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Characters:Jetfire , @marie Location: Jetfire's Lab Content Warnings: Minor Swearing Plot Summary: Marie takes it upon herself to explore her surroundings at the bot base and stumbles, quite literally, upon Jetfire.
Marie was lost. At least...she thought she was. In hindsight, choosing a random direction and going on an adventure may not have been the best idea. Still...it had been interesting. With aliens living on the base, they had left traces of themselves everywhere, and it was weird.
She'd just turned a corner when she came across a door. There was a pause as she considered the likelihood of it being someone's room...well, that meant someone to point her in the right direction. With this in mind, she stepped up to it, fully ready to knock and not expecting it to just...hiss open.
She stopped, staring. It was dark inside. Nobody home? No, wait, she heard movement. Then there was this flash of light and- oh Lord Almighty she was blind!
With a noise of surprise and discomfort, she staggered back a few steps, slapping a hand over her eyes to protect them from further exposure.
"What the hell...?" she muttered, trying to rub away the spots left on her retinas.
Of course the lights had been off. Jetfire had turned them off just a few moments prior. He'd been up in his lab for the past few days with minimal social interaction, to be expected. Making the most of his time on Earth, and a functioning laboratory, he'd taken it upon himself to develop an array of new upgrades for the Autobots to take advantage of. The compound coating the set of aircraft wings hanging in a suspension field in the center of the lab was but the most recent development.
Jetfire was never a fan of cold construction, despite being a cold construct himself, so the judicious application of cutting-edge upgrades was something of a relaxing hobby. Luckily for his body, this new paint wasn't invasive at all; it was paint, plain and simple. Granted, it reacted differently under varying wavelengths of light, but it was paint nonetheless.
The Autobot's specially modified optics watched as the wings vanished under complete darkness, just as they had vanished when the lights had been on. The one thing he hadn't anticipated was the tiny pained noises coming from the lab doors just as he switched the UV lights on. He turned his head to miss seeing the wings become visible under a shorter wavelength of light, instead peering at the obviously distressed human. Jetfire flipped the switch mounted on the wall beside him, and the chamber was flooded with every-day visible light, just as the wings vanished into nothingness once more.
"You know you should always knock. I might've been indecent in here."
Marie's hand was still over her eyes, but, she had a general sense of when the lights came on. Hearing the voice, she removed her hand and instinctively looked up.
Holy shit! That was the biggest robot she'd ever seen! He had to be twice the size of the others! Though, being as small as she was in comparison, it was hard to tell.
Still, her awe didn't keep her from spouting the first thing that came to mind. Or rather, perhaps it was because of her slightly muddled state that she blurted:
"Did I almost catch you naked or something?"
The regret hit immediately, made obvious when she slapped her hand over her face yet again, this time in mortification.
"Oh god, I'm so sorry. That was inappropriate," she looked up again, "I was walking by and the door just opened so I looked in and there was this flash and then you turned the lights on and you're, like, huge so I just-" she stopped again, taking a breath, "Yes. Rambling. Again, sorry. It's been a long few days. Next time, I'll knock, Mr...?"
She trailed off, inquiring after this particular alien's name. Was she supposed to call him 'mister'? Was there some sort of alien equivalent? Did they use honorifics at all? Good grief, her head was going to explode if she kept wondering about cultural differences at every turn.
As far as Jetfire was concerned, the word naked had two separate connotations for humans and cybertronians. For the sake of simplicity, he went with the former. Jetfire brushed a hand down his right side, the one closest to Marie, "I happen to be always naked. We don't wear clothes, you see. Much too difficult to transform in, too."
The human's mixture of confusion and embarrassment was practically palpable. She really didn't need to overreact so much; Jetfire was about the least sensitive bot on base, to boot. "Jetfire, but Mister Jetfire was my father's name. You can call me Jetfire," he replied with a smile. Smarm was one area he excelled in, however.
He waved a hand dismissively at the girl's apology, not needing one for such a trivial accident in his optics. Perhaps locking his lab door in the middle of a photosensitive test would be prudent next time, though. "And don't worry about the door, you didn't set off any light sensitive materials or hazardous compounds or anything like that."
Marie wasn't sure what she had expected to happen, but the robot straight up answering her blurted question was not it. She stared at him for a moment, taking in the very simplistic way he did so. He just...kinda explained and moved on. Which was definitely a relief. And hey, now she had some information about cultural perceptions-
A surprised laugh escaped her when he introduced himself. It was such an...Earthly introduction. She'd expected some kind of weird name followed by like, a rank or something. Not...that. It was only her surprise that kept her from dissolving into full laughter. He was so...chill.
