trans_9 | For the Techies

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For the Techies

Most girls, when given the option, would rather go shopping for clothes. Even before she gained her powers, Cassie hadn't been much of a fan of that. Now that she could grow and shrink (sometimes involuntarily) it was just a bad idea. And until she could find any unstable molecules clothing was affordable (which would be never), it just wasn't going to happen. Well, she did buy a cute dress for the very rare occasion she might need one, and to wear if she went out later, but that was it.

But there was one thing she loved shopping for.

High tech, gadgets, the works. It was like candy. Currently she was ~~lusting after~~ staring at a set of magnetic bucky balls and was considering if there was enough tech on Stacy to justify buying it just to fool around with. She was all ready looking at some of the other gadgets with ideas on how to cannibalize them into parts.

But those bucky balls were awfully tempting. ~~And come on, we all know Cassie likes her metal balls.~~

[This sucker is open to anyone who wants to go gadget shopping, you don't have to tag Cassie (although it'd be nice) if you don't want. I figured some people would want to send their characters over here anyway.]

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Tsukasa, having completed both his primary and secondary shopping lists, turned his attention to the one thing he held most important, but sadly, was far down on the list of essentials: camera supplies and film.

Having successfully tracked down an electronics store, he headed inside, fully intending to raid it for whatever remaining ~~antique~~ old-fashioned camera materials remained.

While Cassie was looking around she spotted Tsukasa, who seemed more like he was looking for something in particular.

"Trying to find something?"

Tsukasa gave Cassie a sidelong glance. "Yes; film and materials to fix a non-digital camera, which is especially in this day and age."

"A non digital camera? That might be hard to find here. You sure you don't want a new one?" Because shiny cameras were shiny. Cassie had been looking at them herself.

Tsukasa looked at her like Cassie had just stabbed him in the heart. "Are you insane? This camera has been my companion through all my journeys; I'm not giving it up for love or money."

"Whoa." Cassie held up her hands. "O.K., my bad. Well there's got to be some parts for it. And even if there isn't anything specifically for sale for it we can figure out how to take things apart to fix it. So uhm, let's see. Cameras. I think that section was over..." She looked around a bit. "There." She pointed. "There might be something there. And if not there must be some other store that has them."

"Excellent." Tsukasa said. As opposed to heading right for the main case of cameras, however, he went to what appeared to be a clearance section. Most of the devices there were un-boxed and had red tags attached to them, after all.

"So, you a camera fiend, too, or just a technology fan?"

"Just technology. I've always like taking things apart, even if I wasn't very good at putting them back together. And video games, ooh. Fortunately Stacy has a lot of video games." Cassie's eyes wandered to the digital cameras. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea if she got one of those...

Where one finds gadgets, one usually finds the means for maintaining them. And when one was, ultimately, a big walking gadget in themselves -- well, stopping to shop there was a foregone conclusion.

The clerk he'd flagged down to ask had helpfully pointed Axl in the right direction, and he'd found exactly what he was looking for: e-tanks, or...something similar enough as to make no difference. So he'd grabbed as many as he could carry, and was making his way to the front to check out -- while checking out the stuff on the shelves along the way, and paying considerable more attention to what he's looking at than where he's walking.

Hopefully, he won't run headfirst into anybody.

...hopefully.

Edited 2010-06-16 02:05 (UTC)

Of course he did. "Oof, hey." Cassie steadied herself. "I- huh." Well if he didn't look like he was straight out of a certain video game. "Uh, hey."

"Oh, scrap --" The impact knocked one of the cans loose from Axl's grip, but he quickly stuck one foot out in its path, just barely catching it and balancing on his other foot.

"Sorry! Wasn't paying enough attention to where I was going," he said sheepishly.

"That's all right. Uh, nice reflexes." Cassie brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

"I practice in front of the mirror," he joked, glancing at the can and trying to decide if he was cool enough to kick it back into the air and catch it again.

...nah, probably not. Maybe if he weren't standing next to so much very high-tech (and probably very breakable) stuff.

Cassie laughed. "My name's Cassie Lang." She said, offering a hand. "Are you looking for anything? I've been doing a lot of looking around so I might be able to help."

Axl shifted the cans he was carrying all to one arm and shook her hand. "Axl, nice to meet you!" As soon as the handshake was finished, he reached down to snag to the can that was still balanced on his foot.

"I'm not really looking for anything in particular, aside from these. Kinda wish I had more money, though. This'd be an awesome place for a shopping spree."

Cassie nodded. "Yeah, same here. So uh, you mind if I ask what all those cans are?"

"E-tanks. Usually my reactor can keep enough output to work right without much outside help, but I'd rather have some backup in case the scrap hits the vent."

"E-tanks. Right." Sometimes, the meatship never got any less surreal. Even when you weren't on the meatship. "I can carry some for you if you want. At least until you finish looking around here."

"That'd be cool! But only if it's not a bother? I mean, I don't wanna get in the way of you looking at stuff or anything."

Cassie grinned. "I'll probably be in here most of shoreleave anyway, it's no problem." She said, holding out her hands.

"Awesome, thanks." Axl passed over some of the cans. "Definitely enough in here to keep someone busy, that's for sure. You into technology, then?"

