Chapter 24, everybody! Good news, Obake gets gainfully(?) employed.
I don't know if a messy lab truly is a mark of a brilliant mind, but it's definitely the mark of "I am busy on a tear I cannot stop right now let me finish this first I will get back to that." Also has stopped working, press any key to continue.
Okay so Krei is an interesting case in that he does a lot of scummy things, cuts corners and has apparent difficulties bringing himself to remember people's names, and apparently is even an SFIT alumni. At the same time he's not a bad guy or villain…but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy having him be the subject of needling. Big companies do make a habit of buying out the competition, example being Disney killing off Blue Sky and yes I am still and will remain salty about that and the fact that Disney is now in a ruin of their own making seems like just desserts to me. And no, from what my parents tell me consultants are usually very expensive and often tell you the same thing the people who actually work under you would say—you know, if you didn't foster an environment of fear or whatever (Disney). Also Mrs. Hasegawa from Lilo and Stitch is back! In the fic.
Hiro is quoting Shrek 2, as he points out. And the secretaries do run everything, they handle the schedules and we actually learned in Marketing class that one of their job descriptions is gatekeeper, functionally. Also I had to look up the difference between a cappuccino and a macchiato (and how to spell them) because I didn't know either, but in my case it's because I don't drink them I share Hiro's opinion of them.
In other news, blockchains by design eat up a lot of data and energy so yes they're the antithesis of eco-friendly. Also no, you don't have to watch Star Wars to know what they're about because the franchise has so permeated our culture. The do not flip switch is apparently the sort of thing that has happened with machines and computers in the past, mostly due to weird coding, and as I understand it if you want to see spaghetti coding just look at the Pokémon games—big massive games that can be rendered down to the Switch and still pretty, and yet Scarlet and Violet is "well it's the Switch what'd you expect?" *looks at Switch library, looks at past Pokémon games* Yeah that's totally it, sure.
Obake's referencing Spidey's "Wheel of Excuses" from the Ultimate Spider-Man TV show and Eda from Owl House, while Tadashi's referencing the first Jurassic Park movie and Hiro is referencing Portal. Also in "Killer App" Wasabi and Hiro test their machine in the junkyard but if it's for astronauts in zero-g how did they intend to test that? And Fred with stickers brings me joy and Obake sticking the sticker on Tadashi is the sort of thing my family does. XD From my experience at a campus college...Broadcasting majors do indeed run around in packs, screaming, the rest of us just figured they liked the noise.
in other news...learning that Hiro and Tadashi's lab was Obake's lab back in the day surprised me and made for some good writing this chapter. XD Obake's sleeping bag is in reference to the early days of Pixar, when John Lasseter would sleep under his desk so he could pop back up and go right back to work. I understand he's got a new movie coming out from Skydance, that should be cool. It's also my understanding that Bob Schooley, one of the guys who worked on both Kim Possible and Big Hero 6: The Series has "retired" from Disney so...hopefully he un-retires someplace that appreciates his talents. Also I might have mentioned it before but since Obake looks to be in his teens in the flashbacks he would be at maximum forty by the time the events of the show rolls around. Cheesy horror movies featuring worms is the Tremors series, by the way—had a college friend who really loves that series.
Juxshoa, thanks for the review! Yes he does! Yay! :D
Big Hero 6 © 2014 Disney
The next morning started off 'normal' enough, in that Tadashi was still putting everything he had into lecturing them about school.
"This is not my fault," Hiro protested. "Wasabi is just hard to work with."
"How do you figure?" Tadashi demanded.
"He wants everything clean. He stopped the whole creative process because he said the lab was too dirty!"
"Uh, half of that is my lab too and yes, it was dirty. Honestly I really appreciated being able to see the floor again."
"It was not that bad."
"A messy lab is the mark of a brilliant mind," Obake said.
"And we would trust that if it weren't for the fact that YOU don't go to school," Tadashi told him. "Start attending and prove me wrong."
"I can do that without attending, thank you." Mostly because one, Granville would most likely have a fit, and two, he had more pressing matters. Like stopping himself from destroying the city, even though Tadashi lecturing him really made that tempting…no, no, focus—of the options available, the journal was the most accessible. Theoretically. He needed more coffee, he really did, dealing with Tadashi sapped his strength first thing in the morning.
