Chapter Two~ Visitor
A/N: Ok, so, just a reminder. Hatchy talks in a halting sort of speech, which is extremely hard to portray in writing, so use your imagination. Also, Rabbit not only stutters (or as I call it, glitches), but also has a way of talking that some of the words kind of trail off, if you get my meaning. Seriously, though, Spine is the most human of all of them, for a reason. If you don't know the lore, he's like that because he was a spy during the Elephant Wars, and that comes into play later.
Also, it's absolutely crazy to me how the make-up can change the goofy (yet still handsome) David into this suave, sexy dude that reels in the fangirls. Because, let's face it, we'd all do the Spine in a heartbeat.
Anyway, until then, enjoy, my dears.
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Between shows in and around San Diego, and just the general upkeep of the band and house, Lorra often didn't get into bed until late into the night. And to top things off, she was not a morning person. So, as per usual, when Rabbit had burst into her room, chattering about breakfast and some of the ideas she had for her next outfit, Lorra just sat there for a few minutes blinking at the female bot. Eventually, she hauled herself out of bed and followed the other woman into the kitchen. Hatchworth and Spine were already in there, the latter being the gentleman and making breakfast. Lorra sat down in the chair beside her friend and put her head on her arms.
"Oh, and I ha-ha-had this great idea for my hair. I drew a-a-a picture for you this morning. See? Do you think we-e-e could do something like that before the next show? I know it's only a couple days away, but I think we could make it." She continued to poke and prod until Lorra's face rose to look at her with narrowed eyes.
Spine came up in between them. "Rabbit, you know better than to bother our dear Lorra with serious matters first thing in the morning." He said with one hand on her back, setting a cup of black coffee in front of the human.
"Spine, darling, you are a freaking saint." She muttered, grabbing the sugar bowl and the carton of milk he also set on the counter. "I'll take a look at it in a little bit, Bitty, ok? Just...let me wake up first." Her hand rubbed her face, as if she could rub the sleep away.
Rabbit stuck her hands under her legs and hunched her shoulders. Sheepishly, she cocked her head and smiled, "Sorry."
"It's fine, sweetie. Just too much too early. My brain can't keep up first thing after I wake up. I'm not a robot, remember?" A plate was placed under her nose, pancakes and eggs with a side of bacon. "Mmm." She hummed, digging in. After the first taste, she threw Spine a thumbs up. Despite being a robot, the dude could seriously cook. Something in his programming gave him the ability to know the perfect concoction of ingredients and cook time and so on. Usually, Lorra made her own breakfast; but, on mornings when he knew that she had been run ragged, he was nice enough to take the chore on himself. "Don't tell anyone I said this, but jeez, I swear you make better pancakes than my grandma."
The bot chuckled. "Your secret is safe with me," he said with a tip of his hat. "Probably less so with her." Spine pointed his thumb over his shoulder at Rabbit.
"H-h-hey!" She glitched.
"Mizz Lorra." Came another voice, a screen coming from the ceiling with a bright green happy face on it.
"Hey, Qwerty. What's up?"
"Speaking of grandma, roflmao, there's a lady at the door saying that she's yours. Should I give her a sombrero?" He chirped happily.
Lorra sat stunned for a moment, then laughed. "No, Qwerty, don't give her a sombrero. But do go ahead and let her in."
"Al-rrrighty then! Tacos it is!"
Lorra chuckled, but then sat up with wide eyes. Remembering the first time she had come to the mansion and the malfunctioning bot had 'given' her tacos. "No, Qwerty, wait! No tacos! Don't do the tacos! Qwerty?!" There was no answer. "Crap." Knocking back the rest of her coffee, Lorra stood up and started to run out of the room, followed closely by the three bots.
"Lorra! Wait!" Spine called. She skidded to a stop in the middle of the hall, nearly causing the tall guitar player to crash into her.
"What?" She asked hurriedly. His luminous green eyes glanced down at her current clothing. She was still in her pjs, a baggy t-shirt that hung off her shoulder, and a pair of sleep shorts. She was barefoot and brown hair in a messy nest. She looked down at herself, then back at him, shrugging. "Grandma has seen me in way less than this. The woman changed my diapers for Christ's sake." The woman took off again.
Rabbit looked at her brother, confused. "Why does she need diapers? I thought she had r-r-rather adequate control over her bowels."
