destinystrings | Help Unwanted

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Help Unwanted

Who: Brainstorm and You!
Where: Brainstorm's Workshop, which is in a slightly-quieter portion of the Cancer district.
Summary: Come Bother the Giant Robot: The Entry.
Warnings: Brainstorm is a jerk.

Unlike most of the inhabitants of Hinoto-Ri, Brainstorm is a touch too large for the given apartments. So he's acquired himself a space that looks more like a hangar than a house, but for someone like him, it works. Most of the time, the door is shut, but today, it is open. It's not that Brainstorm wants company - it's that he expects the other visitors to break their new toys at some point or another. Organics are clumsy things, and much as he loathes to interrupt his own work and research, well. Some things just have to be done, whether he likes it or not.

That, and with spring getting into swing, it's getting warmer, and some days it's easier to just keep the door open.

Those who approach would hear the sound of tools in use - and perhaps be unlucky enough to step up when he's welding, and get a eyeful of terribly bright light. Whatever he's doing when someone draws near, though, he's too busy to notice them.

At the side of the open hangar door is sign with an arrow pointing to a roughly human-scaled stairwell. It zigzags up to a platform that will put anyone who climbs it roughly at Brainstorm's chest level - high enough to not strain their necks, but low enough to still be looked down on. There's a panel on the safety railing with a large palm-sized button on it. A digital display above it displays "Press For Assistance" in multiple languages. It appears to be considerate, but it's mostly to cut down on what he considers annoyances.

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OOC: Do come bother Brainstorm! Need something built, repaired, or if your character's curious/nosy, or whatever you wanna do!

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Samus furrows a brow at him, curious, and even amused by the giant Autobot, staring up at him. "So you are capable of feeling guilt, then? Or is it programmed into you?" She shakes her head. "I'm not here for any personal qualms."

The hunter holds up her firearm, sideways. She's not stupid enough to aim the barrel at him, of course, not that she thinks he would be threatened by something that was practically a toy compared to his arsenal.

"I'm not always able to put on my suit in the blink of an eye... When I need to walk among civilians, for instance, I'd prefer to wear this outfit. Of course I have a firearm that I carry with me for emergency situations, a paralyzer, issued by the Federation. It's supposed to fire bursts of electrical energy, and is also capable of firing a beam that can grapple onto both people and objects and administer electric shocks. Unfortunately, it's jammed, and I don't have the tools to fix it."

"Oh, I'm quite capable. Just in situations where others expect it of me, I generally feel a great deal of annoyance instead. Or amusement, in some cases."

Amusement is what shows on his face right now, though, as Samus offers her weapon and explains the problem. Where one might expect him to fly into a rant about his previous desire to get a sample of Phazon to work with being denied, and here she is looking for his help after that, he instead lowers a hand, and carefully plucks the paralyzer from her grip.

"Is that all?"

"Charming."

She lets go of the paralyzer as he grabs it, though with his sheer strength, she hardly needs to.

"I'll pay for the work that needs to be done." Samus takes a glance at his chest, noticing that the damage she'd done from their return trip was fully repaired. It really had just been body damage, luckily. She leans over the rail nonchalantly.

"... While I have you, I'm curious to know what exactly your relationship with the city's government is. You don't strike me as the cooperative or even law-abiding type. Under their direction, exactly how much freedom are they giving you?"

The paralyzer is moved to a workbench, and laid down carefully in an empty area. A swinging arm is brought around, and the device on its end is activated after a bit of calibration. Bright blue light fires out and engulfs the paralyzer for a few seconds, then fades. The gun is now much bigger, and on a scale where Brainstorm can work on it much easier.

He sets out to disassembling it as he answers Samus' question. "These days, I'm generally glorified technical support for the network, the COMPs, and whatever other high-end projects they deem as important. Long as I assist where it's needed, whatever else I do is up to me. It's a leash, but it's a fairly long one, comparatively."

Samus watches him grow her paralyzer to an enormous size curiously... "I've never seen that kind of technology before. I feel as though I should refrain from asking how it works, else I might find myself spending hours trying to wrap my head around it."

Maybe she'll ask about it another time.

The hunter straightens and gives the robot a bit of a shrug. "Compared to... this 'Autobot Code' I presume?"

"The short answer is 'mass displacement technology'. The long answer, well. I'll refrain from that." Less because Samus might not grasp it and more because it's not a concept he invented or discovered, so he's less inclined to prattle on about it. ~~And third because it's a bullshit sci-fi construct that the mun doesn't know how to explain.~~

"Yes. Ten thousand pages of arbitrary rules, regulations, and explicitly spelled-out attempts to enforce a particular system of morality. Stuffy and restricting, but it's proved to also serve as a challenge for those like myself who like to test the boundaries of it. However, being here, it is a bit nicer to have some breathing room, and actually see more than a handful of my inventions make it past prototype stage."

"... I left the Federation for similar reasons. I was never very keen on following orders. I work better on my own, under my own terms. Though I can't say it's really a question of morality versus a disdain for restriction. Glad to hear you're enjoying your stay, at least."

