Summary:The Gearhead Garage Gang investigates the centipede that followed JP home. Log Info:Storyteller: Clockwork |
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So, JP brought home a friend. It's a strange mechanical centipede looking thing about the size of a large but very short dog, maybe a big weiner dog. Either way, he has it and has brought it back to the garage and has summoned the team to take a look-see.
Severin, helpful as ever, is nowhere to be found. There may have been mumblings earlier that he had an errand to run or something. Little did he know what JP would be bringing back with him.
JP called the electricianwith a message as blunt as "Sparkplug, whate'er you got goin on it ain't this important. You wanna be at the garage, mon ami." Someone's in a damn fine mood. Carefully (so very f'ing carefully) he parks it in teh middle of the garage and wills it not to move. "Amp, you here? Come down an take a look at this." Super good mood!
Amp comes down the stairs and plants himself on the bottom step, peering at the robot creature in the room with a bit of a scowl. Well, a scowl for the robot thing anyway. "A, what is that? And B, is it safe?" He squints and leans against the railing, stretching his feet out in front of him as he continues to peer at the oversized-bug.
Elmo shows up, driving an immaculately maintained 1940s pickup (bright yellow paint). Peering in, he bangs on the garage door. "Hey! What's goin' on?" He's got a toolbox and his satchel. He's short and has a New York Jewish accent that could strip paint, and he's dressed like he might be going on a date instead of showing up to some guy's garage for some mysterious reason.
JP just grins, ear to ear happy with himself but, ya know, still nervous as hell because SHIELD's been on his ass about this thing. He mentally fils this away under minor details. Holding up two fingers, one at a time he answers, "Dunno an' dunno. Grubly, say 'allo'." FIghting against its naturall inclinations the mechanoid dritter waggles some part of its armiture at Amp. What might be telling is JP walks over to open the garage door. COuld he still articulate it? Sure but he's not taking any o fhis focus off the potentially killer buggie-dog-thing. Why does he smile at Elmo like he's won a bet. "Sparkplug, this' Amp. Amp, Elmo. And that's Grubly." It slowly hinge-waggles to Elmo.
Amp just shakes his head and shifts so he's leaning back against the stair railings, taking up all of one step. Elmo gets a wave, then a blink. "Holy shit, is this dud shorter than me?!" Okay, maybe that was a little rude, but it's not like he gets many opportunities to be taller than people, so Elmo shocks him. He blinks a few times then finally decides to be polite and grin at Elmo. "Sorry." Then his attention is right back on the centipede. "Grubly?"
Elmo eyes JP dubiously when he opens the door. The smile from JP makes Elmo redden a little around the ears and scowl at him. Coming in, the first thing he notices is the robot, and his eyes get real big. "Oh, man," he says in a reverent tone. "Oh, man look at that!" He almost doesn't respond to being introduced to Amp, but when Amp observes that for once he's not the shortest guy in the room, Elmo looks up at him, and upnods to him, amused. "Howyadoin."
Elmo might shock Amp. JP is not in the business to interfere with this. JP could not be happier about this thing and shares, "Yeah like so I was out shoppin," skulking the disaster zone, "an' like these things come crawling all sorts of outta nowhere. I dunno. Someone said they's recordin maybe or… somethin. But this' SHIELD lady started climbin my tree about it and I was like woan, hey I no steal nothin. It likes me. It followin me home see? Seee? And someone started givin her somethin else to worry about so here we is. I dunno if it's alien tech or what but I' holdin on wiht both hands jes in case. What I wanted t'do is find out what it up to soooo I called, vous." NOW he warns Amp with some amusement, "Careful, we do no call em Sparkplug for nothin. He might shock ya."
"Wait a sec.. It's surveillence tech and SHIELD wants it and you brought it back to your base?" Amp just kind of stares at JP then slowly shakes his head in utter bafflement. "Good god, dude. It's a camera not a puppy." But he sounds amused anyway. He's suddenly looking like he wants to get behind something so the thing can't see him, but he's definitely amused.
Elmo takes all this in without looking away from the robot, flexing his fingers like a gunslinger preparing to draw down. He kneels next to it, sets his gear down, and starts rummaging in satchel and toolbox. Then gives JP a funny look. "What, you don't know anyone else good with electronics? Town's lousy with us." He looks at Amp and shrugs at him, like, whaddayagonnado. Turning back to the robot, he mutters, "Okay, hold 'er still. Gonna crack this carapace." He's got a weird little tool that starts going WHIRRRR like a dentist's drill, without any visible power supply. It's him, he's the power supply.
