Robot Arms + Cupcakes = ?

Elijah
How does Elijah show his affection?

Well, now, he shows his affection a number of ways. A number of ways that do not necessarily apply to grace, so there is always the backup plan of something delicious: cupcakes. Cupcakes fix everything. Cupcakes make everything obvious, and nothing says I'm excited that you're a spiritually enlightened human like lemon blueberry cupcakes and some other kind of cupcake that he had no clue what it was but it looked delicious so why not actually give it to her and call it good?

Well (again), there he was, off at the office, because it was adjacent to where he lived, and it was the rustle of denim and restlessness that came with his approach. He was a much more even-

Ha.

We can't even finish that thought.

But the blond man, since winter break and Thanksgiving, has seemed a little less... well.. mopey. Removed from the general headaches of the city, things were good. Things were... okay. And so, there he was, with a knock. ANd another knock.

And cupcakes.

Grace
[Perception/Awareness!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 3 )

Grace
There's an arena! Of danger! And mazes! And mirrors! And in the well-lit room, the place looks a little off. Of course, it's meant to be dark inside, with fog and distractions, lit by the occasional feeble light. It's supposed to raise the adrenaline.

Grace makes a note. They need little flashlights on the guns so they can do full-on blackout missions.

Right now, she needs the light. She's putting together a little device on the ground that looks like a mechanical arm. It has a mirror on it. It also wields a nasty-looking gun -- but the nastiness is fake. It's a Nerf sniper rifle design, painted black, with electronic attachments. It shoots infrared, for all it looks like it could kill. It might be able to change the channel on a television though, so it's got that going for it.

She hums a bit as she works, and then -- a tumult approaches. A knock, and then another.

"Elijah! Come in! I have a thing you can help with."

Elijah
She has a thing that he can help with, and there is a moments when his brows raise and his expression brightens and he beams. He beams like he is the sun and there is him opening the door and-

"... are you going to kill me?"

He looked at the rather intense looking sniper rifle, his cheeks flushed, but surely GRace wouldn't maim him while he came with cupcakes.. right?

Grace
Grace looks at him, honestly puzzled. "No? Why would you even --"

She looks at the gun. "Oh. No! No. It's fake. It's plastic. It's a prop for the training arena. I'm going to mount it on the ceiling so people have to deal with stealthy ceiling guns that have reflective shielding."

She stands up, a rather intense grin on her face, like she can't wait to expose people to stealthy ceiling guns that have reflective shielding. "Ooh! Cupcakes! For me?"

Elijah
"Congratulations on being enlightened," he offered up the cupcakes, like they would save him from a barrage of... uh...

"Jesus, that actually looks intense," he meanders closer, eyes transfixed and his lips upturned in a grin while the wheels turned. Oh yes, there were thoughts, thoughts beyond thoughts, "have I ever told you how much I wish my former room mate was a fellow reality breaker? She would love this."

Grace
"Congratulations yourself. You know, that first step is quite a leap." She traipses over to the box, hovering a little. "What kind?"

When she walks now, she seems to carry herself differently -- like she's wearing a cloak. Or, you know, wings.

"I guess? Maybe if I met her first and made sure she was going to be cool about it? I don't know. There's really not much here outside of the library and maybe my office that screams weirdness."

She looks over to the robot gun assembly. "Okay, and maybe that. But that's cool, right?"

Grace
"But still. We have to be careful. It's not a place for non-Mages to be asking a bunch of questions about."

Elijah
"Blueberry lemon something or other and something that looked like it should be red velvet, but it's blue, so I guess it's blue velvet... which I suspect is really kind of just another kind of chocolate," he offers her the box, arms outstretched and Grace walks like she's lighter than air, like she takes up more space than she actually does.

"I'll set you two up on a playdate. She hates Starbucks, too, but for completely less terrifying reasons," he said. His attention swung back tot eh robot gun assembly, and now that hopefully his hands were free of cupcakes he could scratch the back of her head.