Spine shook his head in exasperation. "She doesn't need them now, Rabbit. She was saying that her grandmother took care of her when she was a baby. Come on," he waved them back into movement, rushing after their housemate. As they rounded the corner into the foyer, they heard her exclaiming over something, then saw that it was an older woman who was covered in what they could only assume was the makings for tacos.
"I swear, I've asked him to fix that buggy bot a thousand times, but the boss is just as loony as the rest of them. Don't get me wrong, they're all great, if not a little crazy."
"Honey, don't worry about it." Said the older woman, who was brushing lettuce out of her hair. "It's not the first time I've been covered in tacos. Remind me to tell you that story sometime." Once she was clean enough, she grabbed her granddaughter up in a hug. "Oh, it's good to see you, sweetie."
"You too, Grandma. You should have told me you were coming, I would have fixed something up for breakfast. As it is, I just woke up."
"Oh? Rough night?" Her grandmother gave her a knowing grin.
Lorra laughed. "Nothing like that. I don't really have time for all that with my job. No, we had a show last night. Had to do some basic repairs on the band last night before I went to bed." She had looked behind her, seeing her friends. "Speak of the devil. Guys, come here. I want you to meet someone." The three of them did as they were bade. Spine looked over the older woman. Her hair was curly, a bright reddish brown. She was rather short, shorter than Lorra, and a bit stumpier in body shape. Her kind blue eyes smiled up at them. "This is my grandma, Jenna Marborne."
"Greetings, human who is called Grandma!" Hatchworth waved from his spot between the other two.
"He-he-hello." Rabbit glitched. Spine said nothing as he looked over the new person. There was something vaguely familiar about her...he just couldn't put his metal finger on it.
"Hi, there. I've heard all about you three. It's wonderful to finally meet you." She told them. "Lorra speaks very highly of you. I'm extremely glad to know she's getting on well here."
"Grandma," Lorra whispered. "You don't have to say stuff like that."
"Yes, I do, sweetie. These are the bots responsible for you being so happy. And if they keep you on your toes and run you enough to make you tired and sleepy, I'm not going to complain. Keeps you out of trouble."
"I don't get in trouble," Lorra pouted. Jenna patted her cheek.
"Of course you don't. Anyway, I'm rather pooped. It was a horrendously long flight and jet lag is a bitch."
"Oh! Um, Qwerty, can you make up a room for my grandmother to stay in for a while?"
"Sure thing, Mizz Lorra! How would you like it decorated? I do a great cheese theme."
"NO!" She yelled, causing everyone in the room to jump. "Ahem, no, thank you Qwerty. Just...tell me what room is available for her to sleep in. Preferably one with a bed."
"Alright." There was a moment of silence, while the screen blipped the '….' Sign at them. Then Qwerty's smiley face came back on the screen. "The room right across from yours does indeed have a bed in it, but no door."
"That's ok." Turning back to her grandmother. "We'll rig something up so that you won't be bothered when the bots come to my room. How long were you planning on staying?" She asked as she picked up the suitcases that sat behind the older woman, and they started walking away. Since said bots didn't have anything else to do, they followed them up the stairs and down the hall in the direction of Lorra's room.
"Well, I'm in town for court, so I'm going to be here for a couple weeks."
"Really? I thought you were supposed to be retired. It's a big case then?" Lorra asked her.
"Huge. Probably the biggest I've ever had. We're sure to win this one, what little evidence we have against the defendant is pretty damn incriminating."
"Are you a lawyer Mrs. Marborne?" Spine asked her, still trying to understand what it was about this woman that seemed so off.
"Indeed I am, young man." Jenna nodded. "Been practicing for forty years, won almost every single one of my cases, with just a few exceptions. I've been living in Colorado for the last few years, but every so often, I have to come out here for court. And of course to visit my beautiful grandbaby." The older woman put her long-painted-nailed hands on either side of Lorra's face and smooshed her cheeks until she looked like a fish.
"Gwamma," Lorra said through pinched lips. "Quiiit!" She finally managed to free herself from her grandmother's hands, laughing. "My room's right here, so your's is across the hall. Sorry about the door. Mr. Walter has a thing about doors. Seriously, mine is the only room with one...not that it helps any." She turned and gave Rabbit the stink eye. The AI had the sense to look sorry, even though everyone knew she wasn't. "Anyway, I've got some blankets that we can nail up on the door frame for the time being."