Plans to address the journal were once again put on hold by unforeseen events—this time by way of Krei.
"Alister Krei?" Hiro asked blankly when the man came in before the breakfast rush. "Ah…what are you doing here?"
"Well I saw that whole Steamer event on the news," Krei started, waving at the street.
"Yeah that was already cleaned up."
"And I couldn't help but notice the drones used to apprehend that felon—those would be a great addition to Krei Tech."
Dead silence that Obake eventually ruined by laughing.
"Oh that is not a nice laugh," Krei observed.
"No it isn't," Tadashi said. "But back to you—I'm pretty sure letting my brothers work with you is one of the last things I should do."
That sobered Obake up quickly. "What?" he asked flatly.
"Say we give you the benefit of the doubt and say you pocketed Hiro's microbot by accident—when you found it later, were you going to send it back?"
"I don't like what you're insinuating," Krei said, arms crossed.
"And then there's everything we've heard about you—"
"From Callaghan, whom I should remind you faked his own death and is in jail right now."
"Yeah, we're aware," Hiro said flatly. "And the drones are Obake's—pretty sure he's going to say no though."
Honestly Obake was still trying to reboot after failing to process Tadashi's one statement, wasn't quite ready for Krei to turn his attention to him. "Well? Can I get your confirmation on this?"
"No," he blurted—wait no think reboot this was a golden opportunity—"Besides, you mean to tell me that Krei Tech, of all places, has no security drones already in development? You don't need mine."
"Unless it's just to get yours off the market," Tadashi pointed out. "Take out the competition so it's just Krei Tech on the market."
"Callaghan tell you that too?" Krei asked him.
"Actually I learned that one from watching Disney kill off Blue Sky."
"Now we'll never get a sequel to Spies in Disguise," Hiro groused.
"So am I to understand I wasted my time coming here?" Krei asked.
"Mmm, perhaps not," Obake said, tapping his fingers to his chin. "My drones are not for sale." No need to make it easier for him to hack. "However—I wouldn't be averse to troubleshooting your drones, which I'm almost certain you have. For a fee, of course."
"Seriously?"
"Tell me I'm wrong."
Long considering silence told him he was not. "Okay fine," Krei said, waving him off. "I do have what I'm marketing as Buddy Guards that need some extra troubleshooting…I'm guessing you're cheaper than my own tech guys?"
"Consultants never are," Obake said. "But you can't afford the negative press them malfunctioning would give you."
Krei looked like he was very strenuously debating the pros and cons of this, probably decided that since he looked like a little kid, he'd be as easily manipulated. Funny. Well he couldn't deny this wouldn't be fun.
"Fine," Krei said finally. "You're hired on as a consultant. But you have to sign a contract I draw up."
"Done," Obake said drily.
"You sure you don't want to think twice about this?" Tadashi muttered at him.
"I've already considered it."
"Too late! No takebacks," Krei said, doing those stupid finger guns as he backed up—and ended up running smack into Cass.
"Oh gosh I am so sorry Mrs. Hasegawa I'll get you another cup of tea right away and you will you watch where you're…okay you're a little cute but you're still on some thin ice," Cass said, squinting at Krei.
Okay the whole meet cute thing was annoying at best and vomit-inducing at worst, but on the positive side he got the joy of watching the Hamada brothers wordlessly agree on a new person to hate.
"Seriously, Aunt Cass?" Tadashi demanded when Krei left. "There's like four million guys out there and you decide to go on a date with him?"
"You can do better," Mrs. Hasegawa agreed.
"You can do a zillion times better," Hiro insisted. "Let me and Tadashi find you someone."
"I—no wait no I can't see that not ending in disaster," Tadashi said.
"You don't know that."
"Guys it's one date," Cass said. "I'm allowed to have a social life, you know."
"You had a social life," Obake pointed out. "You just let the golden boy guilt you out of it."
It took both Cass and Tadashi a beat to figure out what he meant. "An underground cooking tournament does not count as a social life," Cass argued.
"It does if you're not a coward about it."
"Personally Keeko and I would rather you went back to it," Mrs. Hasegawa said. "You really spiced up the circuit when you were competing."
"Mrs. Hasegawa, when…how," Cass demanded.
"Little old ladies have other things to entertain themselves with besides bingo, you know."
