While Jonathan watches the rain of noisily bouncing marbles spreading out across a very large portion of the dining area their table is located within, his left eye twitches, and he squeezes the small object in his hand.
"You'd break things if I gave it to you!" As Jonathan angrily yells this, Miss Chievous has, somehow, grown even more excited about the potential gift.
"Whatsit-whatsit-whatsit!? Gimme!" Miss Chievous doesn't even bother trying to rein in her enthusiasm, holding her hands cupped together just under his, discordantly bouncing her legs up and down rapidly from her seated position on her chair.
Lucas snorts out his dissatisfaction, his frown far more of a pout than a scowl. After leaning back in his chair for a moment, his boredom from no longer having th
"Well!? Don't leave us hangin'! Ya figured out how to make 'em for us, right!?" As Miss Masher eggs her egghead sister on, she scoots her seat over closer towards her, in hopes that there is an interesting blueprint sketch among all the scribblings.Hoping to distract Miss Chievous and Lucas into staying in their seats, 23 strategically delivers several small plates of lobster tails before them, and is immediately successful in its intended goal.Although, Lucas does prove his wholehearted desire for a danger-rang by still keeping a portion of his attention directed Miss Calculated's way, even while he violates his first lobster tail.Willy is, somehow, eating a floret of steamed broccoli with far more elegance and dignity than whatever it is Lucas has going on with th
After a peaceful period of time spent by the occupants of the table decimating their late lunch, Miss Chievous is the first one to hit maximum capacity.After the absurd amount of bread she had, on top of the various appetizers as well as the slightly delayed cup of soup, it's almost a miracle she finished all four lobster tails as it is. Not that it stopped her from managing to choke down a single bite of her steak, just so she could say she had some of it.After pulling out the chill cube and fiddling with it for a few moments, she tucks it back into her bag to start pre-chilling it as she cuts her steak up into small bite-sized pieces.Once the contents of her plate are completely emptied into some of the clear food storage containers she had brought with her, she s
Miss Calculated takes a moment to compose herself, as well as coming to terms with the fact she severely overestimated Lucas's inebriated thought process. After clearing her throat, she finally turns to face Lucas, as opposed to continuing to stare down the hallway 23 went through."Well, I'd be willing to take a look at it for any possible optimizations for you as well, ah, if you want. I've spent so much time maintaining basic budget models, it could be interesting to work on a high-end specialized custom one for once." Miss Calculated tries to phase her offer as being altruistic as best she can, but the note of excitement in her voice belies her enthusiasm to give 23 an intimately thorough inspection.Even with his current mental handicaps, Lucas can fairly clearly tell she doesn't have any malicious intentions.
Lucas pauses for a moment to clear his throat, waiting for 23 to be out of hearing range. Even if it's a robot with limited sapience, it still feels weird to talk about buying it right in front of it.'Hey, um, 427, buddy? Can ya hear me? I could, uh, use your help here…'[Yes, I'm here, Lucas. I heard about what was going on from 011 and have already completed research and estimates. As far as I can tell, 23 was probably worth something around 750,000$ when brand new, but seems to be about halfway through its standard lifespan, putting it at 5 years old. Given some data I found, they may actually be more than willing to sell one of their units, as it looks like they have been downsizing due to consistently low traffic.]'Woah, hey, welcome back. Th
"All right… Well, since you already know specifically which one you're interested in, that speeds things up quite a bit. Hmm, looks like it's actually past due for scheduled maintenance, how did tha- Oh right, the usual place was down for its own maintenance and they still haven't notified us that they're ready yet. Well, if that's not a deal-breaker for you, I could give you a little extra discount, considering. Fair warning, I'm pretty sure it has a few parts that are nearly worn to the point of needing replacement, for full transparency." After Lorelei had spent a few minutes reading through a handful of files, she turned to face Lucas directly as she began speaking.'Ha! She said transparency, heh.'[...]Barely suppressing his chuckle, Lucas clears
"Well, that should cover everything, yeah? How should we go about payment? Honestly, I think it'd be pretty funny if ya just slapped it on the bill for the meal. Oh, but there's gotta be a contract or somethin' as proof, yeah?" Since Lucas is satisfied with the agreements that have been made, his mind has already begun to drift towards thoughts regarding the brownie sundae that he can only, correctly, assume is being consumed at an alarming rate."Ah, right. Drumming up a deed for its title of ownership shouldn't be an issue, the problem is having it notarized… Oh! Heheh, Miss Calculated is who we would ideally want to be the notary anyway. I doubt she carries the stamp around, but her signature after serving as the witness is better than a stamp from an official bot, I'd think. What kind of down payment and timespan were you thinking for the payment plan? I'll run the number
Once Lucas finishes rushing his way through taking a leak and then washing his hands yet again, he hustles back to the dining area in hopes of defending his dessert from the unwanted affections of the meddlesome invisi-thief.Exiting the hallway, he's just in time to see Miss Calculated standing up while quietly speaking with Lorelei.Once Lorelei turns her back to Miss Calculated, so as to lead the way, Miss Calculated breaks out in a smile nearly rivaling Lorelei's. Well, at least in terms of the magnitude of her contented satisfaction.As Lucas passes the two leaving ladies, all three of them collectively give a single nod of acknowledgment to the other party. As they've all seen each other rather recently, it isn't worth bothering to speak up in mere passing.
For a small stretch of time, the only noise being generated near their table is the sound of impact from Lucas and Miss Chievous kicking each other's chairs repeatedly, due to reaching a lull in the conversation.Understanding that Miss Calculated might take a while to prepare 23 and separate it from the restaurant's hive mind network interlinking its service bots, Miss Masher opts to resume storytime once more.As she is continuing mid-story for a scene that makes absolutely no sense out of context, Lucas has mostly tuned her out for now.'...How come Chi's stayin' invisible still? Doesn't it use some sorta supe-energy or somethin'?'[She wasn't joking before when she said she had a surprise for you. I