nightlogs | [open] you are not a robot

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[open] you are not a robot

Who: Cammie & you!
What: Mostly Cammie being a nerd
Where: Sleigh Room, communal relaxation area, etc.
When: Post-Branch and other initial game chaos
Warnings/Notes: Inevitable discussion of child soldier stuff, other warnings in subject lines. (General note that Cammie's HoH/Deaf, her rabbit ears are her hearing aids.)

Sleigh Room

There comes a day, sometime after they've all began to settle in, that a truly ecstatic squeal can be heard coming from the sleigh room (sorry to the Reindeer?). Cammie noticed the signature popping up on her MR feed, but she didn't dare actually believe it until she saw it with her own two eyes.

There, standing in some of the space usable for storing bulky equipment, is Cammie's Holon. Reduced to maybe a quarter of the size it usually is, making it around a storey tall, there is a giant, mechanised anthropomorphic rabbit in Cammie's signature colours. It's that sight that makes Cammie squeal so loud anyone with enhanced hearing can probably hear it from the other end of the pole.

Two prior multiversal hops and Cammie has never had her Holon come with her. She's always been stuck with just her own scrawny, fleshy little body that grows muscle at the speed of slow. Even having her GL suit back after it became useless in the Wilderlands felt like a major upgrade. This is more than she could ever have expected, and she has every intention of making the best of it.

Anyone investigating the squeal will find Cammie buzzing around excitedly, checking the mech over to see if anything but the size had changed. If she had to drag over some crate or something, so be it, that's still easier than it used to be when it was taller. They'll also be greeted by a still-vibrating Cammie with a grin. "Wouldja believe it? Thought I'd not see this thing again unless I went home."

Over the following days, she can be found running more tests on it. Lots of scans. Lots of checking its inner workings. At several points she has the chest plate lifted so she can get at the 'brain' inside, orange metal peeking out from the base-grey of the endoskeleton. She wants to be sure it's working fine before uploading, see.

Visitors during her busy hours are likely to need to get her attention, or she's not going to notice them. Hyperfocus, man.

Communal Relaxation Area

Even when she's not fussing with her Holon, Cammie has her fingers in a bunch of technology. She's gathered a hearty collection of computer equipment from somewhere, a mix of a trip away from the pole and from the Yetis, and she's got it all scattered around her in one of the communal dens. The thing is, all her technology is working again, but she has none of the equipment she'd usually have to maintain it—most of which won't be invented for another couple decades at minimum.

But she's a bit of a prodigy, our Cammie. If anyone can figure out how to jerry-rig existing hardware together to suit her needs and to program the software to match, it's her.

She is, however, making a real mess on the floor in the process. Luckily, she's not so absorbed this time that she doesn't notice people. Her ears flick towards any visitors a second before she turns to them. "Ach, sorry, I'm takin' up a lotta the space in here, I know."

Wildcard!

Totally down for other things.

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"Meh." Stacia dismisses Cammie's apology with a wave of her hand. "I'm sure I'll be fascinated to see the results when your done. But I should probably introduce you to Miguel, he's also got a computer cave going on."

She grins.

"Haven't had a chance to say 'hi' yet, so: hi Cammie, how you doing?"

Cammie's ears perk up and she flashes a grin of her own. "Stacia, hi! Pretty alright, actually. Not so bad here, y'know, for yet another universe we've been yanked to. You been enjoyin' the joys of modern civilisation, too?"

Getting access to tech again really has brightened her up. Having her fingers all up in a piece of machinery is basically her happy place.

"Which 'a the new bunch is Miguel?"

"Ohmigod!" Stacia squeals. "We have internet and chocolate and coffee! And menstrual supplies that I didn't steal out of an evil movie theater bathroom! I could cry!"

Yeah, she's in a pretty good mood about their current reality and base of operations.

"He's the guy who's, like, seven feet tall, wearing a red and navy blue bodysuit. He'll be pleased if you identify the thing on his chest as a spider and not a weird vampire skull. Brown skin, dark hair, looks super grumpy but is actually a huge softy; especially if you tell him that you are also a huge computer nerd and want him to talk about computer stuff with you."

Cammie snort-snickers, "Elle mentioned you were hoardin' menstrual products. Modern luxuries, eh? Modern luxuries in what is literally Santa's magic workshop, even. Plus, y'know what? I even got my Holon, y'know, the Mecha I fight with? This place is a mad upgrade. You lot've never seen me at the absolute depths of my techie nonsense, I'm not sure anyone's ready for it."

She's mostly joking, but her ability to absolutely sink into her work or online gaming and basically become a techie gremlin is very real.

"Also, alright, see, that kinda makes me wanna call it a skull anyway, but I suppose I should save the deliberate torment for when I've already made an adult like me."

"Then I'm gonna have to go fight with Elle, because I am not hoarding the menstrual supplies!" Stacia says. She's kidding about fighting with Elle. Probably. "I was stocking up to share!"

Really, if she'd been "hoarding" them, she wouldn't have been telling people she had them. Public hoards can be stolen from, and sharing necessary supplies endears people to you in a team environment. Pretty basic social stuff!

"I'm sure I won't understand anything you're saying about your mecha, but I'm glad you have it back. I know I wouldn't have wanted to go through the stuff we did without being able to get all big and scary."

