damned_institute | Day 41: Intercom, Evening

Entry tags:

Day 41: Intercom, Evening

When the intercom's jingle sounded, there seemed to be some kind of tapping in the background noise, like letters being punched into a keyboard. It stopped and the Head Doctor chuckled.

"Hello, everyone! I'm actually taking a break from paperwork for once – everyone needs some recreational time, you know! – and of course, now we can all look forward to a scrumptious dinner from our cooks. Tonight, herb-seasoned grilled salmon is on the menu, served with buttery mashed potatoes and asparagus. All our regular drinks and vegetarian options are available, and for dessert, we will be serving yellow cake with a whipped cream icing.

"...Well! I can hardly wait to get my own dinner after saying all that. Good bye for now, everyone, and enjoy your delicious food!"

The intercom clicked off.

[ All room threads go in response to this post; please post your character's room number as the subject line of the initial post. (Find all of the newly changed room assignments and shift introductions here.) If you are introducing your character during this shift, you may either choose for them character to wake up before their roommate gets back, or after. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

HK was trying to distract himself from bursting out into giggles by focusing on the act and burning this moment into his memory core. This was amazingly, hysterically funny. And yet, none of that could yet be voiced. He intended to see how far he could take this. Most likely, too far. But it would be so fun until then!

He made no attempt to reach for any of the scalpels hidden in his cloth covering or to otherwise misdirect the grab, as he normally would have done. Especially after he had gotten grabbed... somewhere unfortunate during this past shift. Instead, he simply looked benignly confused. "Statement: I do not know what you are referring to. I am a protocol and translating droid, designed to bring peace and understanding between species." He was not proud of the fact that his vocabulator was responsible for that statement. But it was still so kriffing funny!

Okay, now this was starting to get out of hand. He wasn't gonna get stuck with a pacifistic whimp for a roommate. Not if he had anything to say about it.

Lockdown tightened his grip on HK's arms, and said, "Sorry to have to do this, kid, but it's gonna hurt me more than it hurts you." If one lacked the proper tools for fixing someone, there was usually one other alternative. It usually wasn't pretty and only worked half the time, but Lockdown didn't exactly have any other option here.

The bounty hunter released one of the former droid's arms and smacked his palm against the younger man's head.

This was certainly getting more interesting. HK always appreciated violence, and it sounded like some was about to commence.

But he hadn't been expecting just a slap. He demanded better when it came to cruelty! This just wouldn't do. Actually, it was still hilarious, but he now felt the need to goad the other inorganic further. "Exclamation: That was uncalled for! Query: Can't we just settle things peacefully?" It took all his capabilities to produce the proper... oh, what was that odd term? Ah, yes. The proper, over-the top 'airy-fairy' voice.

Okay, that hadn't worked. Lockdown wasn't about to give up that easily, though. Maybe all HK needed was something stronger.

"I hate to do this to ya', kid, but you leave me no other option," Lockdown released HK's arm and punched him hard across the face. He was careful not to hit any of the hard parts of the younger man's face, like his nose or chin. He just wanted to fix HK, not damage him too badly.

HK had really not been impressed with the slap. Yes, it felt interesting with a meatbag nervous system, but it still wasn't at all inspiring. The punch, however, felt like it knocked something loose in his cranial case. Until the disorientation decided to recede, falling over was determined to be the best course of action.

He tasted something metallic in his mouth. Blood. That was much better than the slap. He decided to drop the act, partially because he couldn't put enough directives in order at the moment to manage it. "That... was an excellent punch." He stopped to swallow a little more blood. And to realize what had gotten scrambled in his processor: his speech prefixes. "Admission: That was an act. Excellent for terrifying the meatbags. But I really must voice my..." the word slipped away from him for a moment while his gyroscopes finally started to come back into alignment. "Appreciation for that strike."

Lockdown just gave HK a dirty look. On one hand, he was relieved that the droid had just been acting. On the other hand, the bounty hunter didn't appreciate being strung along like that. Had HK not admitted that his whole thing had been a trick, Lockdown would have thought his punch had actually fixed the younger man.

"Yeah, well, just don't freak me out like that again, kid," As he reached a hand down to offer to help HK off the floor, his optic-brow rose and the bounty hunter gave the droid a questioning look. "You telling me you actually enjoyed it when I hit you?"

HK took the hand, for once not protesting the assistance for once, wanting to get up off the floor and still too scrambled to be sure of success on his own. "Statement: I do not intend to. It was merely a test to see how convincing the act was. It is only meant to be deployed against the annoying and disliked, who are generally of far lower intelligence than an inorganic." Or if they were, they certainly hadn't shown any marvelous displays of their brilliance yet.

