Robotnik's Fortress - What's Up, Doc?

[Leda]

Julie's mouth twisted into a frustrated scowl; she'd lost track of Isis and that creature she'd befriended some time ago, when a platoon of robots had forced them to go separate ways to remain hidden. Due to the group continually forcing her to continue on to keep out of sight, the pangolin had been unable to retrace hersteps back to where she'd split up with her partner.

All I can do now is keep going and hope to either find her or the doc, Julie thought as she continued slinking and sneaking throughout the base's corridors, which occasionally proved challenging with her mechanical arm still dead at her side. Or even a way out of here...

[Jamie Lee]

In a room not far from the direction she was sneaking toward, a roboticized pangolin huffed in annoyance at himself as he lowered his foot to the floor for what must have been the third time in the last half hour. To conform with public acceptances he'd learned how to become proficient enough with his artificial hands for whatever task he was preforming, but in his own privacy he still liked to use his feet, which through necessity he'd learned how to use as hands, to help him in multi-tasking. But this strange new mechanical body he'd had forced onto himself... He had quickly discovered his toes were now fused together and useless. He felt so... so... crippled.

He mumbled quietly to himself, pushing that out of his mind for the moment as he mulled over the data Robotnik had retrieved on those wild portals, absently wishing for one to open up under him that moment.

[Leda]

@segajulie@ Julie turned the corner and... came to a dead end. Well, a dead end with a door to one side. The pangolin's brow wrinkled. She didn't want to go back the way she'd come, but she also didn't want to blindly barge through a closed door. All these electronic sliding doors... Can't they just have a swinging door with a window on top, like in the good ol' days??

Reaching a compromise with herself, Julie pressed her organic palm against the seam where the two doors met, closing her eyes and concentrating. In the extremely minute space between the two slabs of metal, a very, very fine sand began to generate itself. The sand's grain gradually drew fatter, and in greater quantity, until finally the doors were forced apart JUST enough for her to peek a glance through.

And what she saw, to her great surprise, was Dr. Finitevus.

"Hey, Doc!!" Julie hollered, abruptly upgrading the sand to a bolder and forcing the doors the rest of the way open. As she stepped into the room, the electronic whine of a Techbot crying intruder caught her attention. The pangolin's expression soured, and without missing a beat, Julie levitated the very boulder she'd forced open the door with and slammed it into the robot. It made no other sounds.

"Doc, I've been looking all over for you!!" Julie called as she rushed to the other pangolin's side. "I'm sorry I couldn't stop those 'bots before, I was just so low on energy, and I WAS with Isis through here, but we got separated and--" Suddenly she seemed to realize that Finitevus had a certain... shine to him. Leaning around him to get a better look at his face, Julie flinched sharply with surprise. "...DOC??"

[Jamie Lee]

Finitevus' back stiffened when he'd heard the other robot's cry, his eyes bursting with light like beacons. He clamped his mouth shut before he could echo the warning.

Later! LATER! he mentally barked. I'll respond! Nothing tells me to do it right now! His fists tightened with determination, and for the moment this seemed to pacify the demands of his programming.

No sooner had he thought this though did he catch the beginnings of movement from the corner of his eye, and quickly he shot a hand up to obscure his vision as his head involuntarily turned to investigate. He spun in his chair so that his back was now facing her.

"... Don't let me see you!"

[Leda]

@segajulie@ "Doc... wha..." Julie stumbled in confusion, taking a step backwards at Finitevus' order. A million questions raced through her mind, but she had great difficulty making any of them coherent. After a moment of stuttering, she finally said, ".... What the hell happened?!"

[Jamie Lee]

The question may as well have stabbed him. His fists shook with fury and, though Julie wasn't able to see it, he face was now snarling. How to answer. How to even begin explaining? Finally he slammed one fist down on the counter and immediately flattened his palm against the surface.

"What does it look like happened?!"

[Leda]

@segajulie@ "R-Right... Sorry..." the pangolin awkwardly replied. Julie drew a blank at that moment; the sight of her boss, who had only previously had mechanical hands, as a complete robot was more than a little mentally jarring -- especially since she hadn't been in on Sally's explanation of Mobius. "Um.... Well, er... What should I do??"

[Jamie Lee]

"At the moment I have absolutely no idea," he growled in obvious frustration. "I have strict orders not to leave this room. And I can't disobey them. Robotnik is forcing me to build that portal I was gathering information for for his own personal use," his fist laying on the table tightened again. "That man has made the gravest mistake of his life!"

[Leda]

Julie blinked. The idea of Finitevus of all people being forced to do something struck her dumb for a moment. She'd always known him as the authority figure. Now some weirdo was going to tell HIM what to do?

Not on her watch.

"Where is he?" she murmured when she came back to her senses. "I can take him; just one guy can't stand up to my rocks, even without my other arm."

[Jamie Lee]

Her eagerness dulled his aggression a diminutive amount, and he couldn't help but feel a twinge of pride for himself. Unfortunately, it was quickly swept away by the reality of the situation, and he just shook his head.

"No. You'll just waste your energy and probably be caught again. You won't be any use to me if you're subjected to the same process I was. You didn't hear that princess' explanation - There are parallel versions of each of us here. And this world's Robotnik has apparently succeeded at world domination."

Finitevus lurched forward suddenly. Both of his fists clenched and his eyes were bright, a strange tinny sounding groan coming from him. I SAID I WOULD respond! LATER!

[Leda]

@segajulie@ "But... But... But I can't just leave you here!! Isn't there anything I can do? Can't you instruct me on how to reprogram you?"

[Jamie Lee]

Fini grimaced, both from his internal arguing and at Julie's statement. Her? Reprogram him? As if he, given he had any choice in the matter anyway with his current situation, would trust another person enough to tamper with the workings of his mind.