"Sounds good, baby girl."
Lorra turned to smile at her grandma, but her face quickly fell when she saw the woman start to sit down in a big red armchair in the hall. "DON'T SIT THERE!" She yelled, surging forward to pull her away.
"What? Why?" Jenna asked, looking around.
The younger woman was breathing hard. "Sorry. Christ, how did that chair get here? Rabbit, I thought it usually came back in the sitting room." She turned to look at the female bot.
The robot shrugged. "H-h-how the heck am I supposed to-to know? It likes to b-b-be wherever people are."
The chair started breathing, it's face coming to the surface to growl at them for not sitting on it. "Bitty?
"You go-go-got it!" Opening her mouth, her flamethrower poked out and erupted to disintegrate the piece of furniture.
"Thank you, metal lass. You have freed me." Said the giant blue head that floated above the ruined material.
Lorra shook her head. "That happens a lot. Evil chair...I don't even know." She shrugged again. "This place is a little more than loopy. You never know what you're gonna find here. Hey, Spine?"
"Yeees?" He responded, eyebrows raised.
"You mind giving us a hand getting nailing the curtains up over the door? You're the tallest."
He grinned at the woman. "Why not, I've got no other plans this morning."
Jenna helped her granddaughter to pick out two relatively thick blankets to act a barrier between her room and the hallway, finally settling on a fuzzy dark purple one and a black and green one that had geometric designs on it. The whole time they were picking, Rabbit would pull out one that was rather thin, and hold it up with a giant grin on her face, only for it to fall away when they shook their heads and told her that wasn't what they needed. Even Hatchworth attempted to help...attempted being the key word. More or less, he just wandered around pointing at random things and making strange noises. When the older human sent a questioning look to the younger, Lorra just shrugged and made a face that said 'I don't even know'. Finally, once they had the blankets picked out, Rabbit held them while Spine used the side of his hand to hammer four nails into the space above the door. With that done, he arranged them in such a way that they would overlap, and not fall off when she moved between the material. Rabbit and Lorra went back to the latter's room so she could dress, while Hatchworth disappeared off somewhere. Leaving Spine and Lorra's grandmother alone.
"You've been very helpful, Mr. Spine. Thank you so much." Jenna said, placing a hand on his chest. The contact made him a bit uncomfortable, though he didn't quite know why. It might have just been the spy-programming that P.A. Walter the first had installed back during the Elephant Wars, but he had long ago learned to listen to those hints.
Straightening up, he nodded his head. "You're welcome. It was nothing."
"But, of course it is something! You know, Lorra talks about you all the time." Spine's eyebrow rose. "Yep. All the time. Between stories of Rabbit's malfunctions, and Hatchworth's constant summoning of sandwiches and such, she always has another little tale of you helping her with those two, or some conversation that the two of you had that she thought was interesting. She sounds so happy. That's part of the reason why I came here, you see? I had to see it for myself. Truthfully, I thought she was making most of it up. I mean, how could a misfit trio of robots become better friends to her than all the humans she has known throughout her life? Seriously, she hasn't talked to any of the friends she made during high school and college since she graduated." Jenna fixed him with a serious look. "My girl has always been a social butterfly, Mr. Spine, so I don't quite understand what it is about you that seems to be more than enough for her to be comfortable not talking to anyone anymore."
"Ma'am, I think you misunderstand." Spine said, removing her hand from his chest plate. "Your granddaughter is quite a magnificent person to be able to deal with the three of us as easily as she does. And I can see where she gets it. Most people who meet us in person act as if we are nothing more than computer simulations, like Siri or something. They don't realize that we are actually true thinking beings. Maybe not necessarily alive, but we are something. You talk to me like you want information of some sort, and know that I know that. I cannot speak for Lorra as to whether or not she is truly happy here. You will have to determine that for yourself. Watch her with us, the way she works and acts around here. She may think of herself as just another worker, but to Hatchworth, Rabbit, and myself, we see her as a friend."
"Can robots even have friends?" Jenna narrowed her eyes, an expression that was oddly reminiscent of the way Lorra had done the same that very morning. "Are you programmed for that?"