"I think she'd be pretty excited about the robot gun. I think she would just be happy to know that I am hanging out with people who are, y'know, not part of a cult."

Grace
Grace takes a blueberry lemon something or other and laughs at Elijah. "That wholly depends on your definition of a cult. Not all cultists are the bad kind, you know."

She starts unwrapping her cupcake, licking the paper to get the icing off. "Danny is part of a cult. For instance."

Then, she takes a huge bite, as if trying to stuff the whole cake into her mouth and missing that target.

"I'd like to meet her. Anyone who can room with you for years has got to be a saint," she says, her mouth completely full of cupcake, and winks at him to let him know it's a joke.

Elijah
Not all cultists are the bad kind, you know.

"I was friends with a girl whose dad, as far as she has concluded, was abducted by a government organization for being a suspected terrorist. I then moved in with a guy I've known for less than three months to live in a warehouse that she doesn't know where it is but if my parents ask, I still live with her- I'm pretty sure if I don't introduce her to someone who isn't Sera soon that she's going to think I'm four inches away from drinking the Kool Aid," he doesn't sound exasperated or surprised or anything negative by this statement. Almost like he weas sardonically amused. He took one of the blue cupcakes, because blue was a delicious flavor.

Elijah grinned, almost laughed, but ended up coughing up little bits of blue cupcake.

"She's smart, I can't wait to introduce you two."

Grace
"Ahh, so. Be prepared for the hard-to-answer questions anyway, right? Like, why did you have to come live with us? And why does she have to lie to your parents?"

Grace is eating fast because she wants to finish her cupcake before returning to the robot arm assembly. Getting crumbs out of machinery is a horrible task, you know? So she stuffs another bite in.

"It might be a good idea to meet her anyway. Set her mind at ease, so she doesn't just... think you're about to drink the Kool Aid and call your parents anyway."

Elijah
"Hashtag young mage problems," he replied. He shrugged, "she can be pretty direct, but she is basically, like, a tiny tattooed pile of pudding."

He hasn't finished his cupcake, but he also isn't by the robotics. his attention meanders back there and he can taste blue, everything tastes blue. Blue and buttercreme, but buttercreme is an easier to describe flavor.

Grace
"So what do we say? You got in drug trouble or something? The last thing I want to do is make her think you're actually hiding from a shadowy government agency.

But hey, what better place to hide out than with your friends who own a very secure building because they've got a totally legit not-at-all-strange security business, right?"

She finishes off her cupcake with gusto and a bit of icing drama on the lips. Lemon blueberry is a fantastic combination, unlike Blue and buttercream, which sounds like candied food-coloring.

"I hope I can act normal enough to convince her I'm not a Kool Aid dispenser."

Elijah
"Is that a not-so-subtle cry for help saying that I probably need to clean up and quit doing so many illicit substances?" he grins, playful, and finishes off his cupcake a little slower than he had intended because even he has limits for when it comes to sugar consumption and blue-and-buttercreme? Was that limit.

"Dude, she's met Sera, plus you're really smart. She doesn't hang out with smart people nearly enough. She hangs out with  me."

Grace
"I just want to come up with something that doesn't sound like we're horrible people hiding from the law and all that shit. Hell, I'm friends with a police officer. I never thought I'd say that with a straight face, but there we are."

She goes to deposit her cupcake wrapper in the box, and brushes herself crumbless. Time to get back to work.

"Elijah," she says, sighs a little. "You are smart. Maybe you should remember that more often."

Elijah
"How is he, anyway?" he asked curiously.

Though, there was the moment of question, he took a moment and then, "I wouldn't say that I'm not intelligent, but I'm not super- okay. Have you ever been around people that you know are geniuses?" He looked curiously at her, "it's... it's like you guys are in a whole different world of intelligence."

Grace
"Last I saw, Alex was okay. He hasn't been around in a while though," she says, plopping back down on the floor next to the robot arm.

Wires were splayed out on the ground next to it, ready to attach.

