#there are two components: a vocoder implant and code

[whatwooshkai]

Lucky Number 7!

"Designation?"

"Chase."

Chase keeps his finials pinned flat against his helm, doorwings wide and fanned to keep the bot behind him from getting too close, which they have been for the past five minutes.

He has a vibroknife in his subspace. He'd rather not use it- you can only make a first impression once.

The femme flips through a datapad until her optics go wide. "Oh," she murmurs, the dangling jewelry from her finials making a loud ting! when they flatten to her helm. "Oh, you're one of those. Hang on."

Chase's optic twitches. He is normally very good at keeping his emotions in check, and no one who knows him has ever seen his temper, and that's the way he wants to keep it.

But if one more bot refers to him as "one of those" he's going to do something stupid.

Chase hates doing stupid things.

"Okay, I got you right here!" The femme gives him a sheepish smile as she hands over a pair of keycards. "There was an issue with organizing the dorms this year. Normally you'd be put with other bots in your track but you ended up in the randomized group, so you'll be staying with a few bots from other tracks. That's not a problem, is it?"

Chase's finials lift slightly away from his helm. "That is fine," he says, accepting the cards. That is... probably for the best, actually. "Thank you."

"No problem!" the femme says brightly. "So you're in room 704. Elevators are on your left. Next!"

Chase shuffles away from the table, readjusting the bag he has slung over his shoulder, eyeing the key cards in his hand.

Primus, when was the last time he met new people?

The elevator is blessedly empty when he steps inside, and so is the hallway as he follows it down to his room. Well, he was in one of the last groups to check in, so that's expected.

The door has four slots for name tags, as all of the ones in this hallway do. Only two have been filled in so far, for mechs "Boulder" and "Heatwave". Both have little drawings on them, one better than the other's. However, both seem to have identical handwriting... interesting.

So it seems only two have checked in. Maybe he'll have a choice of berth, then.

Chase swipes the key card and gently opens the door.

There's two sets of bunk berths, a desk in front and behind each one. None seem to have been claimed, but on the left, there's a bag tossed on the top bunk and a few posters plastered up already, and some blankets and pillows piled up. And on the left, there's a bag on the bottom bunk, and-

Oh. He's being glared at.

"Another one?" the mech mutters, green optics narrowed at Chase. He's orange a white, with a scar cutting down through one optic. He looks about Chase's age. "'Oh, we'll get you your own room, Blades'! my aft. Mechs walking in every five minutes," he huffs.

Chase frowns. "The attitude is hardly appropriate," he says, and the mech's optics suddenly go wide, as if he thought Chase couldn't hear him.

He mutters something unintelligible and then turns over on his side, revealing a pair of rotors. A flight frame, then.

Blades. His name wasn't on the door.

Chase looks around at the other bags. So his choice has been made for him, then. As usual.

He sets his bag down on the berth to the left, projecting his calendar up on the wall. And then he sits.

He's not really sure what to do now. Conversation is not really an option, what with the less-than-warm welcome, and he has no need to explore the city he grew up in.

Well, that’s a bit of a stretch. He mostly grew up in various facilities around the city, but he spent enough time out on the streets to know it.

Besides… he’d really rather not risk running into his batch. Not alone, at least.

Even though his coding cries for them, his frame hurts without them, he couldn’t get out of berth for several days after they were officially separated-

He’s better now. He has to be better.

He’s never had to try and make new friends. He’s never had to make friends, period. Chase can’t remember the last time he met someone new before this week.

But it can’t be that hard, can it? Sure, this Blades is… hostile… but maybe the others are a little more friendly!

Speaking of- someone decides to kick the door open at that very moment.

Blades looks up, and slight relief teeks through his field as he lies back down. So one of the mechs on the door, then.

Heatwave, he imagines- only because the mech is hot.

He stops a few feet from Chase once he lays optics on him, but Chase can feel the heat he gives off from here. That has to be unnatural, surely. Even Ultra Magnus, the largest mech he’s ever met, did not give off that much heat.

Beyond the odd temperature, the mech looks friendly enough. He’s red, with bright and warm yellow optics, and twin scars cutting up one cheek. In his arms are a plethora of cubes and energon sweets, several shoved in his mouth as well.

He mumbles something Chase can’t make out around the food in his mouth, then tosses a cube at Blades. The flight frame mutters some kind of thanks, and the mech turns back to Chase.

He shuffles his items into one arm and offers a hand to Chase. He once again speaks, presumably introducing himself, but Chase can’t understand a word he says.

He takes his hand and shakes it. “You really shouldn’t speak with your mouth full,” he says.