So while all that was interesting, the actual act of going over to Krei Tech saw Obake accompanied by Hiro, possibly on Tadashi's orders.
"So I only really hired you," Krei said when they walked through the doors.
"Mr. Hamada here is my assistant," Obake said. "Unless you want me reporting you for poor employee conduct."
"Excuse me?"
"Union rules," Hiro said, before looking at Krei's assistant. "Are you feeling at all oppressed?"
"Well we don't even have dental," she said.
"They don't even have dental," Hiro muttered to Obake.
"Okay okay we'll negotiate that alongside your raise, Joni," Krei said, waving them off.
"It's Judy, actually," the assistant said. "I tell you this at least once a week."
"Better jot that down in your review too," Obake said to Hiro. "Now, Krei, I believe a lab was in the negotiations?"
"You get a lab table," Krei tried.
"Judy, do we get a lab?"
"There's one available," Judy said.
"Hey," Krei protested. "You're negotiating with me, remember?"
"We were negotiating with you," Obake told him. "But everyone knows that it's the secretaries that run everything and are therefore the ones to talk to. Isn't that right, Judy?"
"I'll take care of this, Mr. Krei, you have more important things to attend to," Judy said, leading them away. "Like figure out the difference between a cappuccino and a macchiato," she muttered once they were out of earshot.
"What is the difference?" Hiro asked Obake. "They both taste equally gross to me."
"That's because you should not drink expresso," Obake told him.
"A macchiato is mostly expresso, cappuccino is fifty-fifty," Judy told him. "Anyway, this is the lab for the Buddy Guards, you should have the place all to yourself since Mel got fired, call me if you need anything, you can use the intercom for that."
"Thank you, Judy."
"Thanks, Judy," Hiro said, waving as she left. "Boy I hope that Mel guy didn't get fired on our account."
"Better jot that down in your notes then," Obake told him, grabbing a swivel chair and heading for the nearest computer.
"Uh-huh you know I was just quoting Shrek 2 right?"
"And here I thought the union regularly hired twelve-year-olds."
"Fourteen," Hiro protested, pushing a chair over and climbing into it as Obake accessed the database. "So what are you doing, looking for the blueprints or something?"
"Or something," he said, searching Hiro Hamada. As he suspected, there was the knockoff neurotransmitter, right at the top of the list.
"Hey—hey wait a minute that's mine!" Hiro protested, recognizing it as well.
"It is? So it is. Oops," he noised, deleting the file. "Would be a shame if, in trying to recover it, I ended up scrubbing it from the database."
"Scrub it."
After deleting a few more Hamada-related files Hiro was much more open to causing problems on purpose for 'revenge,' didn't squawk when Obake found the designs for the failed energy amplifier and scrubbed them out too. Debated on saving a copy for personal use, glancing sideways at the sulking boy who had finalized them originally….
No. If I save the blueprints then there's a chance he'll find them. I can't risk it.
Or can I? If I hide it where he can't find it, or wouldn't even think to look…it seems a shame to just throw this away, especially when I know it can work….
"So what is that you're staring at anyway?" Hiro asked, finally taking note of the screen he was glaring at.
"An energy amplifier," Obake muttered, hand propping his face up as he debated.
"Seriously?" Hiro asked, perking. "That sounds cool—why would Krei be working on one? I always figured big tech guys were against eco-friendly stuff on principle."
"Oh really."
"Yeah—it's why blockchains are a thing. Fred has a whole conspiracy board."
Of course he did. "Well, it does seem a shame to leave such a thing in the hands of some horrible corrupt CEO—perhaps we liberate it?"
"Hmm, Tadashi would call it stealing."
"Like Krei stole your neurotransmitter design?"
That was the right note to hit. "Do it."
Well that cinched it. Copy that data to a thumb drive, add a few more things of interest before deleting the original copies.
"Well that's done," he said, tucking the thumb drive back in his pocket before swiveling around to look at the drones. "What say we actually do the job we're being paid for?"
"Bleh," Hiro noised. "Kinda feeling scummy about helping Krei now—especially with him trying to date Aunt Cass."
"Don't they actually have a date scheduled?"
"Don't remind me."
"Hmm, fair enough. Oh by the way, if we leave them convinced that we are working we can do a bit more poking around and looking for stuff we like."
