trans_9 | Inventions of the Exceptionally Nerdy [Open and bendytimeable!]

After a quiet scare with a little laser in his pocket, Billy had come to an alarming conclusion: he needed a pocket protector. The little device, the one true sign of a nerd, would keep him from poking or shooting himself. But that wasn't all it could do! With Billy's mind at work, he came up with another idea: the pocket trap. With some clever signaling coding, he could trap the hand of anyone who tried to pick his pocket. It would definitely help keep his morpher safe!

He wound up stretched across a meat-couch of the Observation Deck, working on adding little strips of identifying material to what was undeniably a pocket protector. Maybe he wouldn't make it cool (nothing could do that), but he'd definitely make it useful.

As he worked, there was a certain undercurrent of excitement on his face. He smiled more often, sometimes looked far into the distance, and could be heard humming if the observer was close enough. Something good had happened to him, and maybe it wasn't entirely due to the pocket protector.

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Oh guess who was behind him.

Trouble named Lash. She'd been practicing her sneaking skills by walking behind him when suddenly...

"HELLO!"

Billy had been engrossed in his work once again. That finger-snag was coming along nicely, not too painful but definitely protective, when the noise startled him. He jumped. the piece flying out of his hands.

Oh. Of course, it was Lash. He pouted at her, leaning over to grab the pieces. "Good afternoon to you too."

She caught one of the pieces on her fingers, and played around with it while he picked up the rest before handing it to him, grinning at her plan that most certainly had succeeded.

"Gee you look unnaturally peppy today," she remarked. "Pouting aside of course, tee hee hee!"

Billy accepted the piece almost gratefully, slotting it right back where he'd intended it to be.

"Well, I'm having a good day for once, Lash. Surprisngly enough, it sometimes happens. And---wait a minute, I don't pout," Billy insisted.

Liar.

Oh she had him exactly where she wanted him, really. It was always fun to tease her teammates.

"Really? Then what did you call what you just did a few minutes ago?" she said, pretending to think about it. "So are you on some sort of breakthrough? Found a way to install more lasers?"

"A negative facial expression," Billy said, fully expecting this explanation to be laughed at. But he was planning to stick to it.

"There's a small laser-like system in this device. It's part of the main feature! When it detects unauthorized entry, it snags the person's hand until I can deal with them."

Cool, yes, but it couldn't quite account for all of his excitement.

"Wow that is a pretty nerdy reply," she answered, laughing in a teasing tone. "I like to call it...oh...pouting. Pouting pouting pouting!" She even took on a fake pouting fake.

Well until he started to speak about his invention. Now she was suddenly silent and interested.

"So like it burns their hands off or sends a paralyzing shock?"

"It keeps the hand in place," Billy said, choosing to move on with the conversation though his eyes rolled at the 'pouting'. She was right. He'd never admit it. "It's like a paralysis, yes, but I wanted something that fades quickly and is easily undone in case it's accidentally triggered."

"Interesting idea, but that could just make them move their elbow and shoulder? Or grab one arm to move the other." Lash was going to throw all the scenarios at him. She was trained for that kind of thing.

Billy frowned. "Extending the paralysis or causing pain is one option, but I don't like it. Creating a forcefield to bounce them back? It'd require high power, but it might be worth it..."

Maybe.

"Maybe have something scream at them?" Lash offered. "Then again that might case you to also jump, so that's useless for that reason...can you have it attach themselves to their hand? A sort of way of being caught red-handed, so to speak."

"If I trained myself to adjust to the scream, maybe," he thought aloud, scratching that down on his datapad.

"I can, but I'd want to make it extendable to a certain distance with some sort of mechanism. They don't need to get away with the items and figure out how to free their hand later."

This was so complicated!

"What about a small tracker that attaches themselves on the hand?" Lash offered. "It's painless and low risk."

"True enough," Billy thought, scribbling it down. "But it still enables them to get a long distance away if they can teleport."

Teleporting. How he missed it. He might've said the word with a slightly bitter tone.

And Lash caught that one rather fast too. "You have bad teleporting memories?" she asked him. "Someone stole stuff from you in that manner?"

"Yes," he admitted, shuddering. "There can be glitches in the system sometime. Or it can be used to the enemy's advantage if they break the code."

And he hated that part.

"Tee hee hee! Yeah, I used to do that a lot," she replied. "The only way to fix that is to make additional security but by that time you're just investing too much money for nothing. Looking at it this way, the only people who could get it properly REALLY have to work for it, right?"

"Right. Point of diminishing returns." He had to admit that Lash had a point. He sighed and started on the necessary corrections, shaking his head.

"Is that all?"

Inventions of the Exceptionally Nerdy [Open and bendytimeable!]

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