JP shrugs. Studiously he makes the thing sit up so Elmo can get a better look at the underside of articulation. "That we do not know. Shield dunno what they are. They guessin so it could be an Amazon drone which means free books or shampoo or something with every felony beeecause that would mos def be interruptin the mail." Holding a finger up he adds helpfully, "Also that is not the crime you wanna do time for. You will get the crap beat outta ya." JP's head tilts to the side. Hard to tell how much he really is aware of really, but it doesn't seem to hurt. "Yeah… well unless they gonna practically wet themselves because this is the coolest fuckin thing ever? Meh, they ain' no real electrician."
|ROLL| Elmo +rolls 1d20 for: 20
Amp watches curiously from off to the side. Unless JP suddenly wanted the centipede airbrushed with a bad ass wizard on the side, he's got nothing to do but watch the others work. He digs into his pocket and pulls out a PayDay, unwrapping it and munching away at the candy bar goodness. "Still, we sure it's not like.. recording?"
The mechanical centipede is all grey at the moment, a gunmetal grey that doesn't allude at all to what JP saw it do. However, as Elmo cracks into its housing and peels off just one of the segments of its segmented body, he finds that the interior is quite intricate. There are many, many cameras situated throughout the interior to give the thing 360 degree vision around the entirety of its body, and it seems able to project these images on its outer carapace, which makes it virtually invisible as it projects the environment around it as it sits still against it. That would explain why JP and the others were only able to "see" it really once it started moving and the imagery was harder to maintain with precision.
The whole thing is rife with electronics. It seems capable of broadcasting the signal from the cameras somewhere over some specific channels and frequencies though just from looking at it, it's impossible to tell which ones and to where. There is some onboard storage, but not a lot, which means that there's little actually stored in the body itself. The articulated legs have various surface-gripping tips that can be employed depending on what sort of surface it is moving across to allow it speed even up verticle surfaces.
Whatever programming is inside, it seems to reside within a central "spinal column" down the very middle of the construct, each segment containing a portion and connected by segments to allow it to bend and flex while remaining connected.
It's definitely on while all of this is going on, and from what Elmo can tell, those cameras are in fact capable of seeing everything around it.
JP considerss this and shrugs a shoulder, "What they gonna do? Get eh feds involved? Feds ain't involved or that lady'd know what up." Still he hasn't been so reckless and said, "I got it locked down best we can. If nothin else? Them people out in the disaster zone do no need this trouble, hmm? So it's like a favour." Sort of. In the most ishy way 'ish' is possible. He walks over and crouches down to look at it in the face. He smiles like a beatific posterboy of Trouble, Inc. he is and taps gently on the leans. He waves once, arms resting on his knees. "Naaaaw, were I them? I'd love to be able to work out business with people like us soooo we see what happens." Looking to Elmo he asks, "I can feel it being 'on'. What' it doin?"
Elmo scoffs under his breath and flashes half a rakish grin at JP. "Yeah, well, in that case, ya called the right guy." He settles his goggles over his eyes. Before he goes in, Elmo actually…pets the thing. He strokes it gently as if it's a cat and murmurs to it in Yiddish. "Ikh bin antshuldigt, mameleh." Then…VVVVRRRRRRR goes his tool as he finds his way under its housing with such ease it's like he built the thing himself.
When he opens the robot up, he sighs happily and with an edge of sensual delight. "Oh, baby. Look at you," he whispers. "Gorgeous." Then he pauses. "She's got power. I'm gonna cut it." He grabs a pair of wire cutters, sized for jewelry, and goes in to snip. "Okay, uh, the bad news might be, she's been on and probably recording this whole time."
"Just tell me if you need more juice to keep that thing under control." Amp mutters as he bites another chunk of candy bar off with a smirk. The two just get a shake of his head. "You guys are weird.." But he then frowns at Elmo's assertion the thing has been recording. "Really? This is worse than those stupid intersection cameras."
JP seems minimally phased by it. "Well they ain't learn nothin they didn't a'ready know or ain't online. Not like we talkin business in front of it, but who knows, maybe we get that chance." JP is absolutely willing to play fastball with life apparently, but this is not new. Quietly he murmurs to Amp with a slow nod, "Yeaaaaah tha's kinda why I wanted you on standby." He did have to admit though, relaxing as it stops fighting back as much, "Yeaaaah she a beaut. So what we got goin on? Talk to me."
"Yeah," Elmo says to Amp. "Streaming, too. I mean, if I made it, I'd have her stream to offsite storage. No mics, just lenses, though. I'll hafta hook her up, get into her OS." Elmo taps the robot's grey carapace. "Retroreflective invisibility. She projects the background images she picks up from all these cameras—" he gestures at all those cameras, they're packed in there like flower petals in a camellia, "on her shell. Like an invisibility cloak. Looks like she can climb just about anything at speed. As far as I can tell, she's made for exploring alien environments. That probably ain't no surprise, since you picked 'er up in the DZ. And all these parts? They're custom machined. Nobody went to Fry's and picked up a pack of transistors." He leans into the machine, eyes narrow. Taps the side of his goggles, and another lens slides in front of the regular glass lens. "Serial numbers. Aww yeah, that's the good stuff." Elmo pulls out a notepad and starts writing numbers down.
