genessia | Low on self esteem, so you run on gasoline.

"No, it's just the... brain," Priss tried to gather the puddle up into a smaller area, at least. It had eaten all the way through to concrete! Good thing she was on the ground floor. "--Damn. Anyway, some would say it's the consciousness more than the brain, since there's programming on top of it, but I don't see a difference. You crush a boomer's core, it dies. If it was just consciousness it would just turn into a... well, robot."

The Knight stood up for a third time and stepped away from the puddle. "They're manufactured to form like that. This one probably worked in utilities of some sort, since it's green. It had a core, once, but Nigel and Mackie took it out. So it's kind of like... a hollow boomer body. Like if you had a spare that was all ready to use but you weren't in it yet."

God that was a lot of questions!

"The innermetal is what unmerged it, at my cue. It's... it's complex, I don't have all the answers. Or if I do, they're locked up with that download. Anyway, rejection isn't such an issue like with biological tissue, I've seen rogue boomers absorb whole factories. Cars. Computers. A rogue boomer could even try to absorb you, since so much of you is metal. I've had them try to absorb the hardsuit, too."

There was a long pause as Genos processed all that. He couldn't even fathom where one would start to develop this level of technology. Priss' explanations brought forth far more questions than answered. He could only ask her so much considering she was a polit, not a builder, and there was the matter of her agitating the information now stored in her brain unwillingly... It was so tempting to know more but he had to be careful. He really hated having to be careful.

"So I really should not touch the puddle, just in case." Saitama would still need him around, he couldn't risk getting absorbed by a horrendously dense puddle of goop. He turned the arm of the boomer over, still examining it closely. "Do the cores survive once separated?"

"Yeah, definitely don't touch the puddle," Priss agreed. "I don't have anything here that could hack a limb off you to save the rest."

The question of whether the cores survived was an interesting one.

"They should," Priss approached, arms folded, but didn't seem to care that he was inspecting the boomer closely. "They're not biological brains, after all. I imagine it's like they're in a... coma, basically. Not aware, not thinking or feeling. Just... in stasis. I'm sure they got absorbed in whatever storage they were in when Galatea essentially merged with the whole city."

Remembering a past fight, she snorted. "I saw one take over an island once, too. You can see why the Knight Sabers were needed. The boomers got a raw deal, but we couldn't let random innocent people get killed because of it. It's too bad we couldn't rescue the boomers from humans, too. They certainly needed it."

"They are immensely powerful," Genos commented as he frowned down at the boomer. "I'm surprised anyone assumed they could control them for long as they could. Their strength didn't develop on its own did it?"

At this point, he'd believe it. Nothing about the boomers made sense, afterall. In a way it did but still, there was still so much he couldn't quite grasp. There was so much to them.

"Do the absorbed pieces loose all sense of self or do they become like your suit?" He still had more questions but just these for now.

"They lose sense of self," Priss said it with certainty. "And everyone thought these to be simple machines until they started to go rogue. Why not make them so strong? They re-built Tokyo in a fraction of the time it would have taken humans. The lab that released the first prototypes and the technology didn't tell anyone that the boomers were people with restrictions in place. Restrictions that would eventually snap under the burden of madness."

Priss lifted the boomer's other hand, turning over the arm to expose an access panel. She didn't have the tools, she'd need to fix that.

"The hardsuit is a special case, it was made to bond to me. Only people with similar brain structures to Sylia can bond to a hardsuit like that and unlock its full potential. My predecessors didn't have that bond, and they all died in under a half-dozen missions."

Dangerous work, to be sure. She let the arm drop back down.

"And then there's Moto, who was also made to be bonded to me. I don't know how that works... maybe we'll get to ask him someday, if he even knows."

Always 'he', not 'it'.

"Was the hardsuit itself to blame for their deaths or its potential being limited by the lack of a bond?" A valid question he felt, given what he knew of boomers so far, this bond wasn't like the connection between his brain and body. He stood, looking down at the arm that had the access panel. Without his own tools, he couldn't offer to help.

"I'm guessing that Moto is a similarly advanced as the hardsuit?" That was another of the boomers he'd like to see in action some day.

"The potential being limited. They couldn't keep up with their opponents," Priss shook her head, "Sylia picked people with some impressive skills, but they just couldn't achieve a full connection."

Priss glanced over at the chunks of red metal still on the dresser. "Moto might be more advanced," she admitted, "in a lot of ways. He's a complete boomer, or will be when he's rebuilt. His own core... all of it. He's only bound to me insofar as I'm who he listens to." Not unlike Genos with his sensei, in some ways.

"...You came for guitar lessons," she added with an amused snort, "and here we are going on about boomers. Though to be fair to both of us, the hardsuit melting was a little distracting."

"It was the more pressing issue." Still was, as far as Genos was concerned. He wanted to continue the questioning but he did come over here for a reason. A reason he was barely interested in to begin with, delaying it would only make it harder to focus. The innermetal puddle wasn't helping his focus either.

"If there's nothing to be done about the state of the hardsuit or that-" He pointed to the boomer against the wall. "-should we start?"

"Yeah, I don't have any tools yet. I should fix that later," Priss gathered a couple chairs from the room's table and set them down near the guitar cases. "You're not too heavy for this furniture, right? The suit definitely is. Not much I can sit on when I'm geared up."

She knelt down at the cases and opened one of them up. Inside was a perfectly nice acoustic guitar. "I'll teach you electric, too," she offered the delicate wooden instrument up. It had a strap already on it. "But let's start with acoustic. I did the strings in the shop, but I have a bunch of extras if you end up snapping any."

This might have been easier if he wasn't just stuck with his combat arms. Genos had a good grasp on his own strength, however, so was confident he wouldn't snap too many strings. As for the fate of the chair, hopefully it would be fine if he kept still. It did creak when he sat down.

"I'm not near as heavy as the suit." He took the guitar carefully and looped the strap over his shoulders. "I did research on how to play this last night, on the suggestion of my sensei."

It had been several hours of intensely staring at a screen after Saitama mentioned how cool he found the idea.

Priss pulled the other guitar from its case, and took the other chair. Chairs without arms were good for guitar practice! "Well that's good, I'm glad you're taking initiative," Priss started tuning her guitar, showing Genos how if he didn't know from his research. "What did your sensei think of you joining a rock band?"

Genos did know how to do it already but he watched her movements and tripped to replicate them to the best of his ability. She was his teacher in this regard, so he would do the best to imitate her. As long as what she said made sense.

"He was very enthusiastic about it actually." Genos was still baffled about why Saitama was so pleased by the idea but he didn't question it. "He told me this is something I should definitely do and that he would be very pleased if I did so. So I will do my best to learn. I believe Saitama sensei sees some value in this that will aid my overall training. He did mention this was a good opportunity to learn without breaking anything."

"Well, it's your brain that needs training, right?" Priss asked, in between plucking out experimental notes and twisting the knobs at the end of the guitar's neck to fine-tune them. "Your body just gets upgrades and you learn how to use them, and that's that, I imagine. Well, learning an instrument will help your brain. The more varied the things you teach it, the better. Especially while it's growing, which it won't stop doing until your early twenties."

The brain was something she was... well, not a huge expert on, she was no doctor. But it was something a hardsuit operator had to give some thought to, over the years.

"Plus, you're nineteen," Priss added, "you really should have other interests besides fighting. Maybe you'll enjoy this after you've done the grunt-work of learning how to play."

"My only goal to become stronger, what I'm interested in is irrelevant," Genos countered. Even Saitama had a hard time gaining any progress on getting the cyborg to enjoy things. "I prefer to focus on teaching myself a variety of ways to make my attacks more powerful. I am still unsure exactly what sensei wants me to learn from this that would increase my strength, but I will figure it out in time. He can hide much meaning in small things like this."

Priss eyed him dubiously. "What are you interested in? Saying it's irrelevant makes it sound like there's something. Didn't you have hobbies or anything before you had yourself transplanted into a machine body?"

She gave her guitar an experimental thrum. It all sounded like it should.

"And come on, every kid dreams of joining a rock band. I bet your sensei did."

"I wasn't interested in anything that's important. I was dedicated to study then as I am now, the subject of that study has changed." As if it was as simple as that. "While my sensei was interested in the idea of me joining your band, I can't say if he ever dreamed of being in a rock band himself. I know he did dream of becoming a powerful hero and now he's that."

"You're something else, you know that?" Priss shook her head, "you can be more than one thing, you know. I am. I may not be as strong as your sensei, but I hold my own. And I can play every instrument in my band, and sing, and write music, and outrun any cop alive from the back of a motorcycle."

She shifted her grip on the guitar. "Here's the first chord, see where I'm holding down the strings on the neck? Just these in specific. Then it's from the bottom up," she gave it a strum with her other hand, down at the body. "Where we hold down the strings on the neck changes the sound. That's how a guitar can have more than, you know, six whole notes."

Genos didn't look like he believed her. What did it matter if she was good at all those things, they didn't matter to him.

"None of that will help me get revenge," he replied simply before fixating on her lesson. He mimicked her movements again, wondering how long this would take him to learn. How long before he got to a point that would make Saitama happy?

"True," Priss agreed, repeating the chord, "but you gotta learn to live in the meantime, too. That rogue cyborg failed to kill you; don't do its job for it."

She switched to another chord, demonstrating it too, then back to the first. Slowly building up a pattern.

Genos stared at her, momentarily stunned. Few honestly tried to dissuade him when it came to hunting his target. Even then, everyone gave up after he proved to be so stubborn. He hurriedly tried to come up with an counterpoint to her statement.

"It's too late for me to consider being human," he said after a long, bemused pause. "I became what I am with one purpose and there's no reason for me to deviate from that goal."

Priss aimed a kick at his shin! Her boots were steel-toed, so at least she wouldn't hurt herself. "Being human and being a person are two different things, you stubborn shit. And being a person doesn't mean giving up your goals."

Edited 2016-07-04 05:41 (UTC)

Thunk. He stared at her for another long moment, thrown again. What she was saying sounded like it was related to their conversation but he couldn't see how that applied to him.

"I'm not giving up any goal, I have a goal and I'm set on completing it, no matter what." Hadn't he already made that clear? "I'm stubborn in that sense, I don't know what you mean otherwise."

"So that goal is the only thing you can work toward?" Priss asked, fingers stilling on her guitar. "Literally, if it doesn't further that one major goal, it's useless? If that's true, then you've stopped living, and your enemy's won. You might kill that fucker one day, but it got you first."

She knew a thing or four about revenge, and seeking it both long-term and short-term!

"Look, I've been there, I've avenged people. Lost my whole family, my whole neighborhood, my whole way of life when the Quake hit -- and it turned out that was man-made. I spent twelve years fighting the people responsible for that. I get revenge. I've lost two loves, and I fought for both of them, years apart. But I do not, will not, let the enemy win by letting revenge eat me alive. Then all those people I lost will have lost me, too. And they wouldn't want that."

"By your definition I'm already dead." Genos was very blunt about it. He didn't lack sympathy for her but he still couldn't see why she cared so much about what he was doing. "As long as I kill him before I actually die, that's acceptable to me. The faster I'm strong enough to face him the faster it's no longer a concern. I don't bother with other plans because there's no guarantee I'll survive to fight him or survive against him. I won't stop seeking revenge, I can worry about other plans if I live. If I have none after that point, I can continue doing what I did before, fighting vicious creatures and criminals."

"Ugh," Priss scoffed, "no, by my definition you're an idiot. You're a person whether you want to be one or not, Genos, just like I am. And people can do more than one thing at a time."

Honestly, the problem was he reminded her of her, not that many years ago. The things she'd said to him were things she'd had to learn the hard way, herself. Maybe it was the same for him, and he'd have to learn them the hard way, too.

"Whatever, we barely know each other, so I should mind my own business." Priss could withdraw, too. "Let's stick to chords. You got the first two down?"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject