Ep 0.5 - Rat Maze - Closed
Jul 8, 2012 14:04:25 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Jul 8, 2012 14:04:25 GMT -5
Steeljaw's gaze flicked from the gray mech, Jazz, to Shadowrunner, and back again, probabilities running quick computations through his processor. The most likely one... made him relax and tense all at the same time, exventing a huff of the thick air. "Is Uplink hurt?" he asked bluntly. Both of the bipeds flinched and Steeljaw shook out his bright-fragging-green forepede. "Not that I'm blaming you or anything, no! I'm very sorry, this is our clusterfrag."
Grumbling, he started to ease his way out of the vent. The idea of Uplink hurt and in medical care somewhere while Steeljaw didn't remember it was distressing, but had happened at least once before and the really good neural dampeners made so much hash out of their symbiont bond that the medics had finally had to block it before Steeljaw could so much as walk a straight line or parse a sentence while Uplink was blitzed out of his processor. It would explain the itching silence on Uplink's end of their bond, but... "Primus scrag it, I told him," Steeljaw huffed, carefully leaping down from the vent. He was still leaving orange pede prints on one side. "I TOLD him after that time he took a header off this antenna rig we were installing - 'if you're incapacitated I need NOTES left for me when I'm testing'. There's supposed to be a note file left for me to keep me up to date on this sort of thing, and the fragging glitch forgot. Excuse my language. I'm very sorry, this is just terribly frustrating, and I'm afraid I really didn't do the test as well as I could have..."
They were giving him space, which settled the last of the itching worry. Nothing underhanded, nothing except some open worry in their fields - that was sweet, really, though Primus bless it had better not mean Uplink had taken a turn for the worse while he was crawling around testing systems - no hint of anything untoward. Venting, Steeljaw sat himself in the middle of the corridor, tucking his pedes under himself, paint and all. "...and if you'll excuse me, please, this will just take a moment and then we can try having a real conversation without the gaps."
He shuttered his optics and triggered the protocols, falling easily into the black with every certainty that the proper reboot would come easy and swift.
The protocols spun up easily but the reboot was slow, systems spinning back up with painstaking sequences. Steeljaw left his helm pressed to the floor for long, long moments, only dimly aware that his claws were sunk up to their housings through the metal, every linkage stiff as a strut, plates clamped tight and closed. He could hear the familiar sounds of Jazz's systems, of Shadow's, and for long moments they were the most alien things he had ever heard, the scent of the human forged steel beneath his faceplates nauseatingly foreign.
[Uplink? Uplink?!]
His systems were roaring in his own audials, his lines cold and spark off rhythm. It took far too many nanokliks for the response to come, dim and distant and so very not where his actual carrier bond should come from. [Jaws, m'mech - don't do that again, please.]
Steeljaw left his optics shuttered, his faceplates planted firmly against the floor, and ruthlessly shut down the circuit lines and code threads that communicated with his secondary core, cutting off the voice. The resulting silence was horrific, making his struts and plates tremble, but just for a moment it was better than the lie.
Two living exterior systems, almost close enough to touch. Steeljaw, without unclenching anything, rebooted his vocalizer until he could choke out words, spat like vitrol through his teeth. "That was... one of the worst coding errors I've ever made."
Grumbling, he started to ease his way out of the vent. The idea of Uplink hurt and in medical care somewhere while Steeljaw didn't remember it was distressing, but had happened at least once before and the really good neural dampeners made so much hash out of their symbiont bond that the medics had finally had to block it before Steeljaw could so much as walk a straight line or parse a sentence while Uplink was blitzed out of his processor. It would explain the itching silence on Uplink's end of their bond, but... "Primus scrag it, I told him," Steeljaw huffed, carefully leaping down from the vent. He was still leaving orange pede prints on one side. "I TOLD him after that time he took a header off this antenna rig we were installing - 'if you're incapacitated I need NOTES left for me when I'm testing'. There's supposed to be a note file left for me to keep me up to date on this sort of thing, and the fragging glitch forgot. Excuse my language. I'm very sorry, this is just terribly frustrating, and I'm afraid I really didn't do the test as well as I could have..."
They were giving him space, which settled the last of the itching worry. Nothing underhanded, nothing except some open worry in their fields - that was sweet, really, though Primus bless it had better not mean Uplink had taken a turn for the worse while he was crawling around testing systems - no hint of anything untoward. Venting, Steeljaw sat himself in the middle of the corridor, tucking his pedes under himself, paint and all. "...and if you'll excuse me, please, this will just take a moment and then we can try having a real conversation without the gaps."
He shuttered his optics and triggered the protocols, falling easily into the black with every certainty that the proper reboot would come easy and swift.
The protocols spun up easily but the reboot was slow, systems spinning back up with painstaking sequences. Steeljaw left his helm pressed to the floor for long, long moments, only dimly aware that his claws were sunk up to their housings through the metal, every linkage stiff as a strut, plates clamped tight and closed. He could hear the familiar sounds of Jazz's systems, of Shadow's, and for long moments they were the most alien things he had ever heard, the scent of the human forged steel beneath his faceplates nauseatingly foreign.
[Uplink? Uplink?!]
His systems were roaring in his own audials, his lines cold and spark off rhythm. It took far too many nanokliks for the response to come, dim and distant and so very not where his actual carrier bond should come from. [Jaws, m'mech - don't do that again, please.]
Steeljaw left his optics shuttered, his faceplates planted firmly against the floor, and ruthlessly shut down the circuit lines and code threads that communicated with his secondary core, cutting off the voice. The resulting silence was horrific, making his struts and plates tremble, but just for a moment it was better than the lie.
Two living exterior systems, almost close enough to touch. Steeljaw, without unclenching anything, rebooted his vocalizer until he could choke out words, spat like vitrol through his teeth. "That was... one of the worst coding errors I've ever made."