She bundled them all up in her arms. "Yeah, mostly self taught although I've been learning a lot more nowadays. I've always enjoyed looking at stores like this. My dad used to have an electronics company and he worked at Stark In- at a tech company so I basically grew up surrounded by it."

"How advanced is it, back where you're from?" Axl had always been surrounded by tech, but for completely different reasons -- it was pretty much inevitable, for a reploid.

It was always weird trying to describe technology/civilization levels to people from other worlds because of how different it could be. "Well, technologically speaking we've got armored suits people can pilot but that's only for the really wealthy super heroes." Like Stark. "A few robots that have very advanced intelligence, a few androids, although one of them is from the future. We've been to the moon. The top of the upper class has access to some awesome stuff. But most people just have access to HDTV, some simple robots without very high AI at all, video games, cars, complicated but relatively simple stuff. If that makes any sense."

"Yeah, that makes sense. Sounds kind of like...ugh, I'm awful at history. I want to say, like..20XX or something, where I'm from. Except we didn't get advanced AI for like another century." Unless he was misremembering dates again. Which wouldn't have been any surprise, really; he'd never spared all that much thought for the world before he was in it.

Jamie had wandered into the gadget store accidentally, but had wound up spending the better part of a few hours looking around at the various tech and gadgets. A good chunk of his time had been taken up playing with something called a Luminglass - he was utterly fascinated with the light show the device created. Besides, no one seemed to have any problems with him touching the display model. Since he wasn't being chased off from it, he got to indulge his curiosity and get it out of his system.

Once he had gotten bored with the Luminglass, he resumed looking around the store, coming up behind Cassie and peering over her shoulder at the toy.

"Bucky balls...oh, wee little magnets. I wonder why there's so many of them?"

"Bucky balls are the densest molecules on earth, harder than diamonds. They've been magnetized so you can play around with them. Like the magnets you'd play around with as a kid- uh, if you ever played around with magnets." Cassie took her eyes of the toy. "Sorry, I've seen you around but I don't think I've ever introduced myself." She held out a hand. "Cassie Lang."

"Aye, I've played with magnets," Jamie replies, trying to make it seem as if he had actually done that when he was a kid. In reality, he's only really known about them for a year or two. Still - he did play with them at that point, so his statement's true enough. He just hasn't seen hundreds of them gathered together like that.

He takes the hand and gives it a rather brisk shake. "I don't think I've ever done so, either. Jamie McCrimmon." Looking back at the shelf again, he re-reads the rest of the packaging and lets out a soft 'ah'. "So they're a toy, then. I thought ye might be looking at them to use on the ship somehow."

Cassie blushed. "Well, I guess there could be a theoretical use for them at some point but uh... yeah. Just a toy. I was looking at stuff I could use earlier and- well... I haven't bought anything just yet and it doesn't hurt to look around."

"You've not even bought some clothing?" There's a little surprise at that. Jamie would have thought that would have been a priority for just about everyone. But...now that he thinks about it, Cassie's been here for awhile. Maybe she already had gotten some, and didn't need to get more.

"Och, well. If ye don't need those, then I would think ye should get yourself something, aye? Why not that?"

"Well, I bought a cheap dress. I can grown and shrink and sometimes I lose control of those powers. The plantsuit at least changes with me but I've gone through a lot of clothes. I might as well throw money away." She shrugged, and regarded the bucky balls again. "Well, I could..."

Oh, she's got powers! Jamie looks a bit impressed for a moment, and then what Cassie mentioned about the fact that she doesn't always have control sinks in.

"How did ye manage before coming to Stacy?" he asks, not realizing how it might sound. He doesn't mean it in a rude way - sometimes he just jumps right in with questions without thinking it through first. He realizes it after a moment, though and grimaces.

"That was rude of me, wasn't it? I'm sorry."

He'll just study the Bucky Balls as well, although it's more out of a need to have something to focus on so he doesn't say anything else that might be misconstrued.

"No, it's fine. First I wore my costume under my clothes and then Stark paid for my clothes to be made out of unstable molecules. I've gotten a lot better controlling my powers but it only takes one time to ruin them."

"Unstable molly...molecules." Jamie stumbles over the word just a little, as it's not one he usually uses. Or has much of a grasp on what it means, if he were to be honest. However, he's able to pick up enough context from the rest of her words to get a little bit of an idea. At least, in the very broad 'it's some sort of special clothing' sort of way. So he's not completely faking it when he says, "Oh, aye. Those."

His gaze flicks back and forth between the toy and Cassie. "Do ye like being able to change size like that, aside from the wee problem with the clothes?"

Cassie smirked. "Yeah. I wouldn't have exposed myself to pym particles otherwise. I wanted these powers."

Well, that one Jamie has no clue about. He looks rather confused for a moment before asking, "Pym particles? What are those?"

Cassie shook her head, smiling. "Ah, right. You wouldn't know. Pym particles are what allow me to change size. Normally they do this as a one time only thing but I was exposed enough times I can do it at will."

Jamie's not even embarrassed that he's been caught at not knowing something. "Oh, so ye gave yourself the powers, then. I just thought that the people like you just had them already, aye?"

After a moment, he adds, "I've not really talked with many...och, what did Zoe call ye...super-heroes before."

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