"It has nothing to do with programming, Mrs. Marborne. We are artificial intelligences, we are much like humans in that our knowledge and personalities are ever expanding as we learn and experience the world. That is part of Lorra's job here, to help us learn. I think she has done a wonderful job of is in the last few months. Now, as I said, you should talk to her. I have other things to do today. Goodbye." The giant automaton nodded his head towards her, then turned around and walked back down the hallway.
It was at that point that Lorra came back out of her room with Rabbit. "Grandma? What was that all about?"
"Hmm? Oh, nothing, dear. Just having a little chat with your tall, dark, and handsome friend."
"Grandma-aa," Lorra grimaced. "Don't say stuff like that about Spine."
"The-the-the Spine does seem to be the one who g-g-g-gets all the fangirls." Rabbit input. "I suppose from a huma-ma-man perspective, my brother is pretty good loo-loo-looking."
"Not you too, Bitty." The worker rolled her eyes. "That's just weird. Anyway, Grandma, I've got some stuff to do today, if you'd like to tag along."
"Sure, why not?" Lorraine said.
"Great. Why don't we go down to the Hall of Wardrobes, and I can show you some of what I do when I'm not chasing down the bots."
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Down in one of the many HOW's (Hall of Whatever), Rabbit sat, jittery in her seat, as Lorra worked on the new headpiece the AI had described. The top of her head sat on the workbench in front of the three women, Lorra pulling off the ears and antennas, and replacing them with bubblegum pink hair and a side plate to cover the exposed parts inside. Music played as she worked, entertaining both human and bot as she did. Elle King played through the speakers she kept near for whenever she was in there working.
"Well, I had me a boy, turned him into a man. I showed him all the things he didn't understand. Whoa, and I let him go." She sang, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. "Now there's one in California who's been cursing my name, cause I found me a better lover in the UK. Hey, hey, until I made my getaway." Rabbit started to join in, but saw her brother and Hatchworth in the doorway behind her friend, Spine shaking his head with a finger to his lips. "One, two, three, they're gonna run back to me. Cause I'm the best baby that they never gotta keep. One, two, three, they gonna run back to me. They always wanna come, but they never wanna leave."
As she began the next part, Spine nodded and raised a hand for her to join the song, and the both of them started up with her. "Ex's and the oh-oh-oh's, they haunt me, like gho-o-osts, they want me to make them all. They won't let go! Ex's and oh's." Lorra and her grandmother both looked to the door to see them striding forward, not breaking song, the silver bot's voice rising in pitch to match the females and Hatchy. "I had a summer lover down in New Orleans. Kept him warm in the winter, left him frozen in the spring. My, my, how the seasons go by. I get high and I love to get low. So the hearts keep breaking, and the heads just roll. You know, that's how the story goes."
Jenna watched her granddaughter stop singing gradually, her cheeks burning bright red. Her throat seemed to be working as she stared down at the piece of metal before her. The others continued to sing, as if they had no idea that she was no longer joined in. She sat there, she noticed how Lorra's head turned ever so slightly towards the male bots behind her, but not looking at anyone. Instead, she just went on working on Rabbit's new headpiece. The others eventually trailed off as the song finished, all of them staring at their human friend.
"Lorra?" Spine piped up.
"Wha-wha-what's wrong?" Rabbit quirked her head.
"Nothing...I was just listening," she answered. "Sometimes I forget how you guys sound without all the music and fans screaming, and Steve's tech mashups."
"We sound just the same as always, silly," Hatchworth said as his body did it's usual shivering movements. Standing up on his tiptoes, he grinned and whirred. "I did not even know you could sing, Lorra-loo!"
Under her breath, Jenna chuckled. "Lorra-loo?" Spine heard her and gave her an odd look.
"Ho-ho-how did you not know that, Ha-a-atchworth? Lorra sings all-ll-ll-ll the time." The other automaton shrugged his shoulders. "Her voice is so pr-pr-pre-tty."
Lorra rolled her eyes. "My voice is no better than any of y'alls."
