Salvage

[aquatic_light]

There's an utter mess scattered over Washed Up Beach today, and a few people who seem to be trying to clean it up. Since the weather in the Nexus is always warm enough to go swimming (except when it isn't) there's also one family already who arrived with a picnic basket and found the beach just isn't suitable for that today. Care to have a look?

(This continues just after this scene. Feel free to talk to anyone there if you want, or just walk up and start poking around. I just ask that no one successfully walk off with any critical parts as there are plans to put that back together. XD )

Comments

[has_an_answer]

Ed nods at the mention of evil twin episodes and sighs. "Effect shouldn't come before cause, but when dealing with fiction that's often how it's written... I suppose I'll have to get used to it, so long as it remains a thing for explaining the past."

Which is when Blues slips by and 'borrows' that side mirror. "Be right back." Though for now he just seems to be heading towards a nearby tiki hut.

"Hey, at least the best hypocritical child-abusing jerk is a dead hypocritical child-abusing jerk," comments Stephie, while Erdammeru burrows under the sand and occasionally causes little ridges in it like Bugs Bunny in a cartoon. After a few moments a tendril of black electronic something extends from the ground near the blanket and carefully withdraws from a piece of circuitboard it had protectively engulfed after finding under the sand.

Evie's made her way back over there to keep a watch on Tad, who is still happily and obsessively focused on matching up the edges of broken circuitboards.

[clockwork_doc]

"Exactly," Doc says, sighing. "I imagine you've had quite a few moments like that already. Makes me sort of glad I missed out on some of the nonsense that occurred in the BTTF movies." He glances at the gears poking out of his knuckles. "Then again, what happened to me wasn't exactly an improvement. . ."

Dee squints after Blues, wondering what he's up to with that side mirror -- then gets distracted by Stephie's comment. "Yeah. . .though it makes me worry about the other car," she says, hugging herself. "If they were willing to treat one AI like this. . ."

"I'm sure the 'hero' car had some additional checks on his behavior," Doc says, frowning. "Such as 'can't hurt humans no matter what.' Granted, violence should never be a first solution, but being able to protect yourself is important too."

"Hmph." Dee watches as the tendril reveals another piece of circuitboard. "Is he like a T-1000?" she asks, tilting her head. "Only, you know, black?"

"Wouldn't be surprised if the T-1000 was an inspiration, at least," Doc says.

[riddles_and_ammo]

Eddie isn't even going to ask where the gears came from, not yet anyway, but his own experience with multiple timeline memories prompts him to nod. "There's always some... trade-off. And as much as I hate saying it, there's worse than nonsense and illogic." He'll briefly glance over at where Tad is putting together parts on the blanket before, without another word, he'll just head over there and sit down next to his son to do the same.

Blues really wasn't gone long before he walks past again. He puts the side mirror back, and also leaves the licence plate he picked up earlier, before walking past the blanket and leaving a couple circuitboard pieces there. He walks on only a short distance before teleporting away.

Punk frowns slightly. Blues was up to something, which was actually a pretty normal event for Blues... but still something he decided to silently send a comm message to Enker about, just in case. "More of that Asimov... trash," he says, just barely catching himself from cussing around the kids that could overhear. "So, even if his creator bit it, sounds to me like there are still some people I wouldn't mind trackin' down and seein' how they'd like bein' in pieces."

"Erdammeru's a lot older, but it could be that cause and effect thing again. I don't know which came first from the 'story' side." Stephie kneels down as a patch of the ground near her has black nanotech ooze out of it until it forms a circular patch with glowing eyes, which she gives scritches to. "And while he can do some of the same things, that one's big trick was mimicry. I've never seen Erdammeru make himself look human at all, or even look completely organic. Just mostly-canine-shaped or... well, like that, if he has to get somewhere a dog can't squoosh." She scritches a little longer and looks out at the beach before she says, "I'm going to go search, too." It'll get her - and Erdammeru's - mind off wanting to eviscerate the people responsible for this. Being around Punk, who seems to have similar ideas, is just feeding the mood.

[clockwork_doc]

"Depends on what form the nonsense and illogic takes," Doc mutters, glaring at the gears. There wasn't much that was truly logical about the Fae realms, after all. Andrew may have fancied himself a scientific connoisseur, but given how many of his machines worked more because he wanted them to work instead of actual scientific principles. . . He shakes his head. "But yes, you're right -- always a trade-off."