Yellow optics narrow at him. “I’ll do whatever the fuck I want,” he snaps. There’s a thick accent there that the universal translator is doing its best to suppress. “I asked for your name.”

Chase’s doorwings flick and the mech’s optics only follow them for a second before training on Chase’s face again. “Chase,” he says. “I will have to ask you for yours again, I did not understand you. Also, please let go of my hand.”

“Heatwave.” A correct guess, then. Chase’s doorwings raise slightly, but Heatwave’s gaze doesn’t shift to them again. Instead, he keeps his optics trained on Chase’s face, who looks away from the optic contact. He does release Chase’s hand, though. “You should check out the mess hall,” he says, moving his quarry back to both arms. “Never seen so much fuel in my life.”

Chase watches him in mild fascination as he figures out how to climb the ladder of the bunk without dropping any of the cubes, and from there Chase can’t see what he does with them.

So he’s expected to go collect his own ration. Good to know.

…He should be trying to make more conversation, right? Blades might be a lost cause but Heatwave at least introduced himself.

He just… doesn’t know what to do from here. Should he ask what track Heatwave is in? He can guess, from the paint job, but would Heatwave even entertain that? He’s sure he knows what Chase is here for, and has thankfully not said anything derogatory about it… yet.

It’s not wrong to expect it to happen eventually, right?

Then he realizes something. “Where are the washracks?”

Heatwave leans out over the top of the bunk. “Hallway.”

Chase frowns. “Why?”

“What, never been in a communal wash rack before?” Heatwave asks, an oddly aggressive tone to his voice. “This ain’t no prissy enforcer academy, Chase. You’ll hafta get used to other mechs in your space.”

Oh, that accent is really coming out now. Chase wishes he could place it. “It is not a problem,” he growls, though it is… not ideal. The idea of sharing washracks with anyone other than his batch makes his plating crawl. He doesn’t appreciate the attitude, though.

“Whatever you say.” Heatwave leans back.

Okay. So far, his roommates are violently antisocial and rude. Wonderful.

It is now that the fourth roommate decides to show themselves, and Chase braces himself for the worst.

They gently push the door open, holding a datapad. They’re green and far more heavyset than any of the others, though Heatwave comes close. Blue optics widen at him. “Hello,” they say, in very thickly accented Common.

No universal translator, then. Interesting.

“Hello,” Chase says back, offering his hand. “Chase.”

“Boulder.” So that’s all four. Good. “I am… stop by for my datapad. Good to meet you.”

“And you.” Primus almighty, Chase wishes he’d met someone who wasn’t Iaconian before today, because all these new accents, and he can’t place a single one. Maybe if he knew what their mother language is, he could speak to them better? “If you speak in your native language, I can still understand it,” Chase says, tapping his throat.

“I know,” Boulder says. “But I like to make the effort.”

“Okay.”

Boulder turns away from him and grabs the datapad from their bag, before offering everyone a wave and leaving again.

Chase sits down on his berth again. Boulder seems nice.

…This might not be so bad.

[madmeks]

“Function”

Figured I'd repost this short flash fic I wrote about an Explorator OC of mine; Techpriest 77.

NOW

VAGABOND-CLASS FREIGHTER 'EQUINOX' ROGUE TRADER VESSEL BONDED TO THE ROXTON DYNASTY SIX WEEKS OUT FROM FOOTFALL STATION

"Is he alive?"

Lord-Captain Roxton stood in the ruins of the auxiliary enginarium, surrounded by the detritus of the failed mutiny.

Hours ago, some scabrous bilge-rat by the name of Krooker had gotten it into his head that he could take on the scion of a Rogue Trader House and come out clean. He'd been preaching rebellion amongst the plasma conduit crews for days, and finally escalated when he murdered a chief petty officer and took one of the ship's enginseers hostage. Krooker'd demanded the Equinox return to Footfall station, claiming the laws of the void had been broken in the vessel venturing into the edges of the Koronus Expanse.

Roxton's grandfather had shown him how to deal with mutineers. The Lord-Captain had been fully prepared to vent the engineering compartments and give Krooker and his conspirators to the void, but his Explorator had objections.

The Rogue Trader watched that same Explorator now. The hunchbacked techpriest shuffled forward to kneel over the fallen enginseer that had been hit by lasgun fire when they took back the compartment. His red robes shifted as a mechadendrite snaked forward and connected to a node on the enginseer's temple. A string of binary blatted from underneath the low hanging red hood.

"Techpriest? Is the enginseer alive?"

