Some notes for the following scenes (and the remainder of the fic)- it'll be clear why it's needed. ED-E's lines incorporate two peoples' voices, and I'll still indicate some things about it in prose, but for now, read its dialogue as such: italics indicate that it's some of the phrases/entries Veronica has recorded using her own voice, bolds indicate something she recorded from Marcus.

[ 16 :: Something About a Robot Swearing ]

It wasn't long after Keene had ruined her sunglasses that there had been some repetition to the run-ins; on at least one other occasion, he'd made it a point to state that she made it difficult to resist the urge to hurt her, as if the warning was meant as some kind of courtesy.

Again, she had a hard time reading it as anything but a threat, and again, he'd turned to leave, frustrated. From then on out was when he'd become more antagonistic, having decided that, if she didn't fit, he'd do his best to drive her out of his territory. And though she tried to stay in the bungalows to accommodate, it soon became clear to her that the lack of proper heating in those buildings would require her to work with Raul on fitting at least one of them with a generator and some kind of radiator before she could stay comfortably in one. The nights on the mountain got exceedingly cold sometimes, and it had forced her to stay in the main lodge.

That she chose the bedroom strewn with electronics and old ham radios had caused Keene no end of discomfort. That, she'd had explained, Calamity's attempts to fill her in on the Nightkin's condition lending some understanding to the situation.

"He avoids that room like the plague," Calamity told her. "He says the radios amplify his others when they're around."

"Others?" Veronica said, eyebrow raising.

"Voices," Calamity said. "He calls them 'others'. Hasn't heard them as often lately, probably 'cause of the meds... but he still stays away from most electronics. They're triggering."

Veronica had admitted that it had to be rough, having to deal with that kind of affliction. Still, she couldn't resist commenting on it.

"Guess it makes sense for me to stay in that room, then," she'd remarked.

"Why do you say that?"

The scribe smiled ruefully. "Keep all the things that 'don't fit' in one place."

Calamity had apparently just assumed that it was Veronica's way of saying she was still adjusting, still having trouble finding a place within the town's social structure- or she'd just ignored the comment entirely, as she hadn't brought it up again.

Keene, though, upon finding out about the scribe's decision to take up residence in the radio room, had taken the news as a sign that she had something sinister in mind. She only took it so seriously, hoping others would dissuade him from his beliefs; sadly, she discovered that most of the mutants that liked her were ones he rarely listened to anyway. And though Lily was also Nightkin, her manner had left her more or less ostracized from the larger group, something Veronica had yet to understand completely.

Either way, it mean that, while Keene hadn't outright vocalized on regular occasions, he'd show his suspicion by watching Veronica intently every time he caught her ascending the stairs to go to her room, more so during those times ED-E was in tow. And given his apparent aversion to broadcast equipment, the eyebot had also become a source of uncertainty, uncertainty that lead straight into a confrontation that had escalated to the point of possible violence.

The reasons were ones she'd seen as a little less patently silly or as outright irrational as anything else the Nightkin had snapped at her for, but to her mind, it had been petty. Even so, the situation had given her a good idea of just how intimidating the brute could be when he had more legitimate reasons to express his dislike of her.

[...]

It all started so innocently; Veronica had kicked off the day with fine-tuning some of the tweaks she'd made to ED-E's voice recording and playback software, at which point she'd been determined to test it all out- with Marcus's help, though he wasn't informed of that little detail until she was ready to begin adding to the eyebot's voice profile.

"What's the point of this?" Marcus asked her flatly, furrowing his brow as he raised a list of phrases up to his face. "Some kind of code?"

Veronica laughed. "No. Nothing that sophisticated."

"So... what's this about?"

"I need you to read those aloud," Veronica told him. "I'm trying to build a voice profile for ED-E, here."

"A voice profile..."

"Uh huh. All it's got on it right now is some silly music and a couple old recordings."

"But these phrases..."

"I know." Veronica grinned. "They're good, right?"

By the look on his face, he didn't share her opinion. "I think there's more profanity on this page than I've ever heard you say out loud," Marcus observed dryly.

"Something about a robot swearing," Veronica said. "Just gets me, you know? Warms my heart."

"But-"

"Come on," Veronica said, tugging on the old mutant's arm- what she could get her hand around, anyway. "Just say a few of them. It'll be fun!"

