Lucas is staring at Miss Calculated with a huge grin, even if it is covered by his mask. There are a few alarming creaking noises as he hugs the armload of mannequin limbs he’s carrying a bit too tightly against his chest.
Both Miss Calculated and 23 slowly turn to stare at him.
Meanwhile, Mark just snorts out a bit of laughter.
Blinking a few times, Miss Calculated opens her mouth and hesitates, speechless for a few seconds before thawing enough to begin her academician analysis.
“...Where
While Willy is walking over to join Jonathan and Miss Chievous in the elevator, he stops and turns around when he hears another service bot approaching the carefully curated component compilation he left behind. Before it upends its box into the gap between the two piles, he barks twice.23 immediately issues a warning beep at the service bot, and it stops in place, holding its box slightly tipped but not dumping anything quite yet. 23 looks at Willy briefly, then over at the two piles of service bot equipment. After a slight delay, it issues a series of high-pitched beeps and clicks. The service bot moves over to the side a bit and then begins a new, third, pile and walks away. Before that bot has even gone very far, another bot has come over, adding to the new pile.
While 23 is still engaged in digital dialogue with the service bot, another bot has wandered over from a nearby room. This newly arrived bot is carrying a box, much like all the others have been. However, this one contains two mannequin hands, one foot, and an arm that is awkwardly sticking up and resting against the bot’s shoulder.It walks over to the opposite side of the elevator doorway in relation to the bot component piles, then stops, standing in place. 23 finally begins approaching the elevators, smoothly transitioning from talking to the original bot to now speaking to this newly arrived one instead, and the original service bot walks away.23 gestures with each of its hands at four different points on the floor simultaneously, and the service bot begins set
Once the sluggish elevator doors crawl far enough apart for Willy to comfortably fit betwixt them, he pads his way out to the 8th floor.With the extra bit of floor space from his parting, those still within the elevator shuffle around, much akin to a sliding block puzzle, working to empty out the space directly in front of the door for both Miss Chievous and Jonathan to have a clear path out.When the gap between the slothful doors grows to a human-sized opening, Miss Chievous shoves her way past Jonathan, running out of the elevator and charging straight to the nearest service bot.She skids to a halt a short distance in front of the bot, throwing her arms up in a variant of overhead jazz hands,
A little while later, up on the 13th floor…‘You know… Jousting. Charging at each other on horseback, stabbing each other with long pointy sticks, all that good stuff.’[...I mean, yes, there was something similar a very, very long time ago…]‘Good! What was it called though!? It’s bad enough that you think I’m crazy, I don’t wanna know what she’ll come up with if I use a term that isn’t even from this wo
Down on the 7th floor, inside Mark’s office…Miss Calculated is finally able to enjoy some quality alone time with 23, as shortly after Mark brought them to the front room of his office suite, he grabbed the bag of spring rolls sitting on a table and excused himself. Though, he did at least make sure she didn’t need anything before he bounced.Upon noticing the ID readers mounted by each of the doors to the other rooms, Miss Calculated lost what little interest she had in exploring the area. Thanks to her impatience in getting to know 23 intimately; before the door was even done swinging shut behind Mar
After a bit more time spent with Miss Calculated re-arranging 23’s mechanical guts with a pensive expression, 23 eventually decides to fill the lull in the conversation.“...It’s fine even if Mikah doesn’t manage to overhear the password. Connecting to the hive network is merely a matter of convenience, anyway, and isn’t a necessity for me. Likewise, as I am in functional condition, there is no rush to acquire the various parts upgrades. They would certainly be nice, but they aren’t pressingly essential.” After 23 attempts to comfort Miss Calculated, she hums for a moment, resting her forehead against one of its chest plates, roughly where its heart would be, were it a flesh and blood creature.Quietly holding this position for a f
Sometime later, on the 8th floor…Miss Chievous has just about had her fill of the spa’s amenities, and is preparing to make that fact everyone else’s problem.Once she’s finished washing up, drying off, and redressing, she harasses the diligently working service bot that she claimed one last time.“Hey, where’s Mary? Off in some corner somewhere with 23, right?” As Miss Chievous asks this, the bot stops for a moment before answering.“Miss Calculated’s last known location is Mind Flare’s office, accompanied by 23. They have not been seen for well over an hour, bu
Thanks to the pre-sorting the service bots performed, combined with the sizable strip of space Lucas and Miss Masher had cleared out for their jousting tourney, it doesn’t take the two of them very long to finish clearing out the front area of the 13th floor. Well, more like smashing apart everything that stands in their way. Technically, it’s the service bots that are actually clearing things out.After some time spent in contemplation, they decide to divide and conquer. They separate to clear out some of the trash barricades that prevented the service bots from reaching a few of the side rooms, as well as one entire wing of the floor.Now that they have a few rooms worth of space sep