weeeeeeeeeeeeeee-bleep!

[nottheotherguy]

I hadn't been around when the robot rats came out of the walls, a fact which I couldn't really say I regretted. But just knowing it had happened was enough, sometimes, to make me a little wary when I heard noises I couldn't place the origin of. Of course, being that this was a pretty big place, and pretty old to boot, there were a lot of noises I couldn't place the origin of.

Mostly I'd trained myself to ignore them, but every now and then I was just bored enough or feeling just adventurous enough to follow the sound and see where it was coming from. Today happened to be just such a day-- lucky me-- when I walked past the door leading to one of the classrooms and heard a motorized whirr coming from behind it, along with a little high-pitched muttering that sounded like two kids talking through vocoders at each other.

The door opened when I stepped closer, and I froze immediately at the sight of two tiny vaguely cube-shaped robots on wheels rolling around the room, chittering to each other as they went.

They stopped as soon as they saw me, and we spent a second just staring at each other. Then, almost at the same time, they emitted a startled bleep and zoomed away toward the far wall, where a panel slid aside to let them through. "Hey!" I yelled, almost involuntary, the urge to somehow stop them and make them come back so I could figure out what they were for and why they'd been-- what had they been doing, anyway? Vacuuming? It was a mystery, and one I suddenly really wanted to solve.

I was on my knees inspecting the panel that had opened to let the robots through when I heard footsteps behind me, and half-turned to see who had stumbled upon me acting like I'd completely lost my marbles.

[tag one, tag all! no one but bruce will see the tiny robots, but anyone's welcome to tell him he's imagining things. :)]

Comments

[nottheotherguy]

I looked up at the little creak as Logan settled against the wall, and gave him a distracted smile before turning back to the panel.

"Just wondering if this can open from the outside," I said, pressing my fingers along the seam between the panel that had opened for the robots and its neighbor. "It opened a minute ago, and I'm just wondering if it was a signal of some kind that did it, or..." I trailed off, sitting back on my feet and looking at the floor to see if there was some kind of catch that had triggered the door.

[ohsnikt]

Logan looks at Banner with a look of equal parts doubt and pity. He's finally lost it.

"You want to know if you can get into the wall. OK. Any particular reason, bub?"

[nottheotherguy]

"Yeah," I said, "I came in here a minute ago and there were these two little--"

I stopped, all of a sudden realizing that trotting out a story about a pair of tiny whimsical cleaning robots was probably going to sound insane, and Logan wasn't exactly the kind of guy who'd take me at my word. I made a face and tried to look like I had my shit together.

"This is going to sound nuts. There were these two little robots in here, and when I came in they freaked out and the wall opened up to let them through. I was just trying to see how it worked, if I could get it open again." I looked him in the eye and held it, trying to gauge if he thought I'd completely lost it or not.

[ohsnikt]

Maybe Logan's a little drunk, but that made a lot more sense.

"Listen." He scratches his head. "There's a lot of stuff we don't understand here, right? I figure; all of that is really none of our business."

Banner looks at him like he's the one who's nuts.

"What are you gonna do if you actually catch the tiny robots, Doc? NAME them?"

[nottheotherguy]

"Well no," I said, grinning in spite of myself; it was kind of a funny thought, not one that had occurred to me. I shrugged and admitted, "I'm less interested in them than where they came from."

I considered what he'd said, though. I couldn't not take it seriously. "What do you think will happen if we investigate-- if I investigate," I amended quickly, seeing his eyebrow go up. "It just seems strange-- stick a bunch of people in a place like this, expect them not to be curious about it?" I shrugged.

[ohsnikt]

Logan shrugs.

"How do I know what they expect, Banner? I'm not a sonofabitch scientist."

Kidnapping people and putting them in little tanks isn't Logan's style, to say the least, and it pisses him off to even try to figure out the motives of people who would.

[nottheotherguy]

"Well, speaking for the sonofabitch scientists, it doesn't make much sense," I said, maybe a little testier than I'd intended. "I'm sure they-- whoever 'they' are-- are studying us, but punishing us for investigating our surroundings doesn't seem like their style."

Thor had proven that we could cause damage to the station without repercussions, and I wasn't willing to believe the paranoia that suggested the people who'd left the station had done so because they'd screwed up in some way. I just didn't want to believe I was at the mercy of beings who'd punish us for things we didn't know were transgressions... but who knew? I'd seen enough Star Trek to know that aliens could do some pretty screwed-up things themselves.