"Right," he said, underwhelmed. "Fun. Saying something like-"

"Hold that thought!" Veronica interrupted, raising her hands in a 'cease' gesture, waving ED-E over to hit a button on a small control panel hidden beneath a hinged metal plate.

"-Veronica," he warned her.

They held each others' gazes for a moment; eventually, the scribe made it a point to pout at the old mutant. He was unfazed, a raise of his eyebrow prompting her to throw up her arms in surrender.

"Fiiine," she sighed, hitting another button on the panel, the eyebot responding with a series of beeps. She turned back to Marcus to say, "I promise I'll delete anything you don't like. Just- try saying one of the phrases. Please?"

"And aside from sounding like an idiot," he said, "what do I get out of this?"

"Um..." good question. "How about, uh..." Hmn.

"How about you help modify some of those old plasma rifles Calamity picked up?" he suggested.

Veronica frowned. "Marcus... you know how I feel about that."

Again, he was maddeningly unfazed. "You know," he said, nodding to the scrap of paper, "how I feel about this."

Dammit. "Spoilsport," she muttered. "Don't you guys prefer things like missile launchers, though? Gatling guns, things like that?"

"We do," he said, "but it doesn't hurt to have a variety," handing the paper back to her. "Never know what's gonna come up the mountain. Now if you don't mind-"

"Come on, Marcus," she all but whined at him, "I didn't even help Kette modify those things. I made her learn to do it on her own. All I helped her with was recharging the ammunition, and even that-"

"You taught Raul a few tricks," Marcus reminded her. "What's so different about this?"

"That doesn't count," Veronica sighed, looking at him ruefully. "He could've learned that on his own if he just-"

"Doesn't matter," he interrupted her. "Those are my terms. Take 'em or leave 'em."

Even if she knew better than to go with another round of dramatic pouting, Veronica couldn't help herself. But eventually, as with before, she relented; around here, there was little reason to be so uptight about reprisals. The mutants, unlike the NCR, had no interest in world domination or vast expansion; they just wanted to be left alone. Thus... the idea wasn't quite as riling as the one Colonel Moore had posed to her.

"Okay!" she said, raising her hands in surrender. "Alright. Have it your way. I'll work on those plasma rifles. Just-" she pushed at his hand, "read."

Considering his expression, he hadn't expected her to accept the offer. But once she had- he realized rather quickly that she was going to use her side of the bargain as leverage.

The first few test phrases had worked out better than she'd hoped, the eyebot responding to a few recorded triggers it would hopefully parse into 'phonetic algorithms,' coding that would enable anyone to say the trigger and get a response. By the time Marcus had gotten to some of the goofier phrases, however, it became clear that the so-called algorithm was a lot more squirrely than Veronica had intended it to be. Though it came as no big surprise, the spontaneity of the eyebot's comebacks made it clear that the problem could be more annoying than she thought it would be- on a variety of levels.

"You're really going to make me say I have bees in my bonnet?" Marcus asked her, thoroughly displeased, unaware that she'd had a second written page of phrases on-hand.

"I wasn't sure about it at first," Veronica told him, idly messing with the eyebot's control panel, "but I figured you wouldn't mind putting in a little extra work. You know," she smirked at him sidelong, "on account of the plasma rifles. And I think you mentioned something about recharging some spent ammunition..."

Marcus grunted irritably. "Well... I don't care how much you bribe me," he said, "I'm not saying 'junk in the trunk.'"

"Too late!" Veronica informed him cheerfully. "You just did."

He stared at her. "...Stop recording, Veronica," he growled at her.

"What's my motivation?" ED-E said.

Veronica blinked, and though highly amused at the apt response, she canted her head to look at the eyebot's speaker, as if that would somehow answer an unspoken question. "That wasn't supposed to happen," she said, raising an eyebrow.

"I have a backpack," ED-E replied, unhelpfully.

"I'm sure you do," Veronica said, grinning lopsidedly. "Alright, Marcus-"

"Polo," ED-E answered, her own voice that time, which- she had to admit, was a little weird.

That aside, the two of them looked at the eyebot incredulously.

"I'm going to spit on this thing," Marcus informed her gruffly.

Veronica laughed. "Oh, that's perfect! That's better than the one I had written down."

He paused- and eyed her, muttering under his breath. "You do that one more time and we're done here."

"Don't be so mad," Veronica sighed, looking over at him. "I'm trying to get as many phrases into this thing as possible."

"So you're, what? Hitting record every time I say something?"