So he had loose morals... it was an unfortunate trait of many scientists even within the Federation itself. It was those loose morals that unintentionally put her and her fellow bounty hunters at risk to the Phazon within their bodies. But ignorant disregard for moral boundaries wasn't necessarily a trait of evil.

"... What you're saying is, your intentions aren't bad... simply irresponsible." The corners of her lips upturn in a small smirk.

There's a rather amused chuckle out of Brainstorm at Samus brings up a common point between them.

"Well, if my intentions were bad, then I'd be wearing a different badge," he answers, tapping at the red emblem on his chest. "However, I think irresponsible is a matter of perspective. Sometimes it's necessary to do bad things for the greater good, and sometimes those bad things are terribly dangerous to a lot of people."

"From what I can tell, you're less content to contribute to the greater good and far more interested in personal gain... Putting others at risk for personal gain, even if your intentions aren't meant to cause harm, is irresponsible. I agree, though... sometimes sacrifices need to be made."

She glances at the emblem on his chest, tapping her hand against the railing a little.

"... That symbol denotes your status as an Autobot?"

"Well, I certainly can't dispute that. It just so happens that helping out the greater good is a good way to aid personal gain."

The question gets a nod, then traces a few jagged lines over the top of the emblem. "Yes. Decepticons have a violet badge. Much more pointy. Those guys, they'll be more likely to squash those like you than ever give you the time of day."

"It's good to know that as unpleasant as you are, at least you'll give me the time of day." Her sarcastic tone is full of jest, though, and no true ill will. And she doesn't seem at all frightened by the prospect of fighting a giant robot.

"Decepticons... not a very subtle name for their group. You're in opposition with them, then?"

"Well, no, were you, or anyone else here to ask, I'd likely get frustrated that you'd either broken your COMP or somehow lacked the ability to tell time and make it well-known," Brainstorm snarks right back - though he's serious. "Still a better alternative to being stepped on, I suppose."

"We are, or were, or...something. At this point it's all rather complicated - but no, they're not subtle in the least. We're all Cybertronians, but we've had this nasty little civil war thing going on for about four million years. It's supposed to be over now, but when you've been at war for this long, it's rather difficult to stop old habits, y'know?"

Samus just shakes her head at him slowly. "At least when I'm being stepped on, I'm perfectly aware of the intentions of the one who's trying to step on me. Your intentions and motivations are nearly impossible to pin-point." Even now she has no idea where they stand with one another. She still didn't trust him, or even really like him, but she didn't hate him either.

"... What exactly were you conflicted over that could last for four million years?" Samus was actually... somewhat appalled that a conflict could last for so terribly long.

"Well, those are my business, not yours or anyone else's - so I'm quite happy to leave you in the dark on that front," Brainstorm answers as he pops the case on Samus' weapon. "Just because they're not bad doesn't mean I'm obligated to tell people."

The question gets a shrug. "Politics, mostly - questionable leadership led to revolution and it just sort of...kept going. And when you're a race that's as long-lived as mine, things tend to drag on. Granted, by the time it ended, the original reasons for it were long-gone."

Samus grits her teeth in annoyance at that. It was just frustrating, not knowing what he was up to... "Fine, I'll leave you to your own business, though I hope you don't take it personally when I admit that I really can't trust you while your motivations remain so utterly ambiguous." There's a bit of a bitter smile in her tone as she says this. She lets the issue go, though, a little more interested to hear about the war that ravaged his race.

"... I've seen worlds torn apart by civil war in the past. I won't begin to try and understand what drove your race to so many millenia of war, but for the sake of your sanity, I hope you're done fighting it." She ponders his past for a moment. "...Are you a scientist or a soldier?"

"Well, obviously," Brainstorm begins to answer, poking about a bit within the insides of the gun. "It's a logical conclusion - I'm not one of those leaky-fuel-pump types that's going to get my wires in a twist just because some organic that hardly knows me thinks I'm untrustworthy as a person."

He scoffs a bit at the war commentary. "I'm no Decepticon, but I feel I took to the situation better than a fair number of my comrades. As for what I am - some of both, but mostly scientist."

"It sounds to me as though at least one of your sides isn't ready to make peace yet. I would hate to see the damage caused if one of your Decepticons arrived in the city... Though I feel as though it would fall to me to prevent it. I agree though, you certainly seem more like a scientist than a soldier... you don't come off to me as a fighter."

She leans over the railing a bit more to try and get a glance at her paralyzer. "How badly damaged is it?"

"Well, no. Decepticons aren't exactly known for their ability to cooperate and be decent 'bots. Quite the stubborn lot, really. I mean sure, there's the odd one here and there that defects or generally is okay to talk to, but they're more the exception that proves the rule, really. Hopefully if any of them show up, it'll be the odd ones. Though I suppose I should work on having something on hand to deal with such a situation non-lethally... While I'm more at home in a lab, I can go in the field if necessary, though I don't particularly like to."

He pauses in his work, bringing up the holo-interface of his COMP to make that as a note on what appears to be a very long list of projects. Given the language they're listed in is Cybertronian, though, they can't be read.

"Not badly," Brainstorm answers once he closes the interface, and picks some bits out of the firing mechanism. "You weren't kidding about it being jammed."

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