text | un: asogi

[karumic]

Hello, everyone. My name is Kazuma Asogi and I am another recent arrival to the base.

I have a question regarding the care of certain technological devices. Is there anywhere I could take them to be repaired?

Comments

[groupiedrifter]

A lot of people might call this a lost cause, my guy.

Me? I always get whatever I say I can fix fixed. Come sit, kick up your feet — have some Pringles. They're pizza-flavored. Total delicacy of earth, if you're unfamiliar.

[He rambles as he walks the sad collection of robot bits over to his work desk.]

[karumic]

[Well, Kazuma is relieved to hear this? He thinks? At the very least, this Newton Gieszler seems willing to help him and has recovered from his earlier distress. He'll take whatever positives he can get. All he can do now is just keep following Newt aimlessly until the situation makes sense again.

...He also stops to take a crisp, since Newt is offering. He isn't sure what he expects it to taste like, but it isn't whatever actually hits his mouth; instead it's salty, and tomato-y, somehow. The future is so weird.

Kazuma tries to keep the weird expression off his face as he finishes the "Pringle," hoping Newt won't notice or be offended if he does.]

About how long do you expect this to take?

[groupiedrifter]

[Newton clicks his tongue, studying the sad heap in front of him for just a moment before he begins to collect some tools — a soldering iron, some scraps of metal, the usual nuts and bolts and wires with the extravagantly over-the-top collection of wire clippers and the like (rolled up in a very nerdy tool-carrying burrito).]

Hmmm. I think I can get everything pieced back together in — thirty minutes? Give or take, depending on how clean the cuts are and how small the wiring is. It’s not like this thing is a Jaeger armament, so it won’t be criminally lengthy.

[He’s already scalping the shell off, revealing the different pieces inside.]

Oh shit, there are pennies in here. Where’d it even find pennies?

[Welcome to the show. It’s like in olden times when people watched surgeons perform from a theater room.]

[karumic]

[He could probably just leave Newt be at this point, but Kazuma does actually look over Newt's shoulder with some interest, watching him work. Chattiness aside, Newt's tinkering reminds Kazuma of when Susato would take apart her father's watches, and he's fascinated in spite of himself.

Maybe he can even learn something, even if he has no idea what he's looking at.]

What exactly is the purpose of these things? Why were you so upset when I brought it in?

[groupiedrifter]

Because it's a cute little cleaning robot, and you bullied it!

[Which is to say, Newton Geiszler gives non-sentient objects agency and individuality in his head. Well, if the roomba really is just a basic robot in function with limited AI. Jury's out!

Newt, meanwhile, seems more than okay with being studied from over the shoulder.

He was, believe it or not, a college professor. I know.]

In less passionate terms: it's a robot built for cleaning up living spaces. These there? They sweep up dust and debris and this is where the litter goes. It's got a special navigation algorithm called 'VSLAM' that identifies landmarks on ceilings and distances between one wall to the next. The little chip that handles that happens to be split in half, but don't worry — I got a replacement I can recode and put in there.