The hood shifted in Roxton's direction, two amber points visible in the shadows. More machine language echoed from the aging vocoder bolted onto the techpriest's clavicle, before stuttering out as he reconfigured his voicebox to standard Imperial.

"Does it live, Lord-Captain Roxton?" Techpriest Seventy-seven asked.

* * *

THEN

GOLIATH-CLASS FACTORY SHIP 'DELTA-AJAX NINER ("CELESTIAL COLLECTOR")' ADEPTUS MECHANICUS VESSEL

"Initializing."

It was the first word he said, and at the same time he tried to open his eyes, but his flesh eyes were no longer there.

"Beginning acti~bzzzt~vation and diagnost~bzzt~ sequence," he continued, but the words didn't come from a mouth anymore. Instead they were issuing from an ancient vocodor a servitor was affixing to his neck. He couldn't see the automaton in the traditional sense, but a visual sensor had winked on at the end of a questing mechadendtrite that uncoiled from his machine harness. That data streamed in and took a moment to process.

A voice echoed from somewhere behind him, filtered through its own machine voicebox.

"Damage to organic components is consistent with containment failure of Mark XXXV Magnacore Pattern Plasma Gun issued to 512th Cadian Orbital Defense Regiment. Enginseer Adept, was the weapon recovered?"

The darkness behind him was too deep to see the asker of the question. The pict-capture sensor on the mechadendrite was a newer model and the picture was a green-tinged haze in his vision.

"Wh-wh-wh~bzzt~. Where am I? Who am I?"

"Your moniker record was not recovered from the orbital defense station. However the inception code of your cyber-mantle is Epsilon Sextans dash Seventy-Seven," a soft squeal of ones and zeros accompanied the statement, and the voice continued. "Query repeats: Was the weapon recovered?"

Half-remembered images swirled around his head. Seventy-seven? Weapon?

"I...I was assisting Guardsman Zev. The plasma gun, it ~bzzt~it..."

"As Engineseer attached to the Cadian 512th, the keeping of the Omnisiah's holy technology was your responsibility. Was the weapon recovered after fusion containment failed?"

The swirling images in his mind were moving faster now, coalescing into the edge of panic.

"Containment failure?"

Behind him, the voice blatted out a dissatisfied string of code, "Cognitive abilities have degraded due to damage to organic components. Preparing calculus logi upgrade. Bring forth the cortex implants."

Panic rose fully now. Sharp and urgent.

"Wait! I ~bzzt~ I can still...~bzzt~"

"The Rite of Pure Thought will commence soon, Brother Seventy-seven. The sacred cranial circuitry will replace the weakness of the flesh, and you will rejoice in your newfound freedom."

His hastily installed vocodor trilled static now, too overwhelmed by his jumbled thoughts to translate words.

"Peace, Brother Seventy-seven. Your inception code will be re-entered in the Liber Adeptus Mechanicus, and you will serve the Omnissiah."

Servo-skulls drifted forward and began the work. Seventy-seven's vocodor continued to hiss and buzz as the magos behind him directed their progress.

Later. Much later by the record of his internal chronometer, Seventy-seven became aware of more as his systems were brought fully online. The panic was gone. The fear was gone. There was barely any emotion at all now. Just the filtered calculations of his implants as they took in data and processed it.

Newly-installed visual sensors replaced the eyes the exploding plasma gun had burned away, and his auditory pickups rebooted to hear the magos reporting on him to his superiors.

"Systems have been activated and engaged," the magos relayed. "All operations are now within normal parameters, high one. Cortex implants have been installed, Mars-pattern. Tertius Standard Template Construct."

The higher ranking mechanicus techpriests gathered around to examine Seventy-seven, "Does it live?."

The magos sent a stream of code hissing through his voicebox.

"It functions."

Electronic voices rose around Seventy-seven in exultation.

"Cog and Gear! Praise the Omnissiah!"

* * *

NOW

"Does it live, Lord-Captain?" Techpriest Seventy-seven asked again.

Roxton huffed impatiently, "That's what I asked. The whole reason we came down to these decks is to rescue your enginseer. Is he alive?"

Seventy-seven dropped his hooded gaze down to the fallen mechanicus adept. After a moment he decoupled his data ports from the still body and rose stiffly to his feet.

"Organic processes have ceased to function. The flesh was weak. I will order the remains sent to the crew reclamation facility to salvage the Omnissiah's holy tech from the corpse."

"Emperor's bones! What a waste!" Roxton snarled as he turned on his heel and stalked off.

Seventy-seven dropped his gaze again to the dead Enginseer as he sent his servo-skull familiar to begin preparations.

"It does not function."