Echo falls for Queslin? http://forums.megatokyo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB8&Number=380887#Post380887 Tue Feb 05 2002 12:44 AM [!--OOC: one thing to keep in mind is that Echo thinks much faster than a normal human, by orders of magnitude. So even though this post is very wordy (which is just my style, I can't help it), it actually happens *very* quickly. Apologies, also, if I'm being too technical. Others need not take anywhere near this much care when writing for Echo. I'm just obsessed. Dammit, Squee, there you go almost ruining one of my best gags. It's all in good fun, tho. I'm having a blast. Nothing a bit of creativity can't work out.--] . Echo stood staring at his shoes. That part was obvious. What those around him couldn't see was the reflex reaction that had, inside, seized his whole system. "You know, Echo, this whole process would work a lot easier if you'd just kiss her..." Yukiko chimed. Somewhere in the mess of program threads and data accessing that had so recently been Echo's Emotional Engine, his audio input was still functioning. He felt his skin tone modulators kick in. Apparently, his speech recognition process was responding, too. [I]"I really [B]hate[/B] older sisters,"[/I] a small part of him thought silently. An outburst from Wizard of Kitty distracted the attention of those gathered from the awkward pair. Kitty was suddenly the center of attention, and she didn't like it. "So Queslin, I guess you gave up on Phaedrus eh?" she tried to switch the subject back. While Queslin attempted to explain to WoK, Echo, spurred by a reflex that was new to him, shot the young girl a deadly look. She cowered behind BG. All eyes returned to the two 'bots standing in the middle of a pool of light from a streetlamp. Echo, still frozen, felt himself blush even more deeply. "I..." began Queslin. But then the driver software for his legs faulted under the system strain, and he fell backwards, flat on his ass. His eyes shut. It wasn't a malfunction, really. Mostly his system was just tied up with data access. He was pulling massive amounts of data out of long-term storage. Interaction framework 7A (that's 122 in decimal), a new one he'd never used before. Just below his thin, jet-black ponytail there was a control stick attached, right at the base of skull. It *chirp*ed. To everyone who was watching, only a couple seconds had elapsed since he had fallen. Echo sat up, opening his eyes to see concrete slabs from the street drifting lazily through the sky, which was now purple. Wizard of Kitty was suspended in the air below the new skyway, shifting forms between girl and neko. Then for a moment, everything went fuzzy. [I]"Woah, that's one hell of a mode select,"[/I] he thought. He shook his head, generally confused, overwhelmed by the amount of data in the framework he had just loaded, and more than a bit high to boot. Damn his reflexive mode-selects, he thought. If Queslin hadn't said that bit about the kiss not being required he would've been fine, clueless, blissfully unaware of this new situation. But noooo... Now his system knew, and so it tried to adapt. To the watchers barely a second had passed since he sat up. _Quinn chuckled in spite of himself. He had a good idea of what was going on. Echo searched the newly loaded data, desperately pouring through all the info and man [!--OOC: short for manual--] files that had come with the framework he'd loaded. And one thought process kept nudging him as he read. Actually there was a lot more than one: fear, doubt, uncertainty, wonder, giddy excitement, euphoric joy, all at once. But the loudest process, in the voice of a certain young neko-sorceress, said only one thing. "Phaedrus". For a robot newly in what you might loosely term "love", the next logical action in an anime world would be to hunt down Phaedrus and kill him, thereby winning Queslin's affection. Luckily for the poet however, for Sony that kind of thinking was a lawsuit just waiting to happen. So the person who had been given this framework to write was instructed to take a much more conservative track... Yes, she had shown an interest in Phaedrus the last time Echo had seen her. As best as he knew, some sort of relationship had grown between the two, too. And that would have to be respected. Another process shoved something in his metaphorical face. Namely, what Queslin had said just moments ago to WoK. His system barely managed to catch it between all the data-reading it was doing at the time, but perhaps this matter would be more simple to work out than he thought. Other processes were again getting CPU time, and he remembered WolfDead. Shoot. How could something have a higher priority than his new mode? They had fixed Yukiko, his purpose with these people was done with, on to more "interesting" things, right? But these friends and acquaintances of his had walked out of Sony, talking of saving the world again, and he had just followed them... Dammit, that must be it. He had slipped into his hero mode again, and it was still running in parallel with this new mode. Even with the software upgrades he'd received after Church of Miho, that stupid hero mode was hard to detect. And of course the mode's built-in nobility demanded that his damnable "heroic quest" be the most important priority, no matter what. It was now five seconds after his mode select had finished, and he had sat up. Things were going to start getting socially awkward if he delayed any longer, a sub-process informed him. Clearly, he and Queslin were going to have to have a rather long discussion at some point... One of the things he had read about "Mode 7A" was that it *didn't* go away easily. He stood and smiled at Queslin. "Awwwwwww..." Echo shot an annoyed glance at Yukiko. It was the first time since the kiss, save for an involuntary glare at WoK, that he'd chanced a look at anything but the ground or Queslin. Both Jones and Alek seemed to have their own concerns, and were only half paying attention. _Quinn smirked. Boy that irritated Echo, almost as much as Yukiko did. BG stood behind Yukiko, his arms around her. Both wore identical Cheshire grins. Kitty, thankfully no longer unsure of her proper form, peeked out from behind the pair, smiling as though she were trying to beat BG at his own game. [I]"Bakas,"[/I] Echo thought harshly. He turned away and walked over to Queslin, who stepped back a pace in embarrassment, cheeks still colored as though her systems were on full meltdown. Echo reached for her hand, and made sure the motion was fast enough that she'd never have a chance to pull that away too. He did, however, make sure to grab it lightly enough so as not to bruise anything. Another fleeting second passed as Echo desperately talked at Queslin through her nano-link. He hoped to make her understand, at least partially, about his new mode, his already-active hero mode, and the massive conflict in his programming it was causing. And he didn't want to hurt her feelings either, he made sure to add that... He released her hand. . [!--OOC: Apologies for only doing character work here, but I felt that this issue needed a proper dealing with. I dunno if Squee or anyone else has anything to add. We seem kinda stuck in just character work right now, so I've left Echo ready to move out and continue our quest, leaving his new mode to be resolved at a later time (as we go along, or in an epilogue, whatever). Action and events will be the topic of my musings tomorrow at work, so hopefully I'll have some way to actually advance our goal tomorrow night. Arg, Squee, I'd been wondering if this was where you were going to take Queslin after she discovered she was a 'bot. Be expecting a PM from me tomorrow afternoon (East-coast America's tomorrow, that is). So many things to consider, so many interesting possibilities... ^_^ --]