"Affirmative: Oh, most certainly. I do so enjoy proper displays of cruelty and violence." The only problem now was that he couldn't get spare parts or immediate repairs to himself. Oh well.

Lockdown figured that was as close to an apology as he would get from HK. That worked for him just fine. Plus, it helped that HK had made it clear he thought Lockdown was no idiot, and he did hold some regard for the bounty hunter.

So, it seemed HK was also something of a masochist. This relationship just got a whole lot more interesting, Lockdown thought.

"That why you got into a fight on the courtyard earlier today?" The bounty hunter asked, eying the bruises on HK's neck.

"Negatory: No, I just wanted to continue the fight that was started during the last nightshift. That meatbag had terrible form, but made for a very good target, either for rifle or flamethrower." He sat down on his bed, still waiting for the last of the destabilizing effects of the head trauma to go away.

"Statement: Incidentally, I now know the meatbags here have kept my real chassis within their possession, although they took all my best weapons away. Very irritating. I was more than capable of following the orders to not terminate any targets. I am not sure how they managed to alter my processors to bind me into following the commands, but it was incredibly good stress relief." He was so proud and happy with the memory of the violence, he actually smiled, although not in the most friendly or reassuring way.

"The meatbag is missing at least two toes, and a coat-full of illicitly acquired medications, which was why he attacked me today. And several burns from the flamethrower, which, unfortunately, was not a very good one. The flames went out far too quickly." But still. He'd gotten the chance to set meatbags on fire!

Lockdown ate his food while he listened to HK's story. From the sounds of it, HK had been selected for that 'special counciling' thing the scar-faced man had mentioned the other night. The bounty hunter couldn't help but feel a little jealous when hearing of his roommate's exploits, and getting his real body back, even for a little while. Plus, it seemed to confirm all the theories that their real bodies were here somewhere.

When HK finished, Lockdown nodded approvingly, "Sounds like you had a fun night. All I did was fight some dogs. Got a nice trophy out of it though." He opened his desk drawer and pulled out the dog jaw he'd aquired and held it up so HK could see it.

"Statement: Today was also entertaining, beyond the fight. I may have convinced a meatbag to attempt to jump off of the second story patio tonight." He still wanted to find out how that would go. If he saw that meatbag with his foot or leg in a cast, he'd feel like he won, somehow.

HK leaned a little closer to examine the meatbag part. "Observation: Those teeth could give a meatbag a wonderful dose of blood poisoning." Only HK, of course, would refer to life-threatening infections as 'wonderful'. "A systemic illness also known as sepsis, caused by the presence of contagions within the normally fairly sterile blood. Usually fatal over a period of days, although this facility has the irritating habit of quickly healing damage done to meatbags who really should be given the opportunity to experience an interesting, painful death." So it wasn't really immediately helpful information here, but HK really just felt like sharing it.

"Thanks for the tip, kid," He put the jaw back in its drawer and proceeded to finish off his salmon. Maybe tonight he could find some human hand-armor to attach the teeth to.

"As for me, my day's been quite productive," Lockdown said. "Got me a job tonight. Gonna go beat the slag out of this kid named Aidou. Also got myself a new business associate who will tell me targets' names in exchange for some kind of fruit called 'apples'. Not to mention Blitzwing is willing to give me some extra knives if I stand aside while his pal Luggers goes after Starscream." Out of all his days here, all three of them, today had probably been the most productive. It made the bounty hunter smile.

HK was just slightly irritated at being referred to as 'kid', but not quite enough to mention it. Which was odd, because usually he voiced every single trivial annoyance that was even vaguely within the vicinity of him.

"Statement: Very nice. I will be acquiring a better weapon for myself tonight, and hopefully will have the chance to test it, either on a hostile meatbag or a certain individual that apparently deserves a very painful death." HK couldn't wait. "Observation: I had thought that Starscream would have been targeted much sooner, what with his seeming pathological tendency to anger the wrong individuals." With the value of 'wrong' equaling 'possessing of greatly superior firepower'.

Lockdown shrugged, "His counterpart from my world earned Lugnut's wrath long ago. Don't know if Boss did anything in particular to piss him off, but apparently Lugnut's wanted to get his servos into him for a while now, and has only just recently decided to act on it."

The bounty hunter ate some potato before continuing, "Then again, seems old Megatron's here now. Don't know if he's aware of Lugnut's plan or not, but if he is, I don't think he'll have a problem if Luggers put a few dents in Starscream." Neither did Lockdown, for that matter. He would only be really fragged about it if Starscream was left unable to pay him.

