thedifferencebetween | Ryslig Inbox

u kno wut a pain it is 4 me 2 get anywhere rite now?

how important is it that i actually physically go 2 ricks place?

[Because it will always be Rick's place to him, no matter who lives there. But even Jack can see that something is clearly Up with the kid.]

gimme a number, kiddo, 1 thru 10. n b honest, cuz im gonna b pissed if u say its friggin life r death n i get there n ur just messin w/me

8.

[Just that.
An eight.]

ugh

ok fine but its gonna take me time, i gotta get a ride

ok. i can wait

actually
just meet me at the end of the path to the shack, you don't gotta come all the way out to the shack itself

[Hopefully that puts some ease on him; she doesn't really want to annoy him when she's the one asking for his help.
She has a feeling they'll need to be in the city, anyway, and if she starts walking now she should be there by the time he reaches the spot she's talking about.
Which is exactly where she'll be waiting for him, bundled up to the nines in the winter clothing Lup's given her.

And all of her bright, red LEDs are glowing in the darkness.

From a distance, it definitely just looks like a teen's usual propensity for dressing up in glowing accessories -
But considering her cables lift up like tendrils on either side of her face as he arrives, it's easy to see what's really going on.]

[It really is a pain getting anywhere in this weather. Jack's rain gear isn't exactly made for snow protection, and he doesn't trust his bike in these conditions. So he has to 'hitch' a ride, which mostly consists of bullying someone into driving him.]

[But he does it, and he eventually meets Jiro, done up against the weather in his yellow and black rain slicker and hat and boots, expression the same as it always is.]

[It takes maybe five seconds to figure out why she's called him and insisted he actually come in person.]

Ha! Who's the toaster, now?

[At that warm greeting, her cables pull in toward herself like they've flinched, and she looks down at the ground in front of her.
You'd think she'd be pissed to hear something like that, indignant, but no, that's shame. She's ashamed she called him shit like that.

And once he's close enough? She actually bows to him.
It's not an embarrassingly deep bow, but it's clear she's trying her best.]

- I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have called you crap like that.

[Her voice is warm and synthetic, each syllable a different, random note like someone fed her speech through a music-making program.
It comes from a speaker at her throat, too, her mouth not needing to move an inch.]

Apologizing is part of why I wanted you to come meet me in person. It wouldn't have been right to do it over the laptops.
I really am sorry.

Edited 2020-01-10 19:58 (UTC)

Oh for frig's sake...that's what you're all sad and shit about? Relax. I mean, yeah, you shouldn't have been a little asswipe, but if you think you making a couple of shitty robot digs annoyed me for any longer than the time it took you to say them, that's a you problem. I've been called way, way worse. Gotta say, pretty jealous of that sweet vocal modulator you got. That's neat.

[Jack's own simply gives his speech a slightly hollow auto-tuned quality, making it hard to infer tone sometimes.]

But ya shoulda said something over the network, I woulda brought my tools. And...ya know, we're gonna have to go inside. But alright, what do ya want me to have a look at?

[He assumes that's the other reason she wanted to see him in person. He's told her repeatedly he's a robot guy, and she's seen some of the stuff he's designed and engineered himself. Who else are you gonna go to when you turn into a robot if not the robot guy?]

[With her apology accepted - """accepted""" - she'll go ahead and stand up straight again.
But she's not looking at him just yet, either.
She knows what she has to tell him. She knows what she has to say, what she wants to say.
At least he's given her a good segue; at his question, she goes and opens the front of her winter coat.]

I've got this locker, here, in my stomach.

[And now she lifts her shirt - not TOO far, don't worry - to show off the locker door she's talking about. It seems pretty small, but she's a pretty small person to start with.
Opening it, too, reveals the open space inside sans the glass tube encasing her spine at the back of it, lit up by a red LED at the roof of it all. It takes up her whole abdominal cavity.
No organs to be seen. Just a few things she's put in there on her own - a small notebook, a pen, and a screwdriver.

And after a short pause, black oil starts to well up in her eyes in lieu of tears.]

There's nothing there, but I'm...
I'm so hungry.

