//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Rock And Blues // by DarkSpider //------------------------------// -Sunset and Twilight's Lab- A small cacophony of fingers on a keyboard echoed through the room along with the low and gentle hum of several machines. Strapped to a chair in metal bindings was Nathan, several tubes, diodes, and wires attached to his body as well as several opened ports along his head, arms, and legs. “Okay, I know I agreed to this, but I gotta ask, did you have to lock me down?” Nathan asked. “You mean after that outburst where you leveled several boulders and slagged the stone of the plateau we were on JUST to vent your frustrations on a chameleon?” Twilight responded, not even flinching as she focused on the screen before her. “It looked at me funny!” Nathan retorted. Silence returned for a few seconds until Twilight spoke up once more. “Such an anomaly… Remember when you said all you did was punch at the walls? Not only did you break those boulders bare handed, you activated a hidden arm chambered cannon and started firing round after round of plasmic energy. Why didn't you use that strength to free yourself?” Nathan grunted. “Not for lack of trying, the first… the second… look, at some point after waking up I did everything I could think of to use the buster.”  “Buster,” Twilight repeated as she wrote something down on a notepad. “Is that what your built in cannon is called?” “Yeah… the Proto Buster, first of its kind, highly uh… unstable?”  Silence reigned once more until Twilight swiveled around in her chair as she happily faced Nathan. “Well, the exciting news is that several hundred terabytes of data are just sitting in your systems, waiting to be revealed!” She exclaimed happily. “Right… exciting. What's the bad news?” The bot asked. Twilight gave a befuddled shrug. “Eighty eight percent of the data is encrypted  cracking it in its entirety will take a little over a month.” Nathan gave a quick sigh, trembling as he tried to move. “Well, now what?” He asked in anticipation. To this, Twilight's smile grew three sizes as she took out a tool kit. “Now comes the fun part! I get to venture deep inside of you while you make small talk!” Actually laughing, the bot did his best to smile, “What? Not even gonna buy me dinner first?”  “Okay, what did I walk into?” Sunset asked as she entered the room, having only heard Nate's comment. “She wants to be inside me while I whisper sweet nothings to her.” Nathan replied sarcastically.  “Well, you did say to take whatever you told us at face value.” Twilight added as she happily waved a screwdriver about. Sunset immediately yanked the screwdriver from Twilight. “Okay first off, you calm down.” She then looked at Nate. “And you need to stop with that talk before I let her poke and prod your software to see if she can fix it herself.” “And risk damaging his core processors!?” Twilight cried as she cupped her cheeks. “Not even as a joke!” “I thought you said humor wasn't your strong point,” Nate joked. “But I guess I can tone down the vulgarity. Just for you.” Sunset stepped away from Twilight. “So you learn any useful info about him, Twi?” Nodding, Twilight went back to her desk and took hold a small stack of papers, flipping through them she began to speak. “He's unlike anything we've ever seen before… self replicating nano fibers… overclocked processing units… internal weapons converter… whoever built him, did so in the hopes of making something to outclass all other machines.” “You make me sound like a weapon of mass destruction.” Nathan commented. “Chameleon?” Twilight retorted as she gave Nathan a look. “That reminds me, you owe me big time,” Sunset told Nate. “Oh no, whatever shall I do, please your omnipotence, have mercy!” What was seemingly a distorted audio recording of Nathan's voice left the bot’s mouth which managed to surprise even himself. “Okay, that's not normal.” Sunset blinked before turning to Twilight. “You have an explanation for that?” Frantically, Twilight poured over her notes and data. Soon, she looked back at Sunset, her hair a mess and eyes wide. “Nothing… it could be an anomaly, or it could be a hardwired function hidden inside the data still encrypted.” Sunset then looked at Nate. “You have any ideas what that's about?” “You gonna believe what I say?” He asked with seemingly less snark. “We did make an agreement.” Twilight replied. “You made an agreement,” Nathan pointed out. “She didn't, and I don't think she likes me very much.” “What agreement?” Sunset asked. “I get to study his inner workings so long as I believe everything he tells me about himself!” Twilight said cheerfully. “She even has me hooked up to a lie detector.” Nate added, which made Twilight giggle as she flipped through a seperate set of notes. “I can firmly deduce that his name is indeed Nathan Callaway and that he is NOT or ever was a purple spotted elephant.” Twilight said matter of factly. “Why would you need to ask that?” Sunset asked. “I need to cover my bases.” Twilight replied as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Sunset stared at her in disbelief. “How much sleep have you gotten lately?” “Twenty minutes!” The scientist replied happily. “Okay, you need to take a nice long nap. You’re getting seriously delirious from lack of sleep.” “That's what I told her,” Nathan commented. “I mean, why would I ever have lunch with a bear?” “It's a valid question!” Twilight retorted. Sunset blinked before putting a hand on Twilight and pushing her out of the room. “Okay, you really need to sleep.” Twilight had done her best to resist against Sunset, but it had become increasingly apparent that she was fighting a losing battle. “Goodnight, princess!” Nathan called out, a rather weak ‘I'm not a princess’ could be heard from the other side of the door in response. Sighing, Nate tried moving his limbs again to no avail. “So… how can I help you?” He called out. “Mostly wanna know what you're capable of to your knowledge,” Sunset said. “I can blow a hole through a five inch thick titanium wall, but then my body goes into a half shutdown state from overclocking my buster.” He replied, a small ding echoing from one of Twilight's machines. “I have no idea if that thing works or not, but I don't think I'm lying so…” “Buster?” “Arm cannon? The cylinder my arm turned into when I ran after the chameleon?” Nate clarified. “I'll be honest, I couldn't use it til that moment.” Another ding went off, signifying another truth. “Can your brother do that?” She continued. “His isn't as strong, nor as unstable,” The bot replied softly. “At least I hope not… will you be going back for him?” “Later. Or tomorrow. We'll see. So what else can he do?” “Variable weapon system. If its electronic, he can copy its function so long as it resembles a firearm in some way.” Sunset's eyes widened in shock. “What? How?” “Unhook me and give me my motor functions, it’ll be easier to show you.” Nate replied as he attempted to move again. Sunset shrugged and unhooked him with her magic. “So what now?” Nathan took the time to take a deep breath, sigh, and flex his limbs and fingers as he smiled. “Hang on, think I pulled a servo…” Grunting, Nathan popped his left elbow and sighed again. “Synthetic ball joints suuuck… anyway, enough of my problems, you have an arc welder or something?” He asked while stretching his knees. “Not in here.” Sunset said with a shrug. Nate gave a small bow while motioning to the door. “Lead the way, Sunset.” He said with a joking tone. It wasn't long before the pair managed to accumulate quite a few appliances and tools, setting them upon a large steel table. As Sunset readied her notes, Nathan began to toss a hand held vacuum up and down. "Well, might as well start off small right?" He asked as he leaned on the table, pointing the vacuum at Sunset. "You know, I'd make a joke, but you'd probably find it in poor taste." "From what I've heard from you so far? That's probably accurate," she replied. "Everyone's a critic…" Nathan muttered as he tossed the appliance one last time before catching it in the air. The small machine seemed to light up at his touch as golden yellow circuits began to race along his forearm and the vacuum. As the lights faded, he put the vacuum down before pointing his now shifting arm at Sunset, a crimson vacuum appearing where his forearm once was. "Huh, didn't actually think that would work," he commented as he looked down the nozzle. "Now, do you suck, or blow?" He said with a smile. Sunset gave him a deadpan expression before grabbing the vacuum and knocking him upside the head with it. Chuckling, Nathan lifted his hands up. "Sorry, sorry…" Soon, he began to examine his vacuum arm before it went off on the highest setting… and pulled his visors off his eyes. "My glasses! I can't be seen without my glasses!!" He shouted as he closed his eyes while trying to pry his visors from the nozzle. Sunset raised an eyebrow. "They're sunglasses. I doubt they help see anything unless it's bright. Plus I highly doubt you actually need glasses to see. Who'd make a robot with poor eyesight?" "Oh… right," Nate relented as he opened his eyes, while also managing to dismiss his vacuum arm. "Oh cool, it let go," Calmly, he replaced the lens over his rather brown eyes. "Next test?" He asked as he looked at a lightbulb fixture of all things. Picking the fixture up, the same light crawled along the appliance. Though this time, the appliance began the smoke as the bulb burst. "Woah! Okay, pretty sure that wasn't supposed to happen…" He said as he put down the still smoking appliance. "So you can copy machines just by touching them?" Sunset asked. "That is the general idea, yeah." Nathan replied as his forearm began to shift into a bulbous flashlight. "Does it work with other robots?" Nathan shrugged as he began lighting and dimming the bulb. "Theoretically, yeah, but they'd need a function tied to their power core like say a flamethrower or an ouroboros satellite shield." Sunset rose an eyebrow. "Really? That seems pretty specific. How do you know this if you used to be organic?" "Because I saw it happen," He replied idly as he dismissed the flashlight. "Course, the only way I'll actually know is if I checked for myself." He added as he sat on the work table. "Sure…" Sunset muttered. "So we got that out of the way. Anything else about you we should know about?" He tilted his head back as if in thought of something before snapping his fingers. "I may need my power core checked, it may or may not be an unstable mess."  "You don't know?" "Hey, this thing has been my body for a week!" He said defensively. "I guess normally I'd be having a heart attack, but I haven't exactly been pushing myself too hard." Nate added as he shrugged. "Why haven't you told Twilight?" "Why do you think I was strapped down?" He replied with a bit of snark. "She gets to see my insides and I get to know if I blow up. Win win." "And did she find anything?" "Did you see her open me up?" He replied with a smile. Sunset sighed. "Let me rephrase that. Did she find out how to fix you?" "Wouldn't be asking if she did," He replied just slightly more serious. "She was kinda focused more on my build data than my actual build." Sunset sighed. "Of course… Remind me to check it out myself later." Smiling, Nathan tilt his head back as he looked at the ceiling. "It must be late…" He muttered before looking back at Sunset. "You should probably get to bed. It's been a pretty long day."