"Hey! Serial numbers! That's good news. At least it's not some alien's toy. Well, if it is it was built here. That'd be weird though, some alien buying up all this weird Earth tech to build stuff." Amp finishes off his candy and shoves the wrapper in his pocket with a shake of his head.
JP looks a little disappointed. "Aww it ain't alien?" Maaaan. Some day. Someday Gearhead will try his hand on some Alien tech and on THAT DAY… he will be in a shit ton of trouble, but have oh so much fun doing it. Looking to the guys he watches letting a lot of this process through his head. "Sounds… expensive. Whoever it is is funded. We should see if we can figure out what they lookin for and if they keepin it or sellin it." His hand reaches out to pet the thing and looks to Amp, "Be kinda fun to do this to a whole car wouldn' it?" Looking back to Elmo he offers, "We're short Ajay. We know a guy can run the numbers?"
"Wasn't built from alien tech, anyway," Elmo says, not looking up as he writes down numbers. "Don't think it's from alien plans, either. This is all stuff we already know how to do, just turned to eleven." He sits back and wipes his forehead. "Yeah. Expensive as hell. I'd expect somethin' like this to come outta Stark." Elmo looks back at JP, and Amp, through his goggles, eyes comically enlarged by the magnifying lens before he flips it back up. "I dunno. I gotta look into it. I ain't a hacker. These numbers aren't gonna be in any public database."
"I think they did that to a whole car. Isn't the Google Maps car covered in cameras?" Amp tilts his head to the side. "Totally not an invisible car though. But that sounds like you'd be begging for someone to rear end you. Like, sorry dude, I didn't see you there. Well of course not, I was invisible!" He even changes his tone of voice as he acts out his little one man play. Fancy. "Stark? I kinda want to meet Iron Man, you think it's his?"
JP laughs and nods in approval, "I'm a big fan of the 11 setting." Looking to Amp he can't help but be amused grinning ear to ear, "Fuck no, man! If it was Stark's it'd be red, for one, and for two it'd say Stark in eltters larger than the buggo." He considers the veracity of that statement adding, "Have racing striles…fly… it'd be cool as hell" He considers the other players out there. "Pym Tech? OsCorp? You mama?" He holds up a warning finger preemptivly to Elmo like nono do NOT zap me for that! "She a smart lady. Could be. You learn all you stuff from somewhere. So let's put our ear to teh ground on that. Who can we think of that's operatin in New England?"
Elmo snorts, amused by both Amp's little play and JP's assertation about Stark. "Yeah, I was gonna say, it ain't red and gold and it don't have Stark Industries stamped on every part, so I don't think it's him." Like the guy who wants to paint everything yellow and electric blue can talk. He snaps a glare around to JP. "Don't talk about my ma, Bonaventure." JP might get zapped anyway, there's a warning hiss of static. But he reassures Elmo that he's just saying she's smart, and Elmo hmphs. "Yeah, you better say she's smart."
"PymTech?" Amp does not sound nearly as excited about PymTech as he did about Stark. He just shakes his head and frowns. 'Well, they're still rich, salvage what sells and then.. I dunno, give the rest back and hope we get a little reawrd for finding their shit?" He folds his hands behind his head as he continues watching the techies at work.
JP jut holds eye contact with Elmo. There ya go, pal. No need to zappy zap em. Okay fewer reasons to zap people. The assurance is cut short by Amp's suggestion and the Bayou badass just swivels his head, faint grin growing, "Sell it back to the guy we took it from? Check the balls on you." The sly grin goes back to Elmo and he asmits, "I like the new guy. "Or we cna try an rewire it and use it. There that too."
"Sell her?" Elmo says, genuinely aghast. "No, no, nonono, you gotta keep her. She's a work of art, and she'll do for you what she was doin' for whoever built her. I can get into her firmware, do some rewriting. She's a spy, buddy, a spy who can turn invisible and crawl into small and dangerous places." He looks at JP, as the guy who makes the call.
"I didn't say sell.. I said turn in for a reward." Amp emphasizes certain words as if that help. Though at Elmo's words he nods his head. "Well, yeah, I guess it might be a good watch dog for this place, too. As long as it stays away from the bedrooms."
JP picks up on Amp's difference pressing a hand to his leather jacket and explains to Elmo, "Rewards are for heroes. Pay checks is for ransoming mercs and we's gentlement." Of …sorts. Looking at the centipede he shrugs, "Shit, let's try it. Be safer. An' if someone gets stuck alla better. I can get the surveilance jes' fine but I can no make her see-through." Bold statement! Still, it's stated as much as facts are. "I say we look into it, cause is ner'esting and we never know what else we find. Also? Is fuuuuckin awesome. So if the Junebug stay on the team? She need a name?" He considers and offers, "Rita Hayworth? Cuase she got some legs on her." Yeah that amusing joke is not going away soon. Also she helped honest crooks out before in Shawshank.