[She's hoping, seriously hoping it could be anything else; she knew it was coming, but she's also heard it didn't always happen right away -
Maybe it's the same for her? Maybe he can tell her that she's just broken. Her wiring's wrong. He just has to pop her open and fix her, just like Flug had.
That's the beauty of being a robot, right? Your problems can just get...
Fixed?]

You sure do, champ.

[Jack leans down to get a look. Yeah, she's already gone pretty far in the hardware department on her first go-round. Jack remembers his first changes, when his whole stupid circulatory system had switched over to wiring and circuitry.]

Oh. Yeah, ya probably are. Looks like your system's already flipped over most of the way, least from what I can see without opening ya up. You're running on energy now. Arguably more efficient, but not nearly as much fun. But it's cool, you'll be fine.

[He straightens up, hands in his pockets.]

So I'm guessing you wanna go and grab dinner. Yeah, I could probably do with restocking the meat freezer for my roomie - we're efficient like that, nothing gets wasted.

So...big question here, you ever killed anybody before?

[And now she's immediately tense, her lips pulling into a thin line as she closes her locker.
Not to mention having to bring an arm up to wipe her face. She's so glad her voice is synthetic so he won't get to hear it waver.]

Heroes don't kill unless they have to.
I've never had to...

[So, no. No, she hasn't.
It's why she's crying over it, ya big jerk.]

Okay, well now you have to.

[Ugh, another bleeding heart. Why does Jack always end up having to deal with this kind of crap? At least she seems less traumatized than Tim had been. That had been awful, Jack never wants to bear witness to that level of emotional distress ever again. Unless he's causing it on purpose. Being expected to help with it? Fuck that noise.]

Alright, a couple of tips. One...look, this world isn't yours. The society is different, how everything works is different. We're not some unknown horror lurking in the dark, literally every human here knows about us and what the risk of living in Bavan comes with. Two, whatever you do isn't murder, because you're not human anymore. If a bullymong eats some dude in the mountains, the bullymong isn't a murderer, he was hungry and doing what nature designed him to do.

Whenever anything gets hungry, it's just gotta do what nature designed it to do. Even us.

No, no, I -
I get it.

I've been trying to kinda prepare myself for the last month. Like, mentally. So I get it.

[She's a bleeding heart, but she's not a stupid one. She has to think of this realistically, and she knows that; she's known that for this whole last month.
If she needs to eat, she needs to eat. The only other option is to starve, right?
Or worse.

She wipes her eyes again, also grateful that she's missing the rest of the crying. No lungs mean no involuntary noises - no gasps, no whimpering, no sobs.
Just silent oily tears. And thankfully her coat's black to hide those, aside from the way they're staining her skin a bit.
~~How incredibly metal.~~]

... I just mean that I've never had to think about it before.
Even when it was life or death back in my own world, we're trained to capture, not to kill.

So I know it's gonna be hard to do. I don't even know where to start.

Here's the thing...once you get the first one out of the way, it's not so bad.

[Jack shrugs. Alright, story time. He thinks it'll help, and so far Mini Jack's not getting too worked up or difficult to deal with over this.]

I come from a place that's just...I mean everybody's killing each other all the time. It's not a crime back home, it's just what you do. But I went a really long time avoiding that, getting ahead other ways. Until one day, this jerk - that screwed me over and hired dudes to kill me and I forgave, mind you - tried to shoot me in the back. Literally, I told him I wasn't gonna do anything, turned to leave...and he tries to kill me. He's going for his other gun when I turn around. What the hell was I gonna do? So...I shot him first. Boom, one shot between the eyes. And ya know what? It wasn't really any big deal.

[Jack pauses a minute, contemplating.]

I know where there's some asshats that really hate sims, wanna go pick a fight? I was gonna deal with'em at some point anyway.

[She brings her arms down to wrap around herself as she listens to him, taking in this information like a sponge - she already has her Simulacrum's curiosity, after all, and this is just free data he's slinging her way.
But it's also meaningful, too. He's... actually sharing something about himself with her, something beyond how great he is and how cool his messed up world was.

She seems to mull it over a bit, herself, before he offers up what he does.]

- What, like a street brawl or something?
I don't know, I've never really... you know, all the fighting I've done has either been against classmates, teachers, or Villains.
I don't know how strong I'd be against a regular civilian.

That'd be a kind of unfair matchup.

[Her cables rear up and punch the air a bit when she mentions fighting, doing a one-two punch like a boxer.
It's clearly instinctual, too; they replaced her jacks, so all the muscle memory's carried over.]

Basically. Here's my logic, kiddo. These dudes want us dead. I know this because they have screamed it at me while throwing beer bottles. And I, not being one to take that kinda thing lying down, found out where they hang around. We show up...it's gonna go bad.

So you see where I'm going here? You've gotta kill somebody, it's gonna be easier if you're doing it in self defense, so we're just putting you in a position where you gotta use deadly force to defend yourself!

[This plan makes perfect sense to Jack, he sees no flaws here. She gets to get over her weird reservations about killing without messing with her moral compass too much, he gets to kick some robo-bigot ass, and a few more monster-haters are taken out of the world.]

They hate Simulacrums that much?
I mean, I guess that shouldn't be THAT new to me... people were like that back home about mutant-type Quirks like mine.

[And yet she still sounds actually kind of hurt to learn as much. Geez...
She looks down at the snow and scuffs the toe of her boot in it.]

... I guess that'd work. I don't think I could just pick someone and go for it, otherwise.
I wish I could say I'm that strong, but I know I'm not.

[If they have to force the situation, they have to force the situation. It's just pragmatic to do it that way, right?]

There's people here that hate all monsters that much. There's people who hunt us and use our parts like we were friggin deer or some shit. And yeah, sometimes we get it a little extra-hard. I mean...shit, we're machines.

[Jack can understand, to an extent. Sentient robots, robots with self awareness and independent thought...it's the stuff of nightmares. He gets it.]

[But that doesn't mean he's going to let it slide when it's directed at him.]

Look, I'm gonna be right there, you'll be fine. And really we're doing the peninsula a favor! Making it safer for our brothers and sisters of the circuits!

["We're machines."
That'd be chilling to hear if she still had blood to chill.

But after a moment, she nods.]

Yeah. I guess... doing it this way, it's kind of all I can do, right?
I wouldn't be able to handle anything else.

[And now, finally looking up at him -]

Lead the way, I'll follow you.

It's gonna be fine!

[Jack really doesn't seem too bothered by all of this. Most likely because he generally kills someone every day, whether he has to or not. It's just become his go-to way to deal with almost everything. Who's gonna stop him?]

[He heads off towards the city, hands still in his pockets.]

So. You're gonna notice some weird new shit with your developing robot body. I'm warning ya now, it's time to say goodbye to eating food or drinking. Or even getting too close to water, water will fuck you up! I mean liquids in general, I guess, I'm not about to try and test that out myself, I'm not an idiot.

[And he could never get that other robot to let him poke around inside of him.]

[She follows after him dutifully, of course, though her speaker lets out a few concerned sounding tones with what he says.]

Seriously? Nothing? I gotta give up ALL of it?

[Technically she doesn't; her still-human throat routes to a tiny, rudimentary robo-style digestive system that burns food and evaporates incredibly small amounts of liquid - something like a sip of tea at a time, as anything more would overflow and cause trouble.
But it's not as if either of them know that. She'll find that out on her own.]

... How'd you get over that? I mean, don't you miss it?

Yup. I mean, I've only known one other Ryslig robot, but he couldn't eat or drink anything either. We don't have the systems for it, we're not biological anymore. For frick's sake, I don't even have a mouth. This thing?

[He taps a finger against the permanently grinning lips of his mask.]

Purely decorative. It's not like there's a mouth back there, or a throat, or anything like that. It's circuits and wires and metal. And what the hell do you think? Of course I miss it! I still pour drinks and light cigarettes and just hold'em. I'm not over it. Every time I get a chance I friggin binge myself! Last time I was human I smoked a pack of cigarettes, drank a bottle of vodka, shoved my tongue in everything I could...

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