She snickers appreciatively at Cammie musing over the best time to tease Miguel. "Split the difference and tell him I sent you to talk to him. He'll probably make a face."

Cammie jokingly holds her hands up like 'don't shoot the messenger!' whilst clearly amused, breaking into snickers after a moment. "Leave my name outta it if you go fight her about it, let her figure out I dropped her in the fire on her own."

"Honestly, dinnae you worry about understandin' fuck all, even the people on my team that use these things don't know the science I ramble off. All you really need to know is my fleshy body's totally defenceless when I'm uploaded, and if I'm in a fight and somethin's getting into the chest? Get the thing off me."

Damage to the brain is bad news. Anything else doesn't matter, but that... not good.

"And I will take that under advisement. Cannae let the adults have the upper hand, gotta keep 'em on their toes."

"Don't let monsters treat you like a lion with piñata filled with raw beef, got it."

Is that the weirdest way Stacia could have put it? Possibly! But she saw that exact situation once at the local zoo, and the image is in her head forever. Now it's in Cammie's too. She nods seriously.

"Can't let the adults get too comfortable or else they might start thinking they know better than us. Can't be having that nonsense, not at the North Pole."

"Exactly that. No lettin' me become enrichment in the monsters enclosures. That's no fun for anyone." Beat. "Except the monsters, I s'pose, but they're the last ones we wanna be havin' fun."

She'll embrace the mental image wholeheartedly. She's never actually been to a zoo, but memes have a surprisingly long shelf life if you spend all your time on the internet.

"Right? This is the literal North Pole, and we're still— teenish," ages are just going to keep getting more complicated feeling the longer they're travelling like this, honestly, "this is basically our turf, y'know, comparatively. Cannae go lettin' the adults run too wild."

"I think Bunny implied that he considered us 'kids' until we were at least twenty-five, so we've got a few more years yet," Stacia says. "Assuming we're aging at all right now, and not frozen at whatever age the believers think we are."

She pauses and thinks about that for a moment.

"Blegh. I'm not going to worry about that right now."

Nope! No thank you!

"Anyway, yes, the adults need to be reined in, lest they cause problems with their grown-up brains."

"Good call, last time I went down that particular rabbit hole I was at least tipsy, and it still didn't settle right. Still havenae figured out if I'm actually 18 or not, when I keep somehow skippin' my birthday..."

Seriously, she's never got to sit in one universe long enough to hit a birthday, even though the months experienced should all add up. It's a different kind of age-based mindfuckery to stopping ageing at all, but it's in the same arena.

"What matters is the adults are still adultier than us, anyhow."

Loki was outside in the snow when he hears a loud noise coming from the stable. Fearing the worst, he bursts through the door in a swirl of ice and frigid air, dagger in hand.

He doesn't recognize the mech, or the girl buzzing around it, but it seems to be inert and she's clearly not alarmed or attacking anything. He doesn't quite look sheepish, but he does lower his weapon. "An unexpected new arrival? Or a gift?"

Cammie blinks a couple of times at the dagger, one ear quirking sideways in a vague display of '?' that straightens up a second later. "Kinda both maybe? Definitely not expected, definitely a gift to my scrawny arse if there's gonnae be more fightin'."

He tucks the dagger back into his Lokispace with a gesture. "But is it a person of its own, or a mechanical construction that requires another being's control? I would not consider the latter to truly be a new arrival."

"Oh, well. Sure, then I'd call it a gift. But it's... me, technically? Mechanical construction, sure, but I don't just control it. I become it. Upload myself to the brain in the chest and hey presto, big robot girl."

It's a distinction you could argue over, but it's not an argument you'd win with Cammie. There's no cockpit, no levers or physical controls. It's run the same way your brain runs your body, just with perks.

Loki's not going to argue that distinction. Instead he'll just look over the mech, and the girl, with a new air of respect bordering on awe. "So, it is as if a part of yourself has been returned. You must be quite pleased. Is it your own creation?"

"It sure is, aye. Been real weird, not having it around... and uh, sort of? The base technology's the invention of a guy called Dr. Weller, who's either turnin' in his grave at what I've done to it since or really proud of me. Hard t'say."

She's pretty sure he'd be proud, but... well, the dead are the dead. And Weller kept so many secrets.

"But the armour's all me. And I've been runnin' upgrades on the base system for a while, now, ever since the doc died. Figured out how to get us away from needin' clunky upload pods, got some extra protections in on the mental network... that sorta stuff."

"If he can no longer offer his opinion, then let us believe that he would be proud. He should be."

He looks up and down at the mech. "How quickly does the upload take? Can you do it easily in the event of a sudden emergency, or do you need time to prepare?"

"Doesnae take long at all, few seconds these days. Used t'be a bit longer, when we had to get into these big clunky pods, but I made these—" she pulls out a small node, maybe as big as a 2 pence piece, which has tiny little bunny ears sticking from the side "—which you just attach to your temple and, hey presto! Upload on the go. Just... means your body kinda flops down wherever you were when you attach it, is all. Hafta make sure you've sat yourself down somewhere safe or someone's on the lookout."

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[open] you are not a robot

Communal Relaxation Area

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Sleigh room

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