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RP: The Wayward What the future holds (Ep 4.5)

Make shift Science lab

Ana was correct in her directions and led them both to Stefan's lab. There was all sort of scientific equipment about and computers, that section of the extended bay looked nothing like a cargo hold. There was even a quarantine space for dangerous things. It was a really elaborate place, but even through all the equipment they could see that right now the Cloud Bugs were not somewhere on display. It would take some searching to find them if they wanted to do it on their own.
 
Ash raised an eyebrow at Adiel and Brigid with a smirk.

"Maybe next time. I would rather not do the walk of shame tomorrow."

She stuck her tongue out at Adiel.

"And besides, not gonna miss a chance at dissecting one of those cloud bugs."
 
Nan stopped dead in his tracks as he beheld the thrown together yet beautiful mass of electronic lab equipment. His face slowly grew in to what may aptly be called a mix of giddy mad scientist and pure joy. He turned his head and looked at Ana with a glint in his eye as if to ask, will this end well? Let's find out.

He comically floated in the air an inch or two moving toward the equipment and flapped his arms as in all those scenes of dream walking you see in cartoons.
 
Ana stopped as well, watching Nan as he started to flit off around the lab space. She shook her head and chewed on her lip as she looked around a bit herself, "I think we should wait...I know I don't care for others going into the engine room and poking around...ya know?"
 
With a crestfallen sigh Nan foated back to the ground. He saw Ana's point. He would be pretty annoyed if someone were to mess around with any of his drones or the Anbruch computers.

"Your totes right sis. I"ma give that Stefan dude a page. What do you think of him so far ayway? I think that is P cool that he is willing to let you get hands on with those beacons. I don't mind if he teaches you a thing or two, that way you can then teach me!"

Nan quickly pinged Stefan to the lab and as an after thought turned on his LNC.

"Mother could you scan for any active computer signals or activity in the area besides the mundane, usual ones? If these Cloud bugs have any sort of electronics in them they may still be giving off something," He said half thinking out loud. He turned back to Ana, "When you encountered these things did they all seem to work together? Or would you say they displayed individual actions?"
 
Ana gave what Nan said a lot of thought before she answered. "I think he's rather...well...not as intimidating as he first appears. And I'm not really sure I could teach you much. I mean, you already know a lot more about programming than I do. I just know how to make things work." She waited until he paged Stefan and glanced around as Mother did the scans that Nan asked for. At his other question she shrugged a bit, "They seemed to have a hive mind. Though they fought us individually, it was like ants swarming around a few targets. Some went one way and some another."
 
Science Lab

Stefan got the page from Nan and within a few minutes he stepped into the science lab where the two youngsters were poking around. However by this time, Mother could not find any random electronic signals, whatever the things must be in it must have blocked the signals.

"Oh both of you are here? The whole science team of the ship is all present huh? I guess you two couldn't help but want to see them up close huh?" Stefan smiled to the two younger individuals and ruffled their hair with two of his hands. "I'll show you, but you two have to promise not to come in here poking around without supervision, this place can be very dangerous, and if anything goes wrong and you get injured, Tanja will get mad at me, and she's a scary woman, nightwalker women always are."

After that he walked over to small cargo container where he pulled out a smaller container. "One is in here...but they're not sedated, not even sure if that is possible for these things."
 
Ana stiffened when Stefan reached over to ruffle her hair. Though she was probably the same age as Nan and, for most, considered to be a youngster...she was not used to being treated as such. Even by Tanja. Nor was she that used to the show of affection that some did towards her in that way. She held her breath for a few seconds to calm herself down, then stepped forward to peer into the box. "I fix the engine. I know that there are places where it's not safe. I never poke around without...permission."
 
Science Lab

Ash was the last to arrive in the Science Lab. Seeing that the others had already began huddling around one of the specimens, she casually strode up behind the three of them. Ash's height let her easily peer over both Ana and Nan's heads.

"So what are we going to do to contain that thing so it doesn't smack us in the head and punch a hole through the hull? We have a containment field to capture it or something?" asked Ash.
 
Nan jumped a bit as Ash spoke up behind him. He had just finished promising Stefan to not go poking around uninvited. He was really curious about the small container and it's contents.

He looked back and gave Ash a really big smile. He knew basically nothing about her but was really excited to see she had an interest in this sort of thing. He hoped to get to know her better because of it.

"Well, we could right up a small gravity generator, or grab some straps or heck, this guy has four friggin arms. I'm thinking holding it won't be that difficult for him.

"Either way we should keep an eye on electronic signals and we need to decide how far to take this, I don't really want to kill anything alive. Even in the name of science."
 
Science Lab

Stefan gave Nan and Ana a thumbs up when they both said they wouldn't go around without permission. Then Ash stepped in and she was rather tall, but Stefan was still taller than her. "Well I transfer it from one box to another. It doesn't seem to have much power while it's effected by the ship's gravity either, so we can be thankful for that."

After he spoke he pulled out a clear container and dumped the contents of what he was holding into it. Out came a dodecahedron a bit larger than a baseball. It was a gunmetal grey and just floated in the center of the clear container that now had a lid on it. "See now we can see it, it should be transmitting a signal too."
 
Nan reached up and tapped a rectangular looking device on his temple. A holographic visor slid out and around his eyes. He immediately began to look through those signals on the device, his eyes moving around rapidly. "Mother, could you record all of this just so we can review later please." Nan voiced and right away Mother began hovering over them all using her build in camera systems.

"Beyond figuring out these signals we should check to see how it is floating there. Any ideas? Maybe after that we should test it's exterior for material composition." To those that have met him before, it was actually easy to see that Nan seemed to be a bit more focused and mature than usual while talking about these kinds of things.
 
Ana remained still when Ash had come up behind her. She knew that Ash was there, even before the woman spoke. Not that it was Ash, just that there was someone behind them. So when Ash spoke, Ana didn't react as she would have...once upon a time. She watched as Stefan put the Space Bug thing into the clear container, tapping TB softly before murmuring to him, "Try again, TB. See if you can make contact with the thing again."

TB nodded in his own way and then focused on the bug, emitting his own signal in an attempt to match the one that the Space Bug was doing.
 
Science Lab

"The external composition is some unknown metaloid...as for how it floats..by best guess is some kind of magnetic or gravitic field, but I can't really get a proper reading on it." Stefan spoke, and sounded a little frustrated at his own lack of knowledge in the situation.

Both TB and Nan were able to get a basic analysis of the signals that came from the Cloud Bug, however the 'language' of the signals came back as mostly nonsense to them. The signals did communicate, and TB could have a back and forward with it, but it was like using the same vocabulary, but with different definitions for everything.
 
Nan followed along with what Stefan was saying and easily picked up a fellow scientist's frustration.

"No prob bro, we are gonna go all mad scientist on this bug," he said still staring intently at the inorganic sentience. He then yelled out suddenly, "Mother!"

""I'm literally right next to you young man, you don't have to shout," the bobbing Fars unit calmly replied. "Now how can I help you?"

Nan reacted like he had forgotten she was there but then, more quietly replied, "Oh, sorry. Yeah so could you like, find us the most powerful magnet on board? Pretty please?"

"Of course dear," Mother said as it floated away, though anyone could have sworn she mumbled something about millennials on her way out.

"As for checking if it's gravity, we could bombard it with differing degrees of gravity and see how it affects it. That should give us something."
 
Ana watched them all quietly as TB tried to interact with it. She had no ideas of her own on this one, though when Nan had shouted for Mother, she did jump just slightly. "Has no one tried to...touch it themselves?" She started to reach out slowly towards the entity, her curiosity getting the better of her at that moment.
 
"No, I haven't tried to touch it with my bare hands, there's no telling what it would do." Stefan spoke up, but did not stop Ana, after all there was a transparent container around it to keep it from being touched.

The Abwehran man stroked his chin though at Nan's proposals and thought for a moment "Well I think we can do something about the gravity, I do have the machines for that."

Mother would find that the easiest to access weights were those in the makeshift gym, used to keep things in place so they did not roll around the ship.
 
Ana touched the side of the container and said softly, "I want to try." She looked up at the others, adding, "I am not as learned as all of you on this. I teach myself by doing. Please...let me be the one to try to communicate in that way. If anything goes wrong...you can figure out for yourselves what and either try to prevent it again...or I don't know. Something."

With that, Ana lifts the container, or at least the lid or something to be able to reach in with her hand slowly, allowing the bug thing to come to her if it wanted to.
 
"I say go for it sis. Best way to learn or try new things is to just do them. Let's see how this foes.," He said as he watched Ana reach in. He was an impulsive person by nature so he completely understood her want to deliver right in and just see what happens. Didn't stop him from being ready just in case though.

"Nan, I have found magnetic items which I feel are adequate for your idea. I will have Gabi or Mari assist in delivering them," Mother chimed over Nan's PHC.
 
Ash watched as TB was actually able to communicate with the polyhedron, but what it was saying was incomprehensible.

"Hmm...I could try to interface directly with it via my neural interface if nothing else works," she suggested.

She raised an eyebrow at Ana wanting to touch the cloud bug.

"Risky...but you could try it, Ana. At least it might know we're not trying to attack it if we just pet it or something."
 
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