nexus_crossings | Time for a big ol' Nexus Block party

Time for a big ol' Nexus Block party

On a sleepy summer morning a wonderful smell begins to waft throughout the Nexus. For those familiar with this place there can only be one explanation but for those new faces to the nexus this may be a strange thing: seeing so many people flocking toward the sweet and savory scents perfuming the Nexus.

There are a few tables set out this morning in the Plaza in front of a small cafe loaded with several carafes of coffee, a myriad of pastries from more than a few different worlds and cultures, and a large pan of eggs and sausage kept warm over a chafing dish. On either end of the table are disposable plates, cups, and cutlery as well as a few welcome pamphlets in a small container. Along the front of the tables is a hand made banner.

Meet and Greet

Manning the tables is Katsuya Suou, red apron on and a cup of coffee in hand. He looks far too cheerful for how early in the morning it is. It's always satisfying to put one of these on and see the throngs of different people stuck in line together to get their food and find a place to sit among the tables and couches nearby.

"Right then, is anyone hungry? I've got more than enough here for everyone so please mingle among yourselves or feel free to ask me anything you'd like."

((OOC: This thread is ALL ABOUT threadjacking and hopping. I encourage folks to tag on each other's comments and mingle rather than to reply only to me. This is a huge opportunity to have your characters interact with people they wouldn't have talked to before. Branch out! Meet new people! Scheme new schemes! Steal the last chocolate croissant!))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"No, but I keep my stuff nearby on the wall of lockers over by the vending machines. It won't take long to go get. C'mon!"

With both bots eagerly in agreement with the plan now Peter's even getting excited. He's all but jogging away from the party back out to the fringe of the plaza where a row of feather covered (and bird dropping encrusted) vending machines lives. He pulls out a key and unlocks one of the lockers on the adjacent wall and pulls out his backpack before closing up and turning toward one of the lesser traveled paths.

Once they're a ways off the beaten path he pulls out the rebuilt PINpoint from one of the front pockets and starts poking at the settings on it.

"So I've got two sets of coordinates saved on this thing. One on each side of this street. First one's by that tree and the second one's in front of that bench. I've been sending a bunch of inorganic material through and yesterday moved up to fruits. Both seem to have come through alright, so I think it's fixed."

So Natasha's monitoring the party and Steve's covering the party and that's not counting Katsuya and Jesse and Holland and all the other tough customers mingling in the still-harmless party. Blaze only considers that justification after she's followed Peter out and across the plaza, mind you. But the cafe is surely safe ~~today~~.

Anyway, this is important. She keeps up with Peter in brisk strikes, Ghost only darting ahead once to peep at the boy's locker.

"No imploding fruit, huh? Sounds safe enough to me." Peter has a bot looking over each shoulder before Blaze taps him on the shoulder. "Let's do it."

That's alright Peter has a super hero's number in his phone. If things get dicey he has help they can call on to back Blaze up! While he, of course, stays out of danger like a safe and responsible child should. Obviously.

No electronic lock, Ghost. There will be no breaking and entering that way for these things. It's a good old fashioned lock and key, though Peter does have a Starktech logo patch amateurishly applied to his backpack. The bag seems kinda full but hey he's a student. He's probably got his homework in there. Probably definitely even.

The kid scientist gives both bots a grin with a turn of his head before handing over the PINpoint to Blaze.

"Give them both a shot, and let me know if it feels okay."

With a flicker of blue light, Ghost sweeps a scan over Blaze. "Ready."

"All right, first set of co-ordinates." She steps clear of the others and holds up the PINpoint. There's a flash- and she reappears beneath the tree, apparently no worse for wear as she gives them a wave. Only... something seems a bit off. Are her antennae angling the wrong way...?

"Uh-oh." Ghost sounds dismayed, and he flies straight over to scan his Guardian again, check nothing more is out of place. "Do you feel all right?"

"Fine, why- uh." Blaze tilts her head, trying instinctively to see what's in her peripheral vision. She reaches up, fingers tracing along the flipped angles of her antennae, and realization dawns. "Ah, hell."

Uh oh indeed.

Peter doesn't notice at first until Ghost hovers about at the Exo's eye level, his eyes widening when he sees what's happened. If that was someone's fleshy organic body would their ears be backward right now? Something even more vital??? He feels his stomach drop slightly.

"Can...I mean, is it something you can fix?" He's reaching up for the PINpoint in her hand quickly. "Oh jeez, I...I can fix the PINpoint I think. Must be something off in the calibrations. Oh man..."

"I can fix it. That's all right." Once his scan is complete, Ghost's unconcerned enough that he's flying down to look at the PINpoint with Peter instead. Blaze hands it over easily, quite preoccupied with reaching up to run her hands over the reversed appendages.

"This is weird."

"It might be something simple. Let's take another look."

"It doesn't hurt does it?"

Peter's sure as heck worried about the Exo but when she waves it off and says it's fine just weird he nods before rummaging through his backpack (is that a red teeshirt in there Ghost? Must be but weird material) before pulling out a small eyeglasses screwdriver kit and pulling the PINpoint back apart. He thought he triple checked everything was reconnected properly to the pictures he took and sure enough it's all there good and proper like.

