Brittany is getting the fabric sample when Gemini Man starts fidgeting. "You need to let that soak in for half an hour, keep as still as possible, and dont do the hologram thing. It'll reduce the moistueizing effect." Gemini Man has been sitting like this for several hours.

"Next customer!" she shouts, looking towards Tundra Man. Shes standing on the table to see him better. Tundra Man comes over. Brittant says "Let's try these to see which is best. Drape it over yourself like a cape." She drapes the handkercheif on the table to demonstrate. Tundra Man nods. "If it gets stuck, its not an option."

She turns around to see that he sent for friends. She smiles and waves at them, giving them her best customer service voice, "Ill be with you three in a second."

Kalinka is excited for this. While she is a young woman now, she still enjoys some of the activities she did when she was a child, including salon treatments. She turns to Pharaoh Man, "Will you guys come with me, pretty please?"

Pharaoh Man responds, "I don't want a facial, see what she's doing to that edgelord?" He points at Bass in the pool chair.

Kalinka thinks for a second, then repsonds. "You can ask for one without the makeover. Gosh, you are so straightforeward sometimes, almost to a fault." She gives Pharaoh Man a gentle half-hug as if she's anticipating leaving his side, even if by only a dozen feet. Pharaoh Man seems to feel slightly uncomforatble with this, but goes along with it, he would do anything for his favorite little girl, even if she is grown now in all but name.

Brittany notices that there are no more chairs. She calls out for her older sister, who is too busy tilling soil with Crash Man. It's so like her to automatically prepare any vacant piece of soil for planting, she thinks. I wonder how that happened, the grass being taken off and the dirt shaken. Magazines are also not coming, she thought.

She calls to her customers, "Excuse me for a second, everyone. Stay where you are, I'll get you chairs to wait in and something to read."

Pharaoh Man and Ring Man proceed to look for chairs. Brittany goes to the treehouse to get magazines. Whe Ring Man and Pharaoh Man come back with chairs, shes suprised.

Bass asks, not realizing that no one is paying attention "Can I get up now?" He gets no answer, so he keeps reclining.

"Wow, that was quick with you guys' help, thank you." Brittany says as the chairs are set up. "Why are you so good at finding things?"

The two are confused. Searching for things is a part of their functions, their jobs. It just feels like something everyone has to them.

Ring Man answers first, "I do detective work as a part of my job, locating chairs is easy compared to looking for evidence."

Brittany is curious. Detective work is only done by cops, so he's a cop. "So, you're a cop. I don't recall any cop using rings to catch criminals."

Ring Man doesn't want to be there, but he goes along with it. "There's no robotic crime unit here?" he asks. Brittany replies, "Robots here aren't that advanced yet, but they're trying.

Ring Man is curious. "Then who does the dangerous jobs?" he asks.

Brittany answers bluntly, "Humans".

Ring Man is concerned about the morality of this world, but he thinks he understands it. "So… let me get this straight, you allow humans to go into situations where they will die?"

Brittany thinks that put a bit morbidly, "Yes, even where robots are available, employers choose humans because they're cheaper."

Ring Man doesn't get it. I dont get paid. How are humans, who get paid, cheaper?

Brittany tries to give an example, "We have electronic ordering at restaurants an robotic servers, but I guess they're too expensive?" "How much do you cost?" she asks Ring Man.

Ring Man wonders why this girl would buy him. What use would he have? "You want to buy me?" he asks.

Brittany is confused why he would put himself up for sale. "No," she says, "Like if you went to another police department, how much does it cost the new one?"

Ring Man has seen department transfers in his day, but doesnt remember how much money changed hands, if any. "At least 20 million zenny*", he answers.

Brittany asks, "How much is that in dollars?" She'd never heard of zenny, and she had two nerdy siblings who sometimes talked about economics.

Ring Man had never heard of a dollar. "What is that?" he asked.

Brittany replied. "It's the money we use here. A loaf of bread is worth three of them."

Ring Man thought, well I'm never on grocery duty. "I dont buy groceries, so I don't know. I think Bright Man is in charge of that."

