Day 51: Lunch

[sanguinario]

Edward was glad to wake up to a period of respite. While he had been conscious during breakfast, he'd requested to remain in his room for extra "sleep", which had consisted waiting until the room was vacated to ingest the vial of Venom's blood. The vampire had lost his chance last night, but that might have been for the better; this way he wasn't

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[selfnighted]

"Afraid it's poisoned, or just the way it tastes?" Maya plunked her plate down and then tilted her head, swishing her hair over her shoulder.

After picking up her paper flower (she'd decided to keep it, after all), she'd walked quickly out of the Arts and Crafts room, keeping an eye out for Kivat the 2nd before a nurse caught up with her and escorted her to the cafeteria. There, the nurse insisted on piling Maya's plate with food, despite Maya's intention not to eat any of it. When she'd finally sat down (which had also been "suggested" by the nurse, as if Maya couldn't find someone on her own-unless this nurse had seen her with Rei and didn't want Maya bothering other young patients), Maya was just a little bit frazzled.

"You have the look of someone who'd know. Are the nurses always this overbearing?" The food, while it smelled pretty nice, did not look appetizing in the slightest. There was no fruit, either, to brighten up the dull palette of colors the meal consisted of. Maya sighed, and picked up her fork. It wasn't even silver, she thought morosely.

[arc_wrench]

HK's head snapped up to focus on the newly arrived female meatbag, with an abruptness and snap to the motion rarely seen in meatbags. That was probably for a reason, and related to the reason why his back felt crunchy much of the time.

"Answer: If you were, meatbag, to find yourself stuck in a strange body, with fuel intake requirements that you had never been forced to even consider before, and said intake methods required physically mashing the fuel and then stuffing it down a tube you'd prefer not to have either, you would act suspicious of the dead meatbag product as well," he replied, following his usual rule that one should never use a handful of words when one could use a truckload. "Addendum: And if said fueling process carried a risk of fuel going into your air intakes," he muttered, setting down the meat-cake-etc-etc on his tray.

"Affirmative: If by 'overbearing' you mean possessing of all of the subtlety and processing power of a stunned Bantha, then yes." Except for his. She was somewhere down around the level of that scummy stuff that built up in between the treads on his feet when he was on Nar Shadda.

[selfnighted]

Well, that was a...vehement answer. Filled with a myriad of odd forms of speaking. Maya took a moment to interpret it all; the words were so antithesis to her own interests. 'Fuel intake requirements,' honestly. "...I take it you haven't had a good day."

Well, at least she didn't have to worry about tiptoeing on glass, the way it'd felt with Haseo and Rei. But perhaps merely a different type of tiptoeing was required here: she could guess that her interlocutor was not likely to take kindly to implications that he might truly be insane: Haseo had certainly not taken it well, though it hadn't been Maya's intentions to imply such. Still, Maya had seen very little evidence so far that this was more than a normal insane asylum, and the question of Maya's own sanity depended on who was doing the judging.

"Well," she added, putting on her polite, slightly teasing smile. "Thank you for the affirmative. But I don't think I've heard of a Bantha before. What is it?"

[arc_wrench]

"Statement: On the contrary, my day has been relatively unimpeded by the indignities that meatbags generally seem keen to heap upon former droids." No, he'd reserved the heaping on of indignities for a fellow former droid, but Depth Charge had made comments before that had needed answering in kind. In incredibly wince-worthy kind. "However, this is still within the spectrum of days that one can have when stuck in a meatbag body and knowing via experience that there is a better option. Hence, the dislike of refueling practices."

"Description: Banthas are large quadrupedal meatbags, between 2.5 and 5 meters in height, covered in long, fairly unpleasant-smelling fur. They are also posessing of a large pair of spiral horns, which seem to be produced in favor of developing a brain," HK replied, returning the smile with an utter lack of expression, characteristic of one unused to having a face. "I would estimate that each Bantha only has three neurons per brain: Two to disagree with each other and the third to wander off somewhere and obsess over procreation." Actually, that was a fairly accurate description of the mental state of just about any meatbag, come to think of it. Eurgh.