"Statement: I am simply interested to see what sort of damage will be done. I'm sure there will be many corrections that will be needed to form." HK was one of the few people at Landel's who would likely break up a fight by shouting 'Exclamation: No, no, no, you're doing it all wrong!'

"Human meatbags have so many interesting ways that they can be caused pain. Such as pressure points. Temporary and not damaging, but can paralyze a meatbag with pain, if properly used in hand to hand combat." That was only applicable to his own duties when he needed to capture something. Or stab something through a particularly painful spot. "They can, of course, be made even more agonizing by puncturing them." More information that he probably shouldn't be saying, but he just liked talking about causing meatbags untold suffering!

Lockdown became all-audios when HK began talking about these 'pressure points'. The bounty hunter put his fork down, got out his notebook from his other desk drawer, and began quickly taking notes.

"And just where would some of these 'pressure points' be located?" Hopefully HK wouldn't notice his ramblings until after Lockdown had gathered a good amount of notes. This information might be useful when he went after that kid tonight.

"Statement: On the jaw behind the ear, half-way down the the neck between the sternocliedomastroideus and trapezius muscles, the radial nerve at certain points along the forearm, and the femoral artery on the thigh are all easy targets," he listed off, pointing out each one of them on himself.

"When grabbing a human meatbag's hand, driving the thumb in between the bone structure of the metacarpels grinds the skeletal components together, also causing pain and making physical manipulation of a human much easier." Once again, the area was pointed out. Then, he remembered something rather important.

"Expletive: Damn you. I should not be telling you any more."

Lockdown took note of literally everything HK said, looking up only to see where HK pointed out pressure points.

When the younger man finally realized what he was saying, Lockdown put away his pen and notebook. "Aw, and we were just getting going," He picked his fork up again and started on his vegetables. No matter, once he got his chocolate, HK would be eating out of his hand. Literally, if Lockdown was feeling kinky enough.

"But hey, don't feel too bad," The bounty hunter smirked. "You probably just made my job tonight a whole lot easier."

HK most certainly did not sulk. That word was not within his vocabulary, therefore, it couldn't happen to him. But he did finally turn his attention to his ever-disgusting meatbag fuel.

"Sarcasm: Thank you. I feel so much better now that my love of disassembling meatbags is turned against me," he grumbled, poking suspiciously at his food. After all, it had attacked him precisely one day ago. Apart from that, it seemed like it was becoming almost more bearable. Unfortunately. He didn't want to act like a meatbag.

Lockdown just gave HK a smug smile before turning back to his meal and starting to finish off his vegetables.

"Relax, HK, I don't plan on using this knowledge against you." Oh no, I've got much better plans for you, my friend.

"Statement: I should hope not, because I still have quite a lot more anatomical data than you," HK muttered before finally taking a bite of his food. 'Yeurgh' was the best way to sum up his thoughts on the matter.

HK was prone to occasional self-analysis, but he could not determine to save his life why he kept on deactivating the 'Don't tell Lockdown useful information' directive. It was extremely vexing.

"Like I said yesterday, I'm not one to throw away a perfectly useful ally." He would never think about dropping Swindle, for example. Lockdown would also be very reluctant to kill Prowl if the situation ever came up. He'd certianly been sad and disapointed when Prowl had rejected his offer for partnership and told him never to contact him again.

"Statement: And I am usually not the type to waste opportunities, such as the use of information as currency. I blame my current meatbag status." Something must have shorted out in his neural pathways. A glitch. That was the only possible explanation. He would make every attempt to hunt it down and stamp it out of existence because it was becoming really kriffing embarrassing.

"Tell me about it," Lockdown grumbled in between bites of dessert. "I offered my services to this big fellow last night, but forgot to do it subtlely. Offered myself out loud for the whole group to hear." He was still going to kill that little punk kid for laughing at him if the chance ever presented itself.

He put his dessert down on his desk so he could go to his mattress and pull out the knife the big man had given him, making sure HK could get a good look at it. "Then again, if it means more weapons like this, it may have just been worth it."

HK could entirely sympathize, although most of his lack of subtlety was his own, apart from certain incidents that he had sworn never to mention to anyone ever again. "Statement: All the more reason to regain our original bodies. Even meatbag processors are malfunctioning, slow things." Even with the limited amount of recoding he had managed to do in an effort to speed up cognitive function, it was still pathetically slothful in every calculation.

However, few things could distract HK more than a weapon. He immediately snapped out of his utterly depressing thought pattern, reaching out to touch the edge of the blade. "Observation: Very sharp, for such far less than ideal materials." He wondered what sort of quality of weapon he'd be receiving tonight. Some of the details of what he'd heard was needed were utterly confusing to him. But he definitely wanted something more than just his scalpels now, if only to show off.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject