Room 307, Tuesday Afternoon

[dollpocalypse]

In preparation for his portal tomorrow morning, Topher was cleaning his room -- no. Topher was organizing his room, and it was turning out to be a surprisingly horrifying process.

The thing was that he was, on the surface, a very neat person. His clean clothes were always folded because that's how the dry-cleaners left them and there was rarely visible stuff on the floor of his side of the room besides wires. However, that was only because all of the stuff that was on the floor inevitably got shoved under his desk or bed or into his closet so he wouldn't have to see it all the time. Having a mess was fine, but having to look at it was quite another. No, thank you.

Unfortunately, packing for the summer meant that he finally did have to deal with this mess, which led to situations like, for instance, Topher crouching beside his bed, squinting at the mess underneath it, and asking aloud, "Is that a shirt or a possum?"

He wasn't a hundred percent sure, and it was a rather alarming concern to have, so to avoid having to go near the maybe-possum, Topher decided to abandon his half-packed bags for right now and perch himself on top of his desk with his laptop in his lap, where he began modifying Broca II's code so that he could go check it out. Robot dogs were useful that way.

[[open door, open post! probably his last on-island dorm post until fall.]]

Comments

[ultron_junior]

"Oh." Victor frowned. "I kinda figured the people who programmed her were sadists. Or they had a really sick sense of humor."

Seriously, was this who Topher wanted to work for?

[dollpocalypse]

Topher made bad professional choices. It was a thing.

"Wh-- but she was so cool!" Topher insisted. "All badass and mean and stuff. What's wrong with that?"

[ultron_junior]

"She was trying to make us think she was going to kill us," Victor pointed out. "I mean, obviously she can't do that during gym class, but outside Fandom maybe people wouldn't know that. I dunno, maybe I just ... don't get the joke."

[dollpocalypse]

"Fear's a good motivator?" Topher tried, then wondered why that sounded like something Peter would say. "I don't know; I'm sure people who go through testing at the actual facility have to sign, like, releases and shit and get notified that it's all safe, or whatever."

[ultron_junior]

"Yeah, but ...." Victor frowned. "They're good at what they do, but I don't think they're ... good. Ethically speaking."

[dollpocalypse]

"Oh." That got an interesting look out of Topher. It was a slightly uncertain, 'I'm not sure if I should care about this' sort of look.

Paaaause.

"I think it'll be okay," he decided. "I'll, uh, keep you posted."

[ultron_junior]

Victor rubbed his forehead. "Sorry," he apologized. "You're all excited about it and I'm being a total downer. It's great that you can do the kind of science you want to do."

Left unspoken: Even if the people you're doing it for are quite possibly homicidal dicks.

[dollpocalypse]

"Nah, it's cool," Topher assured him, waving a hand. "You know, different priorities and whathaveyou."

Because that was what placing value on ethics was about, sure. Priorities.

"So any new stuff going on with you lately?"

[ultron_junior]

Victor glanced off to the side. "You ever talked about what's going to happen with Billy after you guys graduate?"

Oh, God. He was about to talk about feelings to Topher Brink. He already knew this was a horrible idea.

[dollpocalypse]

"Not at length," Topher said after a moment of thinking about it. "Or maybe at all." It didn't really seem like the kind of thing that he'd remember, if he was honest with himself. "Why?"

[ultron_junior]

"Had to talk about it with Olive yesterday," Victor said, already wincing. "Pretty sure we decided to break up."

Long distance relationships were a horrible thing, Victor thought. Why did people have to graduate?

"So I'm kind of ... yeah. Depressed."

[dollpocalypse]

"Wh--" Don't ask 'who,' Topher. Don't do it. Fortunately, he seemed to remember who Olive was just in time. "Oh. That blows, man."

He assumed. It didn't seem like the hugest deal in the world to Topher personally, but the word 'depressed' was a big clue. And this was him trying his hardest to relate and sympathize.

"Um... want snacks? I have, like, way too many semi-perishable snacks to fit in my suitcase, so you can hang on to those if you want? Or, oh! Want an affectionate robot dog sidekick for a few weeks? They have dogs for depressed people; I read online that that's a thing."

Broca did seem to like Victor.

[ultron_junior]

That blows, man was actually pretty good, all things considered. At least Topher hadn't called her Apple or something.

"I can take snacks," Victor said. Crunchy things were always good, right? "And ... you sure you wanna give up Broca for the summer?"

[dollpocalypse]

"Eh. It might be mean to subject him to Ohio," Topher said with a shrug. "You don't have to, though. ...I wonder if I could give him lasers. For... some reason."

[ultron_junior]

Victor leaned way over to scritch the top of Broca's head. "Do you want lasers, boy?" he asked the dog. "Lasers that come out of your eyes?"

Broca did not seem inclined to answer, unless wriggling was answering.

[dollpocalypse]

"I think that's a yes," Topher hypothesized. "But. I think he'd mostly use the lasers to wreck my room."

So.

[ultron_junior]

"So there's a down side," Victor said. "... yeah, I can take him. May as well have something to distract me, right?"

Best reason to temporarily take on a pet ever!

[dollpocalypse]

"Thanks, 'cause I'm still not a hundred percent sure whether he'd even be okay with lasers, temperature-wise," Topher said, unhooking the robot dog from the wires connecting him to Topher's laptop and handing him over. "Also, robot dude, robot dog... kind of sounds like a kid's comic in the making."

[ultron_junior]

"Way too much like one," Victor acknowledged. "But as long as I stay out of costume and don't rename him Doggimus Maximus or anything, we can be good."

[dollpocalypse]

"Or 'Olive,'" Topher put in. "Pretty sure that would fall under unhealthy break-up strategies."

Which he knew sooooooo much about. Oh wait, no.

[ultron_junior]

"... and also be totally disgusting," Victor said firmly. "Do people do that?"

[dollpocalypse]

"Dunno." Topher shrugged. "Pretty sure you're the only person I know who's broken up with someone before."

That probably wasn't reassuring.

"Oh, well, there's -- no, that's a video game character."

In his defense, Topher at least had the decency to look awkward after that.

[ultron_junior]

"No kidding?" Topher's friends were apparently the luckiest people on earth.

Or they didn't discuss their relationships with Topher.

"I've been through it before. This time's a little better. Nobody hates my guts, so..."

[dollpocalypse]

Probably the latter, yeah.

"Hey, that's good!" Topher said encouragingly. "Why'd you break up, anyway? Did she just turn really annoying?"

[ultron_junior]

"She didn't do anything," Victor said, eyes sliding closed. "Nobody did anything. Just -- she's going to be in college, man. In her L.A., which is not my L.A. Seemed like we were doomed, so why wait until I really screw it up?"