Brittany is suprised to hear of yet another robot. "Really?" she asks, not beleiving that RIng Man does not in fact buy the Cossacks' groceries.

Ring Man starts to think of his sometimes-roomate and just lets his mouth run. "I think he just really like being aroung so many other lightbulbs.

Brittany thinks, why does that need to be sentient, but he's use to it, so play along. "He's a lightbulb?" she asked.

RIng Man replies, wondeirng why shes so suprised. "Yes, he's there when the power goes out."

Brittany accidentally says her thoughts out loud, "So hes a flash light?"

RIng Man is like, thats not right, hes more similar to those emergency lights that road crews use. "Eh, close enough," he replies, feeling mentally defeated.

Its close to last light, so Brittany has some toruble seeing detailed work on Bass' face in regards to contour lines that kind of blend in. "I'm having a hard time seeing what I'm doing, and I don't want to mess up, can you ask him to come?"

Ring Man has a bad feeling about Pharaoh Man's weakness to bright lights. Pharaoh Man wonders why she would need any supplemental lighting to do make-up.

I can't stand the prescence of the guy, Pharaoh Man thinks of Bright Man, but he's not a bad indivudal or annoying. It's that stupid lightbulb on his head and his habit of turning uncessary lighting on. Even MIkhail doesn't use as much lighting as him.

Ring Man can tell what's going on in Pharaoh Man's head, and feels like its funny for some reason. His co-workers have a list of the metropolitan nightclubs he's passed out in and how long it took. The longest is 1.2 seconds… I feel bad for whoever had to carry him to the hotel, its usually one of the locals.

Ring Man said out loud, "You know not everyone is built to explore pith-black pyramids." He's too much of a tease.

Pharaoh Man retorted, "Your eyes need a tune-up."

"Says the guy who won't leave the basement if he's staying at the lab during the summer and goes outside during winter and can see where he's going."

Pharaoh Man is irritated, which is exactly what Ring Man intended. "I'm only staying for Kalinka. If you can't see during the depth of winter, get your eyes checked."

Ring Man got irritated. "You shut down when presened with a tacky blouse a houseguest have. You're like the NES* in that you can handle limited colors."

Pharaoh Man replied, "I'm not limited to 10 colors on screen."

"Your level has like two"

"Not like yours has much more"

"Ironic for the guy with more colors on his sprite than me and in general"

Brittany had had enough of their arguing, "Stop it, you two!"

Ring Man and Pharaoh Man were surprised by this, and flinched. However, Pharaoh Man had one last insult and trick up his sleeve.

"You're the guy who sings karaoke drunk, with his co-workers , and it's vocaloid." Pharaoh Man readied his arm and punched Ring Man in the face*. "If that's not tacky, I don't know what is!" Pharaoh Man walked away from RIng Man.

Ring Man was furious. "Leave my social life alone!". He walked in the opposite direction of Pharaoh Man.

………………

A zenny is a fictional currency used in many games and anime, including multiple Mega Man subseries. It is equivalent to the Japanese yen, so Ring Man is estimating his price at USD 156,415 or 148,086 Euros.

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is a third-generation home console which has a lot of history to it. Most of the classic subseries of Mega Man (the one I'm focusing on) had its mainline games released for it. It is noted among other things for having a limited color pallete and limited on-screen colors like many of its contemporaries, which is actually how Mega Man (the character) got his coloring. The NES famously has more shades of blue to work with than any other color. The joke about on-screen colors is meant to be a hyperbolic insult, I have not memorized how many on-screen colors the NES could handle. That is basically a meta joke in regards to level and sprite colors. I have not played much at all of Mega Man 4 at the time of this writing.

Yes, I did just reference the infamous Pharaoh Punch from the 1994 Ruby-Spears animated series. I've not completed it, but I did watch that episode. Honestly, it's hilarious. It is not lost on me that Ruby-Spears animated shows from both franchises I'm using, and yes, there's even a connection to Capitan N: The Game Master in animation studios. It's weird. For anyone unaware of Captain N: The Game Master, its basically where a bunch of writers with an NES, a handful of games, and a TV with a broken color function were asked to make a video game crossover cartoon.