"Pretty sure Tadashi would frown on corporate sabotage."
"Of course he would—it's why we don't tell him. Honestly, you'd think you'd never done this before."
"Uh, that's because I haven't," Hiro said—apparently thought of something, looked around. "Uhhh we aren't being recorded, are we?"
"That was the first thing I disabled. Obviously you have a lot to learn."
"Uh, no, it's you have much to learn." This said with a faux deep voice. "Seriously, have you never watched Star Wars?"
"It's Star Wars—you don't have to watch them to have seen them." As he had found out at college.
Hiro considered this. "Okay fair. Do we get to jam while we work? I've got a playlist."
"So long as you don't make a mess of this lab like you did yours."
"You haven't even seen my lab—you're just letting Tadashi's comments color your impressions."
"I've seen your room—I don't doubt that your lab is just as messy," he retorted, plugging in a Buddy Guard to examine the code. "Oh good night what fool programmed this I don't remember this being so messy."
"Do what?" Hiro asked blankly. Ah, right, wouldn't know that this was the second time he had looked through this code. Granted, he had remembered cutting straight through it before too, but the point this time around was to make that very difficult to do.
And again, Hiro didn't need to know any of this.
"Here, look at this," he opted to say instead, scooting over a bit so Hiro could look at the hardlight screen. "Look at this spaghetti coding I wouldn't be surprised if there's a switch on the side of all of these that says do not flip."
"Oh boy," Hiro agreed. "That looks like some coding I tried when I was like, five. That's terrible."
Obake sighed, picking at the keyboard. "Well I know where we're starting, at least."
The next several days really had nothing to report other than Honey Lemon's video of Mochi clapping going viral (whatever that meant) and Fred dragging Gogo to some show that had her plotting murder at the café the next morning. Obake offered to help her hide the body when it came to that, which had earned him a scolding from Tadashi.
"Ignore him, I want deets," Gogo told him once Tadashi was out of earshot.
"I'll give you a burner phone," Obake told her.
"Anyway you," Hiro said, tackling him in a hug. "You're coming with us today we finally got version 1.0 of our project done and you need to see it."
"Oh so terribly sorry, but I still have that consulting job that needs addressing," Obake said, trying to squirm his way out of the affection.
"Ha—I've already anticipated this, I called Judy and asked her if you could flake today, she said yes."
Darn that woman. "I had other plans today, Hiro."
"If you come it'll shut Tadashi up for a while."
"While tempting, you said that about getting off the couch too and look what that got me."
"Okay that's enough trying to worm out of stuff, come on," Tadashi said, throwing Obake over his shoulder and heading out. "Bye Aunt Cass, love you!"
Gogo considered the setup before following closer. "You help me, I help you?"
"Done," Obake said flatly.
"No plotting my murder, Gogo," Tadashi said.
"I'm not plotting your murder—I'm just volunteering for the cleanup," Gogo said.
"I feel so loved."
So being back in SFIT was about as nerve-wracking as Obake expected, mostly because he was bracing himself for Professor Granville to just show up out of nowhere and bust him. No, he still didn't have a functioning excuse that would get him out of that situation, and trying to pick one on some wheel of excuses just had the whole thing falling apart.
"You know you look mondo suspicious with your hoodie up like that," Hiro told him as he dragged Obake into the robotics lab. "What, think the paparazzi will get you? Trust me, they don't care—ugh, hide."
"I thought you said no one cared," Obake said, raising an eyebrow at Hiro as he tugged him behind a table.
"Yeah, but that was Karmi—can't stand her," Hiro said, eyes narrowed at nothing.
"Aw, baby's first nemesis."
"I wouldn't call it that."
"Does she detest your very existence?"
"Well…."
"Nemesis is the correct word," Obake decided, standing.
"What's with the disguise?" Tadashi asked, coming in.
"Obake's afraid of being recognized," Hiro supplied, poking his head back up.
"Oh—'Dodgson! Dodgson we've got Dodgson here! No one cares.'" Looked at Hiro. "What are you doing back there anyway?"
"Avoiding his nemesis," Obake said.
"Oh is that what we're calling Karmi now?"
"She's not my nemesis," Hiro protested. "Saying she's my nemesis implies that I actually care enough to actively sabotage her. Mostly I just laugh at her pain."