"So, yeah," she says, dodging the question of genius for a minute. "You can totally help with this. These wires are all color-coded to where they're supposed to hook up. Green to green, blue to blue, etc. Help me attach them, and then we can test this baby out."

Elijah
He sidled up to the wires in question, settling into a comfortable position and feeling that grin spread across his face again as though this wasn't even a conscious thing anymore. He just emoted, whether he realized it or not. It was strange to think of Elijah as someone who would have ever had any need, or any desire, to lie to people.

"What all do you have planned for the danger room, professor X?"

Grace
"Lights and fog and robots. And lasers. Of course you can't have a combat training course without laser guns. I wanted to get spider-bots, but Kalen thinks they're creepy. Also, he doesn't think that the fact that they can climb walls makes them any less creepy."

She leans in and whispers, "I'm going to get spider bots anyway. They're adorable."

Yes, Grace. Exactly. Adorable.

She goes to work on her wires again, humming.

Elijah
He stares at her.

Stares, not like she had said something terrible, but rather, because she mentioned wall climbing robots and fog at lights and... and it was like she pressed the reset button on his brain or he was trying to buffer and the connection just wasn't good enough to catch up to what it was he was going to say.

"We need spider bots."

A beat.

"That... sounds like the best thing in the world."

Grace
"I know, doesn't it? That's two against one. Kalen's voted down."

This is so not the creepiest thing ever, right?

"You know what this place really needs? A corner where you turn and there's some happy shiny rainbows and shit. Like, oooh spooky scary, and then BLAM! kittens all over the place."

Elijah
"Like a hidden kitten compartment?"

Grace
"Yes. Oh! We can even use real kittens! If they'll let us. I mean, because cats, right? They might need catnip bribes."

Elijah
He blanches, "do you know how many kittens we would have around here all the time, though? I'm trying to convince Kalen to bring my puppy here. I have a powerpoint presentation for it and everything."

Grace
Grace laughs. "Fuck, Powerpoint. You're kidding me, right?"

She attaches one wire to another -- purple to purple. Twists the connectors together.

"A puppy-borg would be cool. A dog would probably be more into it too."

Elijah
"If you say you prefer Prezi, we are no longer friends."



He helps along with some of the wires. He's extra careful. Incredibly precise.



"And a puppy borg would be a people seeking opponent. Puppies know that people bring pettings and will stop at nothing to get that attention."

Grace
"Ehh. Anything but PowerPoint. I don't even touch Windows if I don't have to. Stupid, backwards, horrible design. I will say, though, I love how most businesses are latched on to the teat of Microsoft. It makes things so much easier to crack into."

You might get the impression that Grace is a person of extreme views on this issue. You might get the impression of zealotry. You wouldn't be entirely wrong. They don't call them Holy Wars for nothing.

Elijah
"Isn't it all someone's premade crap, though, unless you're building your own for the most part? You get one system full of holes, another system that markets itself as being for hip smart fun people- look at me spend tons of cash and-" he stops himself, laughs a little, but it's not committed.

"I never really thought about it? I just know there's a lot of brand whoring for, like, basically repackaged piles of equally fragrant crap."

Grace
"No. It isn't. I contribute to a shit-ton of open source things. Usually when I'm using something and it needs a certain feature I want -- so I add it and submit that on. It's nobody's premade crap if it's everybody's. If everyone takes ownership to make something better, it gets to be less crap.

"You just don't often hear about the 'brands' because they're not brands. They're not for sale. They just are."

Again, somebody with a bone to pick about software development? Yes.

Elijah
"I have no idea how to use half of the open source stuff I've seen," he said.

He knows things, of course. Knows that Grace is very good at what she does. He also knows that he used google to look up a super secret quasigovernmental agency. No room to judge there.

"I know raspberry pi is a thing?"
A saving grace, perhaps?


Grace
Grace sighs. "Well, I encourage you to at least try. I know that sometimes people get weird ideas about what constitutes wonderful user interfaces. But it's worth it. Trust me."

She goes back to wiring up the robotic arm.