[video] she totally just tried to kill that robot but it didn't work

[untiemyhands]

[There isn't a person shown on the feed; the unique bobbing motion of the camera quickly betrays this as being recorded from a first person view. Someone observant may note that the person filming this is either rather young, rather short, or both - the view's closer to the ground than your average adult.

It starts out trained on one of the standard design service robots that largely populate the Sagittarius ward, and follows it at a lagging pace for a while as it performs some inscrutable task of maintenance on a series of structural supports. A delicate hand raises into view, palm outstretched towards the robot, almost looking expectant for something to happen - but nothing does. Eventually, Klara gives up on the chase and sits down, and her disused voice is revealed when she speaks in a sulking tone:]

What does it even move from? There's no blood in it! There is no pulse.

Comments

voice;

[tangentlion]

Ugh. Is everyone in this city so zetta stupid? It's a robot, zero!

[video]

[untiemyhands]

That word means as much to me as an Odong would mean to you. Thanks.

_{[Robot, okay. The meaning of robot has now been defined as "something that has no blood, glints like metal, and does menial labor ceaselessly."]}

[voice]

[tangentlion]

[he snorts at the word "Odong". That's a funny little bit of nonsense]

A robot is a machine. Like a car. Or a coffee maker. Or a calculator! It's made by humans and runs on a computer program, like a fake brain. That one is just trying to do its job. ... Though that outer casing would look zetta incredible as a piece of art. Heheheh...

[video]

[untiemyhands]

_{[Displays of technological prowess are all over the place in Hinoto-Ri, this she'd already witnessed and accepted - vehicles that ran far faster than the trains that traveled out to the Steppe, and buildings that dwarfed even the Polyhedron's height. But something with a mimic-brain that moved autonomously, bloodlessly, struck her as stranger and more concisely disturbing than any of that.]}

Coffee makers that take walks. Now I've seen every sight the world has to offer.

_{[Yeah she's just, going to stare at the robot as it draws farther and farther away in its work. Now she's too wary to take her eye off of it.]}

[voice]

[tangentlion]

Hehehe! It's just the same as any other machine, it just moves. Don't be so zetta freaked out, it's not going to bite you or anything.

Of course, if you really want to get rid of it, you can divide it into pieces and bring them to me.

[video]

[untiemyhands]

...

_{[Give her a moment while she sizes it up. Bachelor had taken her belongings before she'd even came to Hinoto-Ri so her gun was gone - and she'd yet to meet anyone with the scruples to supply a new one. It didn't have blood to force from the veins, but there was the Persona -]}

How many pieces? As an abstract question.

_{[It's not even living, so she can't see any harm in the action.]}

[voice]

[tangentlion]

Oh, I don't give a digit! Small enough ones that you can put them in a box or something. OH! But I want that central plate in one piece. I need its beauty.

[video]

[untiemyhands]

...Right.

_{[Beauty in a piece of metal... well, she can't see it.]}

We might speak later, if I could have my commissioner's name.

[video]

[tangentlion]

My name is Sho Minamimoto!

voice

[demifemme]

It probably runs on electricity. If you find its pulse you'll die.

[video]

[untiemyhands]

Could it kill with a touch...?!

_{[Klara scrambles to her feet upon hearing that. She takes a wide glance about for any other robots that might've come nearby in her distraction - none, right now.]}

[demifemme]

Only if it's malfunctioning? ... do you know what electricity is?

[untiemyhands]

Don't take me for a simpleton just for asking questions.

_{[Said quite snappishly.]}

I'll keep away from the broken ones. Would they spark, I wonder...

[demifemme]

Sorry, but we've had people before who didn't know about electricity.

If they spark, definitely keep away.

[voice]

[primordial]

...

Um, of course there's no blood in it. It's all metal and stuff on the inside. Robots usually don't have pulses.

[video]

[untiemyhands]

Metal outsides, metal bowels - at least there's some consistency. I guess.

_{[She's still upset that it's utterly unaffected by her power, okay.]}

You're the second that's said 'robot' to me. Are they that common?

[video]

[primordial]

Yeah, I guess...kind of creepy, in a way.

Well, back home they sort of are? There aren't too many human-shaped ones, though, mostly they just look like machines, which they pretty much are.

[video]

[untiemyhands]

I don't understand.

_{[The camera dips to stare down at Klara's boots, scuffed and worn as they are.]}

What purpose would you have, to make a mock-person?

[voice]

[primordial]

Ah, that's not a hard question to answer, honestly! Because, well, sometimes robots can do things humans can't. Like go into space and walk through fire, stuff like that. And they need to be human because they're doing jobs humans would do if they could, so they needs hands and stuff.

Also, I suppose you could say that they make them so that they see it as more than a machine...but then we're getting into philosophical stuff there, and I'm hardly the expert on that.