"Oh Hiro I'm so proud," Obake said, pretending to wipe a tear away.
"Uh-huh both of you need to behave," Tadashi said, pointing. "No helping Hiro drop an anvil on her or something—"
"I mean we had some tungsten carbide but Honey Lemon vaporized it," Hiro said. "Ooh ooh wait those Buddy Guards can go invisible we sneak one in and then—"
"Okay you stop that," Tadashi said, putting a hand on Hiro's head before looking at Obake. "And you're still working on that? Seriously?"
"I'm charging by the hour," Obake told him.
"Please—like Krei's going to pay you."
Oh he was already paying for it—Obake had pretty much every single shiny toy in his database now, had machined up his own drones with various updates and was now toying with other things on Krei's dime while still providing progress on the drones, explaining to Krei that of course he had to run a battery of tests on the drones didn't need some simple design flaw causing egg on our face now did we?
The live ammo tests had been Hiro's idea, and something he insisted was a video game reference. Obake had the sinking feeling he'd be subjected to another round of sitting on the couch and feigning interest again.
"Anywho—check it," Hiro said, gesturing to a machine. "Mine and Wasabi's project—it's supposed to be used by astronauts to clean up space debris."
"Ah," Obake said, tipping his head in feigned interest. "How do you intend to test it in zero gravity?"
Hiro opened his mouth to answer—paused, considering…looked. "Wasabi, how were we going to test this in zero gravity?"
"Seriously?" Tadashi laughed, when Wasabi looked just as consternated as Hiro did. "The one big thing and neither of you thought of it?"
"Hey," Wasabi protested. "There were other priorities!"
"Like making me clean my lab," Hiro muttered.
"Hiro some of the food in there had gained sentience."
"We had to terminate it because it knew too much," Tadashi said dramatically.
"Anyway—we're going to test it at the junkyard first so we can at least make sure all the mechanics of it still work," Hiro said.
"Wait a minute—who said the junkyard?" Wasabi demanded. "That place is filthier than your lab was!"
"We need someplace that has scrap metal where we can test the lasers, Wasabi!"
"Okay okay both of you, CHILL," Tadashi said, waving his hands.
"Uh-oh, trouble in paradise?" Fred asked, coming in with several Noodle Burger bags.
"Same stuff, different day."
"Well I've got the perfect solution to that—stickers!" Fred said, flourishing a big handful before slapping a bunch on Wasabi, Hiro, Baymax, the project, Tadashi—and Obake, unfortunately, he wasn't fast enough in fending them all off.
"See my dudes? You can't have bad vibes when stickers are around," Fred insisted.
"I'm sure Gogo would contest that," Obake said, peeling one of the stickers off and glaring at the face of Noodle Burger Boy on it—at least he had evaded dealing with that thing this time around.
"She's coming around," Tadashi said, looking amused at Obake sticking the sticker on him instead. "Missed a couple."
"Fred."
"My dude, embrace the happiness that is stickers," Fred said, waving some more.
"What if I embraced your neck instead?"
"OKAY we're going to go look at my lab now byeee," Hiro said, grabbing Obake's wrist and dragging him away.
"Hey that's half my lab too!" Tadashi called after him.
"We'll be able to tell because it's the lame half!"
"HEY."
"Indoor voice, children," Obake said, glancing around and half-expecting Granville to pop out of nowhere.
"At least it's not SFU," Hiro said, tugging out his ID and putting it against the scanner. "Fred says they have Broadcasting majors that just run around the halls in packs, screaming."
"I'm pretty sure that's just college students."
"Apparently it's specifically Broadcasting majors," Hiro said, shrugging. "Anyway check this out isn't it cool? Ignore that half that's Tadashi's half we've already established its lameness."
Actually Obake was having to take a few moments to center himself in the here and now (whenever that was, dependent upon which theory he bought into today). It hadn't been so much of a problem the last time he had been in here—then, at least, he had been older, in control, on the cusp of a perceived victory.
But the last time he had been here, as the age he was currently presenting…well that time the lab had been his, to do as he pleased in—at least, until he had blown it all up and scuppered his SFIT career.
"Obake, hello? Earth to Obake," Hiro said, waving a hand in front of him. "Are you okay? You totally spaced there."
"The nerd aura dazed me," Obake said, scrambling to root himself back in the present—past, whatever.