"I'm Marie," she returned, "Were you...doing an experiment?"
'Light sensitive materials' and 'hazardous compounds' were definitely what she had labeled 'science speak'. And, while she had avoided all things math and science like the plague in her school years, she was curious.
At least she was curious about his work, if only by not knowing exactly what it was. Jetfire needed a bit of social interaction while he worked, lest he turn into Perceptor with a set of wings. Marie seemed to be responding well to how Jetfire worded his English, he noticed. His knack of picking up languages was still second to none, by his own metric. Jetfire flourished with his arms, drawing Marie's attention the haphazard maze of lab equipment ranging in size from tiny to absurd.
"I just so happen to be," he answered, taking a moment to point to the center space between a pair of circular devices mounted on both the floor and ceiling. By all accounts he was pointing at absolutely nothing, just an empty patch of air. It wasn't until the Autobot reached out to flick the empty space was it revealed to not be just that. A dull twang resonated from Jetfire's point of contact, once again revealing there to be more than met the eye.
"Stealth paint, my dear Marie. I've been trying to create a cloak that doesn't drain energy like a light bender, and doesn't need light to function either." It took a moment for Jetfire to register the fact he was talking to a human who likely had no concept of what he was talking about. So he rephrased the last portion, "A light bender does what its name implies, and can render the user invisible, I should add."
Marie looked around, her eyes drawn by the large mech's gesture. Definitely a lab. She took a few more steps inside, almost involuntarily. She'd come to terms with the fact that her life now involved giant alien robots on a regular basis, and, well, she was a curious person. The offer of seeing real alien tech was too much to turn down.
Her gaze darted to the empty space, expression morphing into a frown. Then, he tapped the seemingly empty air and it turned to surprised awe.
"Badass..." she murmured, forcing herself to stop where she was.
He hadn't actually invited her in, after all. And...she was still a little wary about being stepped on.
She was smart. And she'd read more than a few sci-fi and fantasy novels over the years. Apply science fiction and...
"So...a light bender...shifts the light in the air around someone to make...a hologram?" she trailed off in a question, taking a stab at it, "How does this work, then? I don't think you matched the paint to the background," she motioned toward the far wall.
Jetfire's optics perked. Was she truly interested in his work? She seemed to have a solid grasp on the general concept, which he hadn't initially expected from a human. This was wonderful! Smiling, Jetfire quickly fired up the holographic display from his primary research terminal, showing a myriad of complex equations layered on top of one another, all in an indecipherable alien language of course. That particular detail slipped the flier's mind in his elation.
"The light bender is essentially two components: a microcomputer, and a projector. The microcomputer passively scans the environment around the user in order to construct a three dimensional map of the surrounding area. It takes in a massive amount of raw data which it then uses to construct an image around itself, so that if viewed from any angle it would appear that there's only empty space." Jetfire took a 'breath', before continuing, "But to work at all, the light bender's projector needs a substantial amount of light to bend. They don't work at all in low-light conditions, and they can be disabled by specialized equipment. Which is why I've been developing this here stealth-paint." He pointed once again to the empty field of space hanging in the center of the room.
"It's mostly a specialized chemical compound that reacts to light by allowing photons to pass straight through it, but I won't bore you with the details about..." Finally catching up to his lapse in judgement, Jetfire's smile quickly vanished. He shut off the holographic mathematics display, looking back to Marie, "It only just occurred to me that you can't read Neocybex."
Marie stared at him for a moment, a bit wide eyed. She'd never thought she'd think this...but this bot was actually kinda cute. Not in a physical way, he was too big and metallic and 'oh god please don't squish me', but in a 'let me spew my nerdiness at you' way. And he was a nerd. This bot, she could relate to. He was probably used to people giving him glazed-over stares when he really got going too.
She was also very impressed by how he managed to convert whatever the hell that was on the computer over there into understandable sentences. This guy was good. Seriously, he needed to consider becoming a professor and saving all the unfortunate souls who passed through mandatory science courses in college.
Marie drifted closer, slowly overcoming her anxiety of, well, hugeness. His mention of her inability to read their language caused her to huff slightly. She planted her hands on her hips, staring at where the display had been.
"Yeah, and it's incredibly vexing. At this moment, most likely, I'm the only linguist on the planet who has the opportunity to study your language at an up close and personal level and I don't even know where to start to do so. I mean, it looks similar to many of the languages that use Sanskrit or characters to convey full ideas, but, that can be misleading..." she paused, a gleam entering her eye. Then, she looked up at him, "Is that the case? That each character is its own idea? Or is each a separate part of a fuller alphabet? And are there variations depending on context and case endings? Rules and such that apply? Do you have case endings? That would make it very similar to the old runic alphabets in-"
She stopped, flushing when she realized that she'd begun to speak very quickly, firing off questions one after the other.