"Maybe I didn't program it right...?" He scratches at his head once the PINpoint is all closed up again so he can turn it on and open up the diagnostics menu.

Edited 2018-09-05 00:50 (UTC)

"Nah, actually I don't feel much from 'em. Circuits must be screwy..."

Perhaps one of the parts he reconnected didn't quite calibrate properly? PINpoints are usually very good at reading the people they transport and making sure they arrive with everything in the right place. But if it got a little confused about that...

"Can I help?" Ghost asks, hovering literally over Peter's shoulder. "Your reassembly looks fine. It must be something in the system..."

"Uh, Ghost?"

"Just a minute, Guardian." She's fine. This is important.

"Oh, uh sure."

The little bot doesn't look like he's got any tiny hands or anything that will be able to hold onto the PINpoint so Peter shifts his grip on the device and holds it up with his hand carefully not blocking the screen so Ghost can take a look at the device.

"Let me know if you need me to hit anything. Or however you uhm. Interface. With other systems."

He's trying not to stare too hard at Blaze's antennae. He feels real bad about it even if it's not that big of a deal. If it had been himself, he keeps saying. How much worse could this have been?

"Hold it right there, please." Ghost sweeps a scan over it, and in a moment it's clear he's projecting more than blue light, as the PINpoint's little screen begins to cycle through information. "

Co-ordinate translation, physical detection, entity differentiation... hmm... oh! Maybe this is it! I think this calibration for the physical translation matrix didn't reinitialize properly...

Blaze will let him carry on talking Peter through the problem: she's listening, but this is verging on more technical than even the robot soldier is interested in. She's not exactly standing around waiting, either: she's pulled out her own PINpoint to get a selfie or three.

Just because she wants to see, of course.

"Blaze, hold still. I'll fix you and we can try this again."

"Sure." Peter's got a pretty steady grip all things considered. Balance is kind of something he's good at. Much more useful than things like common sense in the grand scheme of things, right? Hopefully because only one of those is a power he actually has. "Well, that would do it. If that was off there'd be no way of making sure everything that makes up 'you' would be anywhere near the right orientation on atom reintegration. I'm...kind of surprised it wasn't worse."

Also? Incredibly glad he didn't test it out on himself like he'd been planning on doing. Lesson learned, Parker.

"You fix her, I'll reset the coordinates so we can try this again."

"Exos are pretty good at working with our internals messed around," Blaze says cheerfully, holding still for Ghost.

"...It was a very small error, luckily." Ghost refrains from sighing. A flash of rematerialization, and Blaze is in the same place with everything oriented correctly. She feels at her antennae, then nods approval and strides clear of the arrival point.

"All right, we ready for round two?"

"Yeah I'm just gonna do one more test...."

Peter runs through another diagnostics check with his face glued to the screen to make sure everything looks to be in order while Ghost takes the time he needs to fix Blaze back good as new. So far as injuries to Guardians go, that can't be too serious though it might be one of the more odd ways of being messed with.

"We should be good to go." Peter hands over the PINpoint to Blaze and grins up at the Exo. "Get as far back as you'd like and then give it a hit and see if that does the trick."

It's definitely an odd occurrence, which is why Blaze wants to be sure she has pictures. Not every day a bot gets to play junior mad science experiment. And hey, it's more fun than waiting for something to happen under her watch.

Besides, Ghost likes the kid and he is pretty cute, all bent over his work so deadly serious. It is life-or-death technology, of course. Serious is appropriate.

She takes the PINpoint and dashes off down the street, putting a good few hundred meters between them before she gives the others a wave and yells "Incoming!"

Blip! And she's back in their space, patting herself up and down to check everything's in order. This time, however, it all seems to have gone to the right places. "Hey, how do I look?"

In turn, there's something downright inspiring and motivating to see any kind of adult figure showing so much enthusiasm for Peter's work and a willingness to help. To be Extra in their help, even. The little Ghost twirls and bobs in the air and Peter's not sure what all that body language means but if the bot seems like it's alright with this then that's probably a good thing, right?

But there's Blaze-37 in all her armor and glory right where Peter programmed the PINpoint to take her and his smile beams excitedly up at her.

"Great! You look great! I-I mean, everything looks to be alright this time. You feel alright?"

Her boredom aside, Peter's doing some good and useful work here. So many people depend on those PINpoints to get out of danger, to get home... and to get away from home, sometimes. They're durable, but they're not indestructible. It's easy to see how a damaged PINpoint could be disaster for someone and if this kid can work on techniques for putting them back together then both bots can get behind that.

Blaze rolls her shoulders and flexes her arms a bit, then tilts her head down at him. Ghost is already scanning her again. "Feels good to me! What do you say, Ghost?"

"Much better."

"All right, then! Second destination. I'll be right back." Time to blip over to the other set of co-ordinates and back, so Ghost can confirm that looks fine too.

"I think we can say this one is safe to use."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Time for a big ol' Nexus Block party

Beep Boop coming through

no subject

no subject

time for science mishaps

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject