Andy, Rufus - Walking on air

Who: Andy, Rufus
Where: Science deck, Rufus's Lab
When: -30 seconds before gravity de-activation…
<Snip>
"What? How do you think they get upgraded? That they do it themselves?
T'ch. Mk.10 didn't just spring out of nowhere you know. Someone had to
build the shell. Get over it. We need to put them back together any
way. They can help the crew defeat the Mollopods." Rufus said simply,
seemingly more confident now he was in his own comfort zone. Rufus
took the Bazookoid off Andy and exchanged it for a laser screwdriver.
"Here, do something useful rather than gawking. Put them back together."
<End Snip>
Andy stared at the pile of skutters almost on the verge of tears. In
the time since he had entered the lab; Andy had done nothing but take
a chem-shower then sit and stare at the horror before him. Although to
most it looked like the contents of the table was comparable to an
upturned bin (and some may argue that skutters look like that anyway).
Andy felt like he had suddenly become the descendant of a Nazi
geneticist, Dr. Frankenstein, and Michael Jackson's plastic surgeon .
He meekly picked up a skutter head and looked at it with a trembling
lower lip.
"Alas, poor Yorick; I knew him well." Rufus quickly mis-quoted
Shakespeare after stealing a quick look over to the cleaner. The
scientist was absorbed in the dart. A close by computer read-out
displayed the dart's composite and formidable security lock.
"Would you shut up?!" Andy snarled. "They're not fixable- these
skutters are DEAD. Their CPU chips are blown and need replacing!" The
Cleaner spouted quite possibly the only thing he knew that WAS wrong
with this pile of robots. It was the only reason that MK10 wouldn't
have anything to do with this heap. From what he could tell was that
these skutters weren't even in one piece, just random spare parts.
"Well then-" Rufus pointed behind him at a particularly large plastic
tray titled `CPUs' "-Go get some!"
Andy growled in frustration. It was true that he managed to scrounge
up his only three working units. 001, 099 and… 042, but the only
reason that he even got them active was that he just had to flick the
`on' button. Sure he knew how to maintain them, but such an
undertaking would only happen with one of the others standing watching
and having him do what they couldn't.
"I can't MAKE skutters! I'm a freaking CLEANER not an engineer!"
"Then what good are you?!" Rufus snapped rhetorically before turning
back to the dart. This guy was pushing him… this was the scientist's
lab and he knew where he kept the charging rod.
The Scientist rounded back on the Dart. He didn't want to admit it but
he had run into a problem. Although his computer had easily deciphered
the technology, the complexity of the security password on the
teleportation coordinates was a mere naught below an infinity code.
Had Charlie or, heck, even NSD been there he might have had a chance
to unlock it
Andy turned back, cradling his head in his hands. There was nothing
more he would like to do than to put these skutters together, but he
just didn't have the skill to do so. The Cleaner felt utterly
helpless. With a heaving sigh he began to somewhat… light headed.
Butterflies formed in his stomach as he felt like that moment of
nothingness, you know, just like when you went down an 80 degree drop
on a rollercoaster.
Only he was going up… not down.
Andy felt himself going cross eyed as the skutter parts began to float
upward along with his chair… along with himself!
"Damn it Andy!! What did you do?!" Rufus snarled as his hands clamped
onto the side of the desk. "Nothing, I didn't do anything!!" The
cleaner yelled in defence of their sudden weightlessness.
You have to understand how Rufus felt about this situation. His lab
was filled to the brink with objects labelled `Fragile'. Right now it
wasn't a problem. It would be when the gravity reactivated. Within
seconds, Rufus's lab looked like the inside of a bag of chips.
A sudden influx of high pitched squeals echoed from the battery of
hamster cages. They were escaping. Not quite unlike an acrobat/hacker
they floated up to the lock and began to chew, anti-gravity working in
tandem with their efforts. "AH, NO!!" Rufus yelled in horror.
Pushing away from the desk he propelled himself with his legs.
Unnaturally flying through the air with his arms stretched out he
caught the first Houdini imitator and pitched it back into its cage.
Andy watched the boy do his work. The sound of hamster-tossing began
to become more and more frequent as the seconds rolled by.
The cleaner's eyes inexplicably wandered over to the dart. A distant
memory of earth suddenly flickered into his mind. Pushing himself over
to the desk gently he caught the edge just before accidentally
floating past. Andy's finger tips suddenly blitzed the keyboard.
Figures trailed across the monitor. Andy smirked. "…I still got it." A
pleased mutter rolled off his tongue.
This was the last time Rufus put these vermin into minimum security
cages. From here on out all it was going to be were die-cast steel and
cabbage rations. Grabbing a wayward line of metal wire he quickly
sealed the doors closed. Unless they managed to mutate diamond-tipped
teeth, they weren't going to get out of this.
However, yet more agitation met him as he noticed nothing less than
Andy engrossed in the dart's diagnostics.
"Hey, what are you doing!?!" Quickly finding a foot hold, Rufus kicked
off and towards the cleaner. Planting his foot in Andy's lower back
before shoving him out of the way. The Scientist found himself not
looking at a dart damaged beyond repair but rather whole screens of
fully deciphered information.
Rufus turned to the man with a look of sheer disbelief. The cleaner's
face was pale, his whole domineer doing it's best to look innocent of
the resultant work. Yet the result was undeniable. This dunny scraper
had cracked a piece of Alien tech he had never even HEARD of.
"…What did you do? What buttons did you press?!" The prying began.
"Just, you know… random stuff." Andy could lie as well a sad puppy
next to a tipped over bin.
"If you didn't know what you were doing. Then why did you come near my
computer?!" Rufus couldn't believe this guy, he was like a child!
`Attention: Co-ordinates determined.' Rufus turned back to the
computer, but not before giving Andy a reprimanding glare. He would
have told the cleaner to go back to fixing the Skutters but with the
parts floating around like an astroid field it was pretty much a
write-off.
"Listen, just do… whatever it is you do and don't touch my stuff!!"
With that Andy floated off down the back of the lab feeling utterly
dejected. He took a deep breath to clam himself. It was okay, it was
better this way. Should the crew realise what he did when things got
tough. He doubted that anyone would trust him. If there was something
that had taught him was that no-one had a problem with making friends
with polite poor person, but if they realised that polite poor person
could break into their bank accounts and rob them blind. Things would
start to get awkward…
The cleaner drifted up-side down near the hamster cages. The small
army of critters were constantly trying to break free. `Heh… small
army' Andy smiled. The sudden thought of a hamster dressed in a red
cape, undies and armed with a spear leapt into his mind. `THIS… IS…
BLUE-…wait' a laser cutter floated past Andy's eyes.
He reached out for it and grabbed the cylindrical tube. `…Roughly the
size of a thumb' Andy mused. `…and look at all those leather wrist
bands.' He added, the idea began to continue.
A gloved hand reached down into the cage and hoist up a hamster with a
shaky smirk.
Well… Rufus did say he wanted help…
(Tag Rebecca!)
(OOC: Sorry about time it took for me to post this. I got lazy! And
sorry about the Skutter/making Block Rebecca; I wanted to give a
reason as to why Andy hasn't made more before now. But I somehow think
that this will be more… entertaining.)