Dee and Doc share a puzzled look as Blues returns the side mirror and adds a few more pieces to the circuit jigsaw. "Wonder what he's doing," Doc mutters as Blues teleports off.

"Well, he seems to know the most about what's going on," Dee notes. "'Cause he saw the show and all. Maybe he knows another way he can help?" She grins over at Punk. "You can say 'shit' around me. I've heard much worse from Dad."

"Please note the actual child over there," Doc reminds her, poking her in the side and nodding at Tad. "Honestly, what this does is make me want to track down the show -- I want to know more of the reasons behind all of this." He thinks he's done a pretty good job of guessing at them from the writer's side of things, but he'd like to know how it all went down in-universe.

"True -- comparing first appearances would be a job for Marty, I think," Doc notes, rubbing his chin. "Although never having seen him do it doesn't mean he can't. Maybe he simply doesn't want to, if the canine shape works for his purposes."

"Yeah -- if he can do that melty thing, he doesn't really need anything with hands," Dee agrees, wiggling her fingers. "I can't, so being human sometimes is good."

She waves as Stephie heads off, then looks over at Punk's collection of parts. "Anything we can do here?"

[punk_wily]

Punk snorts. Reploid (well, technically Robot Master in his case, but they don't use that term often for reasons) hearing makes it easy to overhear things. "You and everybody else that's ever met him. Blues is just like that."

And the bit about swearwords gets a smile out of Evie. "Don worry about him either... not only has he heard worse, but when they're like this?" She thumbs at Eddie and Tad arranging pieces. "Hell, I used to use an old starter pistol to let them know dinner was ready."

"Unless you're good at car repairs and can help match parts up, about all anyone can do is try to find the rest of 'em." Punk tries to hide that he's concerned about when - not if - they run into any more nonstandard adaptions.

Which is when Blues reappears. A small grey tabby pads up next to him and pushes over a datapad, which Blues picks up and slides an sd-like card - that he concealed in his scarf somehow - into. After checking to make sure it displays properly, he hands that over to Punk. "Got the coordinates for his home timeline so I could take care of a few things - make sure it's not some wild mirrorverse, steal some schematics, bug Devon's office... FLAG security is a bad joke, by the way."

Punk takes the datapad. "At least the important parts of that made sense this time," he grumbles, meaning the part about how they now have schematics to work from just in case. That'll help if any physical parts need replaced, though the medics will still have to recover the programming.

[clockwork_doc]

Doc blinks, then looks over at Punk. "Oh -- well, good to know it's just not us, then."

"Yeah, my dad can get like that too when he's in the middle of a project," Dee says to Evie, grinning at Doc. "Maybe we should get a starter pistol for dinnertime."

"I am not that bad," Doc argues, with the certain shifty-eyed look of someone who knows that, yes, he is that bad, he just doesn't want to admit it.

"Suuuure you're not."

Doc huffs and turns his attention back to Punk. "I do have some experience with automobiles, but not this particular brand," he admits. "Finding more parts and helping match them should be within our capabilities, though."

And then Blues is back, and -- ah, that's what he was up to! Apparently while everyone was complaining about how they'd like to get into that reality to beat up a few people, Blues decided to actually find said reality. Though Doc's pretty sure he didn't actually beat up anyone. (. . .kind of sure.) "Well, that's certainly helpful," he agrees, nodding toward the schematics. "And are you really that surprised about the security? It's a universe that is, in part, a 80s TV show. Realistic security was probably beyond the budget."

[1st_mistake]

"I've seen better from timelines that handwaved it," Blues replies. "At a guess, they have a couple of break-in episodes that had to be able to happen." He hasn't seen the whole series, and is now considering tracking it down through the Nexus. He'd also managed to swipe the schematics and more recent upgrade information for KITT, since KARR hadn't quite been finished and then partly stripped for parts on top of things when they'd mothballed him.

"Is it a good idea to add pet hair to the sand?" Evie asks, eyeing the tabby that's now making a show of washing a paw with typical feline disdain.

Blues chuckles. "One of the many advantages Tango has over organic cats is that she doesn't shed."

[clockwork_doc]

"Likely," Doc agrees with another nod. "Didn't you say that the whole reason this KARR originally got out was because he was found by a couple of potential thieves? I'd be surprised if they didn't use a similar plot again with the main AI." Yeah, he's definitely going to have to track down this show himself. Marty should know something, at least. . .

Dee giggles along with Blues. "She's a cute kitty," she says. "Alice would probably like her -- does she like pets?"