re_alignment | [Video] Paging the Build Team . . . and the nearest "hospital"?

[Deckard is nothing if not a quick study . . . though he's still not wholly convinced this isn't all just some elaborate sensory hoax. But he's been given some real direction ~~from a most unexpected source at that~~ and is running with it.]

Hello? I've been told to seek out a . . . medic. [Is that really the right word?] ...mechanical engineer. Or a robotics engineer. Someone who can modify an engine from running on gasoline to whatever is the common fuel source here.

[If he sounds - or looks - a little on the tired/haggard side, that would be because he's not fueled recently. He'd intended to fill up "tomorrow" when he got in to work, but he's been here for some hours now and he's starting to feel it. But he pushes that aside.]

Also, if anyone knows where the Build Team is, and if they're all right, I'd appreciate hearing from you. McCrane, Power Joe, and Drill Boy. ...and Dumpson. [Because he can hardly imagine three-quarters of the Build Team being present and not all of them.]

Thank you in advance for your help.

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[The drive is...nice. It reminds him of back home, before he was transported here. Someone who understood how their world worked, without resorting to calling them toys or...not alive.

Deckard, you have no idea how much this means to him. Not that he'd openly admit it.]

He's shifty. I don't trust a guy who can't admit he might be wrong.

[Not that he's good at it either, but he at least DOES.]

[Whether overtly stated or not, Deckard might pick up on it to some extent or other. And he appreciates it too. He'd never turn down a drive with company, that's for sure.]

I see. Does he bother McCrane much, do you know?

[The wording that Kagerou had used was that McCrane seemed almost…afraid of him. Deckard wasn't going to go repeating that, though, not if he didn't have to.]

He sticks his nose in everyone's business, if you ask me. I bet it gets on McCrane's nerves at least a little. He never shows it though.

[Unlike PJ, who wears his neon-flashing-sign emotions on his sleeve.]

Yeah, I'd imagine that would get on my nerves too.

Power Joe . . . how long have you been here? What's the last thing that happened for you back . . . ah, back "home" I guess. [Wow, that sounds weird to say . . . it almost makes this place, and being here, "permanent" in a sense. "Real", if nothing else.]

He's the exact opposite of you, Deckard. How's that possible? I mean, we're built to be policemen, but they're born! So how come he's the more robotic one?

..

[But he shuts up, at that question.]

Ah...It was...

Lua. We'd just said bye to Lua.

. . . I'm sorry . . .

[Lua . . . the mess with Lua had been only two or three weeks ago. The way those gamer sisters had toyed with his teammate still infuriates Deckard . . . but as he really thinks about it all, there's more to address here – much more.]

[Power Joe has been here for a while. A long while, from the sounds of it. But how is that possible!? For Deckard, Power Joe had still been around for the past few weeks. He hadn't just suddenly up and disappeared on them! It had only been hours ago that he'd bid Power Joe and the rest of the team good night to take their boss home for the evening. How could Power Joe have been and not been around for everything since Lua? Especially not around for-...]

[He's silent for long enough that Power Joe might actually take note of it. And then he finally speaks.]

Then you don't . . . you wouldn't know about the Gunpulator Systems . . . do you?

[Not much really affect or upsets Deckard in a lasting way, at least not that he reveals to his team. But this? It's still too fresh, there are still too many facets that struck too deeply, too recently. Power Joe will hear it in his voice despite his best effort to suppress it – something has shaken him. Hard enough that his voice betrays him in mentioning it.]

[It'd taken quite a toll on him, yes. Losing Lua...the first A.I. he truly felt feelings for. The first one that made him actually feel something like love. McCrane and Dumpson had found theirs. And for awhile, PJ thought he'd found someone just as important.

But we all draw strength from something, no matter what it was. And it's what kept Power Joe going. His drive to continue, Lua or not.

...

But as he laments, he notices Deckard's silence.]

Gunpulator? What's that? Some kind of new A.I.?

[Yes, good subject change...right?]

No, it . . . it was an upgrade. One that none of us wanted.

Including you.

[Yeah, he's still trying to wrap his mind around the whole there-but-not thing on top of everything else.]

...

I don't know what you're talking about Deckard. You must be way more ahead of me than you think.

Same thing happened with McCrane, too.

[He sighs.]

I know . . . that's something I'm still trying to reconcile.

I wouldn't say I'm "way" ahead. I'll have to remember to ask McCrane when I see him what his last memory was... The mess with Lua and the Bubble Gum Sisters was only two or three weeks ago. Honestly, Power Joe? Be glad you're not aware of the Gunpulators...

[He came so close to losing his entire team - almost entire, Shadowmaru would have survived, but he would have also been left to survive alone. And all that on the heels of being reminded theyr'e "just machines" and how Azuma, Saejima, even Yuuta hadn't seen a problem with what amounted to major amputation and brain surgery, and . . . just . . . just everything, EVERYTHING about all of that. That, because they were robots, their very best wasn't good enough...]

...be glad you don't have those memories, Power Joe.

[There's a small grumble, followed by a 'hmph'. While he's not exactly upset he's yet to experience that, a part of him wishes he already did. So he didn't have to...look forward to it. To worry his choices might be different.]

Maybe. Not something I want to go back home to, though.

[A small pause.]

I'm gonna have them either way.

Edited 2013-11-15 06:50 (UTC)

[Whoa, wait, what?]

Oh? How so?

[Because, really . . . how is that possible? They're stuck HERE . . . uh, right?]

We gotta go back sometime, right Deckard?

And when we do, I'll have to experience it anyway. It's how time works.

. . . I keep hearing there's no way back.

Then again, I've also been told that people disappear from here about as randomly and often as they appear.

[Dammit, every time he thinks he's starting to get a handle on this place, he learns something new that throws a wrench in the gears. SIGH.]

Anyway . . . so how long have you been here?

Yeah. I figured that's where they went off to.

I mean, they'd have to if the time thing was still stable, right?

[There's a pause, as if PJ has to actually think back on that.]

Almost a year...

[Video] Paging the Build Team . . . and the nearest "hospital"?

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