[selfnighted]

Maya paused for a long moment. To ask if he'd been this 'droid' thing would probably be inviting the same measure of scorn he was using to speak of...others? 'Meatbags'? Did that mean human, or was it merely what it sounded like? The description of the things called Banthas didn't make it out to be very human-like (particularly the horns), so...probably the latter.

"Are taste-buds that terrible?" Maya asked instead. "Unless it's something else you object to?" On a whim, Maya added, "Chewing, perhaps?"

Droid...Maya wasn't intentionally trying to be difficult and catch any inconsistencies, but it was a very curious state to find oneself in. It was even possible that the droid-to-human process was much like the human camouflage that Fangire used...except, of course, that Fangire did it intentionally. "How did that come about, getting stuck in that...body?"

[arc_wrench]

"Answer: Chewing, swallowing, digestion..." What came after digestion wasn't going to even be mentioned. "One exception is made for chocolate. Chocolate can stay." That was quite possibly the one thing he would ever admit to preferring over being a droid: being able to eat chocolate.

"Statement: By booting up here. That is all I know. The meatbags in charge of this place somehow transferred my personality and memory cores fairly completely." As far as he could tell. The file organization in these squishy brains was terrible.

[selfnighted]

"...Sounds like a hassle," Maya answered. Though...chocolate? Heh. Different tastes, and such.... "Do you-No, I mean, do we get much of that here?" Maya found chocolate too sweet, but if such indulgences were...well, indulged here, it might not be so bad. But of course, that depended on what she asked for, but at the very least it wasn't entirely Spartan. Though she supposed the food might be indicative of this, going entirely by how much the nurse had piled onto her plate.

...And he didn't know. "Is that so?" Was that truth, or fabrication? Maya didn't remember how'd she'd gotten here either, which was a point in favor of what he'd said. But there was still a nagging feeling.... "Ah, what's your name? I'm Maya. Pleasure to meet you."

[arc_wrench]

"Statement: You have no idea. Correction: Well. You do, but you don't seem to have gone noticeably insane from it yet." Had HK just admitted insanity? Probably not. Droid exceptionalism was the rule for him. "And unfortunately, we do not. The best chance to get it is to steal it on one of the weekly trips to the meatbag nesting area not fit of the designation of 'town'."

"Affirmative: Yes, as I just said. Query: Do your audio receptors need recalibration?" Why did meatbags seem so fond of asking questions confirming what they'd just heard? He'd been stuck as one for weeks now and he hadn't experienced any auditory hallucinations that would create a need to ask for confirmation of something he'd just been told. "Statement: My designation is HK-47, assassin droid and property of Darth Revan, Dark Lord of the Sith." The last part was tacked on just to ensure the meatbag didn't get any funny ideas, and maybe out of just a little adoration for his unfortunately absent maker.

[selfnighted]

"Oh? Would you tell me about these weekly trips?" Oh yes, definitely time to plan ahead. Although... "And would you tell me what day it is? I've lost track."

Maya stopped herself from asking if 'HK-47' was some kind of alternate name for the Institute, as, going by his previous sentence, he'd probably say something about her audio receptors again. And with the mention of droid, it was very likely his name. Or something to that effect, but in truth, it was a simple task to avoid saying his name at all. She'd only need it to talk about him, whether it was to herself or to others. It was no matter.

"What are your assassinations like?" she asked instead. Weren't assassins usually trained in getting out of homes and places? This might be a fruitful line of conversation.

[arc_wrench]

"Statement: They are to a local meatbag settlement, which seems mostly under the control of the Institute." He wasn't sure if the zombies had been part of the deal, but they were fun, anyway! "At night, there are undead meatbags. They make for excellent practice." Well, not so much practice as killing spree, but still.

His favorite topic! ...Too bad someone started yelling before he could get any further than "Stateme--". He turned his neck to a look over his shoulder, head turned to an angle that was a few degrees shy of impossible, watching the meatbag rant. Once it was done he called out "Decision: Six out of ten, meatbag! You need to work on inserting more applause lines! And your heroic stance on the table isn't silly enough!"