"Julie," he said, now standing up and gritting his teeth in effort. "You're disturbing my programming enough by being here. If you don't leave soon I'm going to turn around and start attacking you. And I won't be able to hold myself back."

[Leda]

@segajulie@ Julie's expression fell at Fini's comment. It felt like a betrayal to leave him behind, to not even attempt to help him, but when she got down to it, it'd be a greater crime to not do as she was told. The pangolin let out a defeated sigh. "Alright... I'm getting out of here, then. But I WILL come back for you, somehow or other. I'll find someone in this world who can help!" With that, Julie disappear back through the door in which she'd entered, an unsatisfied grimace across her face.

[Jamie Lee]

"Good girl," Finitevus muttered to himself. He took a few steps further from his chair now that he was already standing, his face scrunching with strained willfulness. Finally he stopped fighting against it and his hand slammed down onto the alarm switch. While this lifted one tremendous sized weight off him, immediately he'd involuntarily snapped around and began to search the room and investigate the trashed techbot. Not knowing where Julie had gone, and additionally having orders not to leave the room, there was little else he could do but wait for reinforcements to arrive. Assuming they didn't run into Julie along the way...

He grumbled something to himself, glancing down and placing a hand onto his mechanized belly. "Why in the world do I feel hungry?"

[Stoney]

A trio of SWATbots responded to the intruder alarm moments after Julie's departure.

The SWATbot in the lead was apparently the one in charge. It scanned the room for a moment but found no intruders present. There was a deactivated techbot however, and a functioning workerbot who could provide it with information.

The SWAT gestured for one of its subordinates to clean up the remains of the techbot while the third SWAT stand guard at the door, then turned to Finitevus for questioning.

"WORKERBOT RS-31173. STATUS REPORT."

...Okay, so maybe it wasn't quite a question. But close enough, right? It made sense anyway -- if the workerbot was damaged then its information could be potentially unreliable. Better to know that beforehand before deciding on what to tell Master Robotnik.

[Jamie Lee]

"My name is Finitevus, thank you very much. Not RS-31... whatever the rest of that number was." He said indignantly.

The robian pangolin idly glanced over at the wrecked techbot and the smashed rocks strewn around it from the boulder Julie had dropped on it. He glanced back at the SWATbot who'd addressed him and smiled, shrugging slightly. Apparently he wasn't under any obligation to be truthful toward them.

"I don't know."

[Stoney]

Logic Error. It was impossible for a robot to not be aware of their own system status. Like organics, their computer brains constantly monitored their bodies for signs of damage and reported it accordingly, but in the form of messages as opposed to pain signals. Because of this, the workerbot's answer suggested nothing so much as an unwillingness to comply with orders.

Such behavior immediately triggered a red flag in the SWATbot's AI. The workerbot was acting irregularly, indicating a malfunction of some kind. The programmed response for such a situation was to report the irregular behavior to Central Command so the workerbot could recieve repairs, and the SWATbot did so at that moment with all the speed and precision that could be expected from a computer.

A small message popped up on Robotnik's monitor, having been directed there from Snively's computer, which was currently unmanned. It informed the dictator of the problem and requested instructions on how to proceed.

[Jamie Lee]

"Wait! I'm hungry." he stated with a wide smirk. Technically it was the truth. Despite the fact he was now completely devoid of a sense of touch and probably unable to digest food, there was an unmistakable burning sensation in his abdomen which he found annoying.

Of course, he now recognized it as phantom pain. It was certainly a condition he was no stranger to (Honestly, itching palms were the worst). Shortly after giving his answer he took to humming a little tune to himself, beginning to sway back and forth, his tail jerking to and fro behind him in rhythm.

[DB]

Robotnik was quite irritated at the moment, as Snively's disappearance had left him with doing a lot of nitty gritty details. Such as dealing with something like this.

However, the detail showed that this was a special case- mainly, a pangolin shaped special case.

He should of figured that Finitevus would be difficult. Oh well, only one way to deal with it now.

With a button click Robotnik came over the com.

"What happened here?"

[Stoney]

The SWATbot straightened imperceptibly as it sent a reply to its master. "INTRUDER ALARM HAS BEEN SOUNDED BY WORKERBOT RS-31173. TECHBOT #17940 WAS FOUND DESTROYED AT ITS STATION. NO FURTHER DAMAGE PRESENT. QUESTIONING OF WORKERBOT RS-31173 SUGGESTS A MALFUNCTION." The robot played a recording of Finitevus's replies over the com.

[DB]

"There is no malfunction. Patch me through."

[AnT]

"Transmitting, sir."

Standing still, the SWATbot moved all com links over to the room where Fini is 'locked' in.

[DB]

And now, it was time to repeat himself. "What happened here?"

[Jamie Lee]

Finitevus blinked, his eyes darting quickly around the room. It took him a second or two to realize the tyrant's voice was being transmitted to him, as it had sounded like he was speaking to him in his mind.

"Hello? Testing? Is this thing on? My, what a useful little feature..." He paused long enough to fake a sound similar to clearing his throat. "What happened? Well, it seems a boulder smashed that robot you had me stationed with." There was obvious amusement in his voice.

[DB]

"And I'm assuming you know where that boulder came from. Now tell."

[Jamie Lee]

The roboticized pangolin grinned, even though Robotnik wasn't able to see it. "I didn't see anything."

[DB]

"You must of. You hit the intruder alarm."

[Jamie Lee]

"Well, yes, but I still didn't see anything."

[DB]

And there was a blank, unamused pause.

Yes, the pause itself was unamused.

Let alone the person behind it.

"I see what you did there"

"So you did not see anything. But do you know what had happened?"

[Jamie Lee]

"Of course."