"I tried to warn you about Tadashi's side," Hiro said, smirking.
Actually Tadashi's side (delineated by tape that went along the floor, up the walls, and across the ceiling) was nice and orderly, the sort of thing Granville had always been after Obake to do. There were stacks of junk here and there, but the general air of it was that those were ongoing projects, while everything else went back where it belonged at night.
Hiro's was a study in the opposite, more along the lines of what Obake was familiar with: pure chaos, obeying an internal ordering system but not much else. It was familiar, although there was no comfort in that familiarity, and it was taking everything he had to not go juddering back twenty more years to when these desks were overflowing with his projects.
Especially that last one.
Huff, focus on Hiro, who was watching him worriedly. "I'm reminded of your room, actually. Let me guess, Tadashi tries to stealth-clean here too."
"Yes—thank you you understand me," Hiro said, flinging his arms out and rolling his eyes. "Seriously, does he not see the system?"
Obake shrugged, allowed Hiro to explain his various projects to him as he poked at those old memories. Yes, the long hauls of going at high speeds, pounding energy drinks as he tried to keep up with his many ideas and the troubleshooting each idea needed—once upon a time he had kept a sleeping bag under that desk there so he could sleep here whenever he tired out and just pop back up and keep going when he woke up, a habit he hadn't broken as an adult. It felt like forever ago, and yet strangely, not.
But those were old mistakes, past his ability to edit. The big one coming up, however—that one he could still influence. Would influence, the potential reward was still in front of him and excitedly yammering away on various projects that could be properly interesting if tweaked in just the right fashion.
"Anyway, what do you think?" Hiro asked—they had sat down in the swivel chairs a few minutes back, and Hiro was toeing his over and leaning forward with interest. "Nerd school is secretly cool, am I right?"
"It matches up with my suspicions," Obake said. Which was technically not a lie, but seeing as he had insider knowledge…ah right, his other suspicion. "This is a ploy between you and Tadashi, isn't it?"
"Oh please nooo," Hiro said, spinning his chair around. "Well okay maybe a little but the dean of students is in on it too so—"
"What?"
"Okay maybe not like that but you've got to help me," Hiro said. "Like—yeah I've got friends but technically they're Tadashi's friends and she keeps saying I need friends my age like Aunt Cass does BUT the only one currently at SFIT who's near my age is Karmi and I think she's trying to hook me up."
It took a beat to untangle that, a beat more to make sure his expression didn't get away from him. "Oh, is she playing matchmaker now?"
"Gaack," Hiro retched, shuddering. "Anyway if you attended then it wouldn't be such a problem—"
Oh you sweet summer child, forget the fact that you were having this conversation with someone who had been eyeballing his forties before all this happened, Obake attending here once again—especially under Granville—was asking to open a can of worms that would eat everybody like those cheesy horror flicks Tadashi and Fred had made them all watch (although Hiro doing his best not to touch the ground floor for a few days afterwards had been entertaining).
"What if I gave you some pointers instead, on how to deal with a nemesis?" Obake asked. "Head off any more potential Karmi issues before they start."
"She's not my nemesis," Hiro insisted. "Ooh wait I know you could—um, bring one of the Buddy Guards here to uh, for all of us to look at—call us your um…safety committee? Inspectors? Pretty sure there's a good title we could work with."
"Something nonsensical that Krei would avoid, such as board of robotic safety consultants," Obake suggested, trying to keep his grin from becoming too much. "So good to see I'm rubbing off on you."
"Weell," Hiro noised, grinning so hard his nose scrunched. "Not saying I'm doing it for the joy of aggravating Tadashi, but."
"You're doing it for the joy of aggravating Tadashi."
"Oh totally."
"I heard that," Tadashi said, coming in.
"Good—oh hey Tadashi make sure everyone's here tomorrow we're going to be helping with the Buddy Guards," Hiro said, pointing at Obake.
"Seriously?" Tadashi asked dubiously.
"Yes," Obake said. "After all, a stamp of approval from the San Fransokyo Board of Robotic Safety Consultants is very important, after all."
"You're being a corrupting influence on Hiro again, aren't you."
"Oh my goodness yes."
"Maybe I should listen to Aunt Cass," Hiro mused. "Be a lawyer or a politician or something."
"No," Obake and Tadashi both said.