"Sorry. I've...been dying to get my hands on something substantial enough to give me a foothold."
Jetfire listened along at Marie's linguistic-rooted problems, only to find himself drawn in to them. He was by no means a linguist, but he was the only source of knowledge on the subject for the moment. He was hardly sure if they even had a proper language specialist on staff. They had a habit of picking up languages mighty quickly, anyway. Hesitantly, he switched the display back on, only this time the scientist configured it to read out alphabetically derived equations instead of the purely mathematical.
"Well, our modern language is a lot like your alphabet," he pointed to each individual character, continuing. "We used to base most of our older languages on larger meanings carried by general symbols. Nobody I know actually practices the primal vernacular anymore, however. I've always been interested in learning it, though I'm usually too busy with work, or being almost shot out of the air to bother."
"We actually have a few learning guides for Neocybex on file somewhere... though they're a bit dated; we learn languages like they're binary, you see. English wasn't too difficult."
The bot before her might as well have handed her the holy grail. As soon as the display came up and he began to explain, a bit of color returned to her face, her eyes brightened, and she stood up just a little straighter. After all the alien nonsense and being attacked and having to settle in here...she'd found someone who was willing to meet her on a level that she understood.
She moved closer to the screen, and further into the lab, without really realizing it. They had guides for learning?! That was all that mattered at the moment.
"That would be amazing! You, sir, are wonderful. And I'm insanely jealous," she said, eyes tracing over the characters on the screen, "To just be able to...absorb a language like that would make my field, well...obsolete, really. But in the best way!" she frowned slightly, "That probably makes no sense..."
She caught herself again. Speaking of making no sense....her smile turned sheepish.
"I'm sorry...I totally just wandered in here uninvited and interrupted your work and then went off on a random tangent. I should probably go and let you get back to it..."
"I'd invite you to watch... but, the purpose of the experiment is sort've for you to not be able to watch." Jetfire felt a little bad, now. Marie was no scientist so he didn't imagine she'd show too much interest in what was literally alien to her. He stepped back over to his computer, and popped out a small disk from it. It was a human-sized disc, as most of his equipment was originally human in origin, lucky for Marie.
"Here," he offered. "I'm violating a few regulations by giving you this, but what the hell. I can't deny a curious mind. But, if anyone asks, you stole those from me." Encoded within was a short, though informative lexicon of modern Cybertronian. Half of it had been hastily translated into English for her sake, but it was far better than nothing. Jetfire imagined that to her, it might've been everything.
Marie nodded. Made sense. Though, what he was working on sounded badass. And holy crap it was alien technology. How many people got to sit in a room with an alien scientist working on alien tech?
All thoughts about what he was working on came to a screeching halt when he offered her the disk. Her expression lit up like a child that had just received a new bicycle at Christmas. It was in that moment that Jetfire officially became the coolest alien ever.
No longer worried about the extreme size difference and the way he towered above her, Marie darted to his feet to receive the disk.
"Oh my god! Thank you! You're amazing!"
She didn't even know what was on it yet, but, he was giving her something.
He could've just handed her the recipe for baked petrorabbit, and her response would've been exactly the same. Jetfire wouldn't have even thought of it as a prank, either; having the chance to learn about a new species's dishes and foods was always an inviting prospect. Marie wasn't a culinary expert, from what limited exposure he'd had to her so far, nor did he think she'd enjoy a mostly metal and energon meal. Still, going over Cybertronian dishes was one thing Jetfire predicted the human would like to do. Later, though.
"I'm serious though; I'm fairly certain I'm violating an accord by giving this to you. So if you ever find yourself picked up by a very judicial-looking Cybertronian, you've never heard of me."
He was hardly the worst offender of the Tyrest Accord, at least this late in the war. Learning a language could be forgiven, while weapons and armor could not. Marie didn't look like a squealer to him, but then again he'd only just met humans for the first time. Bit too early to judge.
Shoutbox
Please respect the space and don't hesitate to ask questions!
altria : please dont be dead?
Jun 14, 2023 22:40:34 GMT
Partia: Is this still alive?
Dec 17, 2022 6:02:02 GMT
Partia: Is this still alive?
Dec 17, 2022 6:01:34 GMT
Aug 13, 2020 16:26:13 GMT
Sept 14, 2019 18:53:42 GMT
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