2012-04-10 21:58![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
digitaldiscipline
digitaldisciplineProject: Snarky Robot Noir
Deadline: There is no whooshing noise approaching at this time
New words written: 500
Present total word count: 1650
Reason for stopping: Wordcount limit for submission
Mean things / Fun things: You tell me...
We never thought we'd see him again. Well, I hadn't planned on it, but my plans weren't worth the juice to iterate more than four times since finding out what Vlad had locked in his standby data core. You think you know a 'bot, and then he's got something like this tucked away. That sly bastard.
Lucy dangled over my right flank, brandishing an array of UV, IR, and visual-spectrum mini-spots from convenient angles, and kept my toolkit helpfully open and within easy reach. She was warbling some off-key chamber music softly to herself as her body swung in time, but the implements at the ends of her arms never wavered. Her lights and the glowing exit frame were the only illumination, and it was possible to imagine that just outside the door was anything but a narrow hallway crammed with metal, meat, and machinations.
Of course, the inside of the shop was no different, but the resident meat had joined our client for dinner, and, presumably, was going to try and pry some information out of her head in a much less intrusive manner than I was doing to her companion.
I picked up a slender probe and inserted it into a port on the second core's override panel. I wasn't surprised when Vlad's eyes flickered as he came back partially online; this kind of fall-back sentience was standard on most models.
"Fuck you, Jack."
"Not quite what you'd been hoping to wake up to, chief? Lucy, point two-mil diamond carbide, axial insertion, thirty degrees, here." She swung the drill bit around and brought it into position without stopping her oscillations or getting any closer to any melody I recognized.
"You're not. Going. To. Getawaywith. Doinghtisto. Me." Vlad's voice squirted and stalled, obviously taxing the limited wattage of the standby system.
It's hard for 'bots to mimic human facial expressions, so we don't bother when they're not around. Instead, I drummed my fingertips on the counter in front of Vlad's head with just enough variance in cadence to mimic pretty good randomness. As a counterpoint to Lucy's humming, it was about as un-subtle as holding a blade to someone's eyelid and starting to push.
"You got away with plenty. Or did you think I'd gotten wiped since then? Lucy, push."
The drill spun up to a keening whine that almost drowned out the protests, the imprecations, and, eventually, the pleading apology that lurched from Vlad's head. It was too late for any of those to do him any good now, but I was definitely going to come back. He owed me plenty more apologies, and I wasn't in a hurry to put his head back on his chassis.
Lucy got into the spirit by oscillating the drill's whine to harmonize with her warbling. I might as well have been conducting my own private shrapnel opera.
Deadline: There is no whooshing noise approaching at this time
New words written: 500
Present total word count: 1650
Reason for stopping: Wordcount limit for submission
Mean things / Fun things: You tell me...
We never thought we'd see him again. Well, I hadn't planned on it, but my plans weren't worth the juice to iterate more than four times since finding out what Vlad had locked in his standby data core. You think you know a 'bot, and then he's got something like this tucked away. That sly bastard.
Lucy dangled over my right flank, brandishing an array of UV, IR, and visual-spectrum mini-spots from convenient angles, and kept my toolkit helpfully open and within easy reach. She was warbling some off-key chamber music softly to herself as her body swung in time, but the implements at the ends of her arms never wavered. Her lights and the glowing exit frame were the only illumination, and it was possible to imagine that just outside the door was anything but a narrow hallway crammed with metal, meat, and machinations.
Of course, the inside of the shop was no different, but the resident meat had joined our client for dinner, and, presumably, was going to try and pry some information out of her head in a much less intrusive manner than I was doing to her companion.
I picked up a slender probe and inserted it into a port on the second core's override panel. I wasn't surprised when Vlad's eyes flickered as he came back partially online; this kind of fall-back sentience was standard on most models.
"Fuck you, Jack."
"Not quite what you'd been hoping to wake up to, chief? Lucy, point two-mil diamond carbide, axial insertion, thirty degrees, here." She swung the drill bit around and brought it into position without stopping her oscillations or getting any closer to any melody I recognized.
"You're not. Going. To. Getawaywith. Doinghtisto. Me." Vlad's voice squirted and stalled, obviously taxing the limited wattage of the standby system.
It's hard for 'bots to mimic human facial expressions, so we don't bother when they're not around. Instead, I drummed my fingertips on the counter in front of Vlad's head with just enough variance in cadence to mimic pretty good randomness. As a counterpoint to Lucy's humming, it was about as un-subtle as holding a blade to someone's eyelid and starting to push.
"You got away with plenty. Or did you think I'd gotten wiped since then? Lucy, push."
The drill spun up to a keening whine that almost drowned out the protests, the imprecations, and, eventually, the pleading apology that lurched from Vlad's head. It was too late for any of those to do him any good now, but I was definitely going to come back. He owed me plenty more apologies, and I wasn't in a hurry to put his head back on his chassis.
Lucy got into the spirit by oscillating the drill's whine to harmonize with her warbling. I might as well have been conducting my own private shrapnel opera.