Spine shook his head, moving forward to put a hand on her shoulder as he sat down. "Lorra, listen to me." Her grandmother, who had been sitting at the end of the bench, sat back to watch the interaction. "We're robots. We were built to sing and perform and entertain. Having a box inside us," he pressed his long silver fingers to the center of his own chest, an action that was mirrored by the other two, "that makes nice noise and calculates the best concoctions of sounds is so much different than real, natural muscles," Spine poked Lorra's throat, "and the mental ability to hear and know the right notes." Under the cool metal end of the appendage, the human's voice box moved up and down in an attempt to say something. "You have a beautiful voice, Lorra. Better than some of the people that claim to be singers now-a-days." Lorra's lips slowly turned up in a small smile, softly thanking him for his kind words. "There we are." He whispered. "We may have to pull you out on the stage one of these days."
At that, she burst out laughing. "Yeah, ok, whatever. I don't do crowds, that's why I work backstage." Shaking off the previous low mood, Lorra grabbed the remote to her stereo and changed the song. As the new one played, she focused harder on the half-finished wardrobe piece with new vigor. "I am flesh and I am bone. Rise up, ting, ting, like glitter and gold. I've got fire in my soul, I'll rise, ting, ting, like glitter and gold. Do you walk in the valley of kings? Do you walk in the shadow of men? Who sold their lives for a dream?"
)0(
The next few days passed rather quickly for everyone in the mansion. Everyday consisted of the two women waking up to make breakfast for not only them, but the boss Peter A. Walter VI, his mother Annie, and, occasionally, Norman, the resident abomination. But, for the most part, it was just Jenna, Lorra, and the bots. After breakfast, Jenna would accompany Lorra on her rounds of tinkering on Rabbit and Hatchworth, which she found very interesting. Especially, Hatchy's glowing blue portal.
"So...you can pull anything out of it? From anywhere?" She asked, baffled.
"Indeed." Hatchworth jerkily nodded.
"Yeah, he could," Lorra rolled her eyes, trying to release a part of said sandwiches from a cog in his back. "And yet he insists on badgers and sandwiches. How the hell did you even managed to get this stuck here?"
"I'm not quite sure. Might have been the badger." He grinned. Lorra did not.
"I thought I told you to get rid of that thing! What if Marshmallow gets ahold of it?! Mr. Walter will have my head if his cat gets sick again from eating it."
"Cat?" Jenna sat forward. "I haven't seen a cat around here."
The younger woman shook her head. "You wouldn't. Marshmallow doesn't leave Mr. Walter's room or the Lounge Room of Last Resorts usually, unless it's to go use his litter box. But, believe me, you'd know if you saw him, he's huge." With a grunt, she finally managed to get the cogs unstuck and whirring again. As soon as they were moving, Hatchworth shivered and whooped.
"Well, I'll be sammiched! Thanks very much, Lorra-loo, I feel much more like my old self."
Lorra made a face at the bot, swiping a hand over her forehead, effectively smearing it with grease (not that she noticed). "That's great, Hatchy. No more badgers. I'm serious this time. Got it?"
"Got it!"
The woman shook her head and stood up from her seat. "Come on, Grandma. I gotta go check up on Spine, since he hasn't come out of his room yet." Waving Jenna out the door, up and up and up the stairs, she led her.
"And where exactly is his room? Everytime he runs off on his own, he literally disappears."
"No, he doesn't. Spine just doesn't like people bothering him in his room usually. The Hall of Wires is kinda his sanctuary."
"But you're allowed to go in whenever, right?" The red-headed woman's eyebrow raised with a secretive smile. "What if you walk in while he's undressed?"
"Grandma!" Lorra stopped walking, eyes wide. "He's a robot. It's not like he's got genitalia or anything. None of them do. Their machines. They were just designed to seem like they actually have a gender. Peter A. Walter the first was smart like that." She waved at the portrait of the founder of Walter Robotics, who had a rather severe, gaunt look about him. "Anyway, I've seen all the bots without clothes. Besides a general shape of a human body, they're all clockwork and joints. I should know, I work on said clockwork on a regular basis. Come on, it's down here."
At the end of the hall, was a door. "I thought you said none of the other rooms had doors." Jenna said, confused.
"Yeah, most of them. Spine's weird. I guess being the most human makes him value privacy more than the other two."
"The most human?"
Lorra paused with her hand raised to knock, her head fell a little. From where Jenna stood, she could see her granddaughter take a breath. "Yeah, most human." She said, turning. "You know that the group was originally made to be musicians. But, during the war, way back when, they were Walter the first refitted them to be deadly machines, capable of just about anything. Spine was changed to be more human, both in personality and appearance, so that he could be used against Becile as a spy. He retained that humanity after the war, but I think it might have messed him up a bit too."
"How so?"
Lorra shrugged. "You know how soldiers suffer from PTSD and depression? I think that Walter's tinkering may have caused Spine to have it. He worries me sometimes, which is why I like to check up on him when he's been shut up in his room all day." With that, the younger human turned and knocked on the door. There was no answer from within, so she pushed open the white wood and strode in. The inside of the room was lit with red lights and wires hung everywhere. "Spine?" Lorra called out. Jenna was trying to follow, but had to look at the floor to keep herself from tripping over the wires on the floor. "Spine, where are you?" Lorra asked.
From the ceiling came the deep voice. "Here, Lorra." Both women looked up, one in astonishment, the other with a smile. Spine's head hung down from one of the wires, but only his head...attached to a long snake-looking appendage. "What is it?" He asked.
"Just coming to check on you. You know you shouldn't be cooped up in here all day. Rabbit and Hatchworth were supposed be in the rehearsal studio in a little bit, said you had a new idea for the show at the end of the month. I figured you'd want to actually be there to tell them. Come on, buddy, get dressed and let's go." She waved at him to come down.
"Oh, alright," he said, mockingly saddened. The center of the floor opened up, and from the portal came the larger mass of The Spine. Spine himself was looking at the two women as his head was being lowered into the body, so he was quite confused when he saw Lorra look like she was choking on something, and the older woman hiding her mouth behind her hands. Once he was correctly situated within his chassis, he said, "What is it?"
Lorra said nothing, but there were tears leaking down her face in her attempt not to laugh as she pointed to his body. Spine looked down. Instead of his usual black and red suit, he found something much different. Grey skinny jeans hugged his legs, accentuating the lines and nobs, and a shiny red jacket with military tassels on the shoulders lay open, exposing his chest plates. On one hand, a single white, rhinestone glove. The women lost it. Jenna giggled behind her hand as Lorra bent over against the wall, trying not to fall over from laughing so hard. "Oh...my...GOD!" She squealed. "They turned you into Mi-Michael Jackson!" This time, she did fall to her knees, where she struggled to keep herself off the floor. "They," she gasped for breath, "They even drew chest hair!" The last part came out higher and struggling as she continued to laugh, eyes squinted close.
Very rarely did Lorra ever laugh like that, especially not because of Spine...though, it didn't quite count as her laughing because of him, because it was the handy work of the other two bots. Speaking of them, he could hear them snickering outside the door. "Ladies, if you will excuse me, I have to go find the perpetrators who have turned me into the King of Pop." At his words, the two outside stopped laughing and started running. Moving between the human women, he quickly grabbed Lorra from the ground and hauled her over his shoulder.
"Spine! What are you doing?!" She yelled, still laughing to the point that her belly was in pain. Or maybe that was because of his metal shoulder digging against her tummy. Jenna followed quickly behind, slightly confused as to what was happening, but still amused.
"Don't seem so freaked out, sweetie. I'm sure this isn't the first time something like this has happened to you."
"Grandma!" She hollered.
Spine's head spun around to look at the woman walking behind him. "I believe that one of them might have my normal clothing. I will need some help getting it back on once we find it." He said, patting her back to help her stop wheezing from giggles.
"Stop that!" She swatted at his hand. "That's not helping, you're just making me laugh some more."
"Sorry."
"No, you're not."
"No, I'm not." He agreed. Lorra looked up at her grandmother as best she could from where her head hung in the middle of Spine's back, swinging with each giant step. She held her hands up in a 'what can I do' gesture. "Qwerty? Where are Rabbit and Hatchworth hiding?"
"Lolz, in the Hall of Wax, buddy old pal, Spine-o! Shh, they told me not 2 tell u, rofl."
"Thank you, Qwerty." Spine hoisted Lorra up further on his shoulder, making her squeak in surprise.
The Hall of Wax was about what you'd think it is. Basically a Wax Museum, except there were no historical figures there. Mostly, it was sculptures of Gigi, or Marshmallow life size (not that anyone would believe it). Whatever Mr. Walter felt like making, got put in the Hall. There were a few strange things that no one really knew what they were, including a few odd purple figures of a woman that none of them knew. When asked about it, Mr Walter had shrugged it off and said "Me imagination's a bit wacky sometimes."
Moving among the figures, Spine still refused to put Lorra down. Instead, he simply shifted accordingly to avoid letting her feet or head hit anything. "Oh, Rabbit, Hatchy?" He called, faking curiosity as to where they were. "I think Lorra's in a bit of a pickle."
"Pickles are kittens," they heard from somewhere off to the right followed quickly by a shushing sound.
"Found them." Lorra said, resting her face on a fist with her elbow propped against the automaton's back. Jenna's eyebrows jumped to her hairline. "Yeah, it's that easy. These dummins can't hide for shit." As she swayed with the rhythm of Spine's gait, she elaborated. "Seriously, Spine is the only one that is even remotely a challenge when it comes to hide and seek. Ain't that right, Spiney Baby?"
"Being a spy has it's perks." Was all he said before ripping back a curtain. Behind it crouched the two missing bots. Rabbit immediately jumped up and pointed at her partner in crime.
"It was Hatchy's idea!" The male robot just looked up at them with a silly grin on his face.
"Pickles." He said, pointing to Lorra's behind atop the tall robot's shoulder.
"Yeah, Hatchy, pickles." Spine said, lowering her to the floor. Now, where in the good golly are my clothes?" Once Lorra got a look at him standing there in that silly costume with his hands on his hips, she started laughing again. Spine shot her a look, and she covered her mouth and shook her head. Lorra waved for him to continue. "Thank you. Seriously, guys, I need my real clothes. I cannot very well practice today looking like Michael Jackson."
"We put them in Lorra's room la-la-last night." Rabbit giggled.
"You what?" The woman in question stopped chuckling and stared hard at the bots. "When did you do that? And where the hell did you hide them? I sure as crap didn't see them."
Rabbit put a finger to her lips and winked secretively at her friend, "That's c-c-cuz we hid 'em reeeeal well. By-by-by the way," she gave the human a thumbs up, "nice undies."
Lorra's eyes widened in horror. "You didn't!" The now pink-haired bot's response was to giggle and twirl away. "Damn it, Rabbit!" Taking off out the door and down the hall, Lorra ran as fast as she could to locate Spine's clothes before he went hunting for them himself. Bursting into her room, she slammed and locked the door. "Damn it, damn it, damn it." The brown haired woman whispered as she dove to her knees, shoving a hand under the bed to grab the Sterilite box she kept under there.
When it was finally free from it's space, Lorra yanked it open and dug around until she found what she was looking for. Sitting on top of Spine's vest, was a black and silver lingerie set that a friend had given her as a birthday gift the week that she had been asked to join Walter Robotics. Her and that friend were both fans of the band for years, having seen them at the San Diego Zoo a couple of times, and had fallen smitten with two members of the group. Miranda had been all for Rabbit until he became a she (to be honest, it still didn't bother her all that much), while Lorra had gone more towards the tall bot; especially after he had been kind enough to help her up when a group of rowdy kids surged forward, causing her to fall in front of the band. Miranda had had the corset specially made so that the laces on the back sported smaller versions of the plates that protruded from her new friend's back. She was rather embarrassed by the gift and had never worn it; only taking it out to look at it momentarily before hiding away again. With a sigh, Lorra grabbed Spine's clothes from the box and sat back on her heels
BAM! The door slammed open behind her, making her scream and jump as she turned to see the bot in question step into her room. Hurriedly, she closed the box and shoved it back to it's hiding place. "Are you alright?" He asked.
"Fine, fine. Um, I found your clothes." Her smile was a bit drawn as she thrust the material into his hands and pushed him back out the door. Spine turned to say something, but reeled back when she slammed the door in his face.
"Well, that was odd." Spine said to himself. Behind him, he heard a feminine giggle. "Rabbit, where did you hide these?" His sister grinned at him.
"I shan't say nothing if you don't say 'please'." She sang.
"Please."
"NOTHING! Hahahaha." With that, the older bot ran down the hall, leaving him even more confused.
)0(
A/N: That's it for this chapter, darlings. Next one is a super important, so stay tuned.
AcaciaDawn105