"Pretty much," she said. "But that's a good thing. The more I get from you today, the less likely it'll be that I have to ask you to-"

"You're an idiot."

Marcus heh'd, a faint smile on his face. "For once," he said, "I agree with it."

Veronica squinted at the old mutant. "Very funny," she muttered, setting the eyebot to record again.

[...]

The longer the recording session had gone on, the more scattered ED-E's responses had become. It no longer seemed to be reading from its listed triggers, instead responding to any old comment spoken in its vicinity. The effect had been rather entertaining at first, hello's and how's it going's from those that greeted Veronica getting a myriad of peculiar phrases spat back at them at various intervals.

The best, though- were it not for the fact that it had turned the entire situation on its ear in the first place- had been the baffled expressions of Keene and one of his cohorts when the had eyebot stopped to announce "I have bees in my bonnet," to the both of them.

The two Nightkin watched the eyebot warily as it departed to follow Veronica up the steps, the scribe slowing to a halt as she heard the ensuing conversation. All told, she couldn't tell if they were disconcerted or just outright bemused by what had just happened.

"57 is using voices again," she heard Keene growl. "All tricks..."

...57?

"Hearing him again?" said the underling- Hacksaw, as Veronica referred to him, a name the scribe had started calling him thanks to his grating voice. "I think I heard him too this time."

Keene grunted, irritation in his voice as he spoke. "You know better than to say things like that," he said testily.

"But I heard it!" Hacksaw protested, then paused to scratch his head. "Wait. ...Does Marcus- really have a bonnet?"

Whatever Keene had to answer with, it was interrupted by an unfortunately timed bout of laughter from the staircase. Though she'd started to descend the flight of stairs with the intent of explaining what had just happened, that question was all it had taken to do Veronica in. What started as a barely contained guffaw turning into a fit of the giggles. She did her best to stop the moment she saw Keene turn to stalk towards her, stopping only once he was at the base of the stairs, the angry stare he leveled on her... Really, if looks could kill, that one could have razed the whole resort to the ground. Sadly, even that couldn't keep her from sobering entirely.

"I'm sorry," she said, honestly, hands spread in an appeal as she took a couple steps back up the stairs. "Really. I didn't meant to overhear-"

"You think this is funny?" Keene barked at her, calling the attention of everyone in the lodge to the both of them.

"Bark bark," ED-E said, Marcus's bass-tone voice made deeper by the deadpan inflection.

Veronica's heart skipped a beat at that bellow, but her smile came right back at ED-E's insertion, try as she might to keep it from happening. It was the slightly alarmed look he shot in the eyebot's direction that made her remember what Calamity had said about those 'others'- and what she'd just heard slowly started to come into context.

"You're actually hearing that," she told him, as calmly as she was able, smile fading. "It's not a voice. I had Marcus record some lines-"

"You did this to toy with me," Keene growled, advancing up the staircase, a move that forced her to backpedal. "You did, didn't you?" he shouted, picking up speed, forcing her to gracelessly scramble up the staircase in an attempt to evade whatever was coming her way. "You're the reason I'm hearing him again-"

"Keene!" Calamity's voice- coming right in time to stop the Nightkin from reaching out and seizing the scribe... probably by the neck, if that murderous expression said anything. "You need to come downstairs for a moment."

"Can it wait?" Keene snapped back at the ghoul, turning abruptly to face her. "I'm busy."

Busy. Veronica restrained a short laugh. Busy trying to turn my face inside out...

"No," Calamity said, shaking her head. "She's telling you the truth. That eyebot's been making comments all day. Everyone can hear it."

"It approached me! Spoke to me directly! She-"

"It's been doing that to everyone," Calamity said. "You're fine. Trust me. Your medication's working."

"Then it's not-"

"No." Calamity canted her head to one side, saying, "Why don't you come downstairs? We can talk about this in the infirmary."

Wisely, Veronica kept her mouth shut through the entire proceedings, only too aware- if only thanks to Keene's proximity- of just how close that had gotten to an out-and-out brawl. It made her ease a little to see him relent, the ghoul's suggestion seeming to work out in her favor.

"This isn't over," the Nightkin growled at Veronica, that baleful look leveled on her a second time before he turned to descend the staircase.

"Yay," said ED-E, the brief glance Keene made over his shoulder making the scribe wince.

Really, if she made it through the next month without dying horribly, she'd be doing alright. The next two- she wasn't all that sure she could manage without losing it, herself.