering iron, prepared to put Yoshimi in a headlock if he had to. Chances for that happening seem…more than likely in this type of situation.

Stepping away, soldering iron switched to the opposite hand so he can't reach it, she continues to glare.

"So, what, you try to be a bastard? How very... you." Yes, that's an eyebrow quirk.

Dustin frowned, sidestepping into a better position to grab Yoshimi’s shoulder and arm so that she couldn’t pass the soldering iron back to her other hand. It was better than what else he had in mind.

“Call it a hobby.”

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She Lives! [open]

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