frivolous life

MGMT @PicnicFoto by David Giraldo **PICNIC FOTOGRAFIA** on Flickr.

What’s this? She asked, pointing down at where the notebook lay.

That, Ariel, is my art. 

Well. It's actually a comic, so not only is it art, it's literature -- which I think is quite radical, a combination like that. 

[ He swells a little. His plan is working and he's absolutely beaming about it. ]

Two different things becoming one and, simultaneously, even more radical than before.

[ He cocks his head and looks happily down at A.I Claws' final panel. ]

Have you thought about adding colors, kiddo? Colors are pretty radical, I’m sure someone round here has some on them. Like with, y’know, colored pencils or markers or paints or somethin. But maybe like, what if A.I. Claws is a little superhero and like, no one knows it? So we’re here doing our thing and Claws is fighting crime across the galaxy an’ what not. That’d be cool.

[And Pegasus still wasn’t on Delta anymore. He itched the side of his head.]

Yes, I think A.I Claws would look quite good with more colour. I’m sure I could find something around here - perhaps I can make use of the paint we used for football? That’s..that’s here, in the rec room, isn’t it?

But you’re..absolutely right, Agent. That would be quite cool. [ He wasn’t quite sure what a superhero was, but if Bismarck thought it was cool, it probably was. Still, he made a note to look into it later. ]

I think that sounds quite promising, certainly amusing; can you imagine a little guy like A.I Claws fighting things? He’s very small. Look, he’s even saying so.

[ He cocks his head, smiling fondly at the scribbly imitation of the crab. He's pretty happy with it. Pegasus’ mood dulls a little at the mention of Lincoln, however. He does feel a kind of a…pull toward the Agent - which makes sense, they are connected after all - but his implantation means that Pegasus no longer belongs to the same team as Bismarck…or Calvin, or Lyra, or Concord.

It’s really quite unfortunate. Just another way Pegasus’ life is painfully controlled, just another way he’s no more than a possession or object to be traded around. But it’s okay, he guesses, - it’s not like he’s now prohibited from interacting with his old teammates or anything. He doesn't think he could deal with that. ]

I kinda wish I could do that. You got a great little story here, y’know that? [He knew he’d been the one to teach Pegasus the word radical. He beamed with pride.]

...Thank you, Agent. I think it’s quite satisfactory for a first try, myself.

He gave a small smile, and blinked up at the Agent. Pegasus kind of just likes listening to people talk - that's definitely something he'd call a pastime. Less 'talking to people' and more 'being talked to'. So Jefferson's spiels are very well welcome.

Pegasus rubbed the side of his face, carefully mulling over the information thrown at him. Characters, stories..he guessed he could do those? He liked the robot characters in that one book, uh, and stories were good too. He liked listening to people's stories. And coming up with a setting should be easy enough -- he'd always been yearning to be somewhere other than this goddamn ship anyway. Maybe he could make his escape through sequential pictures and 'speech bubbles'?

"Yes, I believe I do," he began, "that doesn't sound too hard. As I said, however, I do have trouble with imagination."

He sighed. He really should've drawn more when he was floating between Annapolis and Lincoln, drifting in his own mind. When it was his own, when he could let it roam free - when he didn't have to keep it boxed up and controlled. When he didn't have to make sure it didn't hurt anyone.

But he knew everything that came out would've been horrible anyway, and we're not just talking skill here.

Jefferson pulled his upper body up then placed his foot down from the bench to where it once rested. Then he wrapped his arms around his shins then locked his fingers together so he could gain posture. He could feel his back ease down from the strains of a hard surface. At the same time, he was thinking how remarkably strange these AIs were. To him, they undoubtedly represent the triumph of man through technology, and here’s Pegasus seeing a comic and a video game maybe for the first time of his life or in a technical sense, his activation.

..Still counts. He shrugged.

He sat there, drinking in the images and wondering what was going on but also not caring because damn, it looked so radical. "This is very radical, Agent," he said matter-of-factly. He pushed the corners of his lips down, raised his eyebrows, nodded head once. Looked back at the Agent. "Do you have any more?"

Oh, hello, he hadn't noticed those. Pegasus squinted at the thing in the Agent's hands. They'd been worn over the eyes, right? Must be some kind of optical armour, or, maybe they just looked cool or maybe they enhanced the vision. Haha, wow, humans. See? They were the ones that really adapted. Trouble with your eyes? Put stuff over it to change light rather than just have them replaced or something. Sigh.

Damn.

Wait--oh! Bismarck was-- In the lava..? In the lava! That was dangerous. And then the ball was thrown at Peter. Pegasus groaned. Either his poor teammate was magnetic (unlikely - footballs and pillows and tables aren't even metal), or everyone was feeling particularly affectionate-slash-aggressive toward the poor fellow. Pegasus gave a theatrical sigh and slumped his shoulders, pushing his hair up from his forehead in exasperation. God dammit you guys.

Oh hang on! Shit, he could probably intercept that ball again after it hit Peter. And apparently lava was no longer an issue, so the floor was free field.

...Sweet.

Music was not something that Lincoln felt the need to hide about himself. If there was one thing that a man with his job needed to be, it was unremarkable. He couldn’t stand out, he couldn’t be the life of the party, he couldn’t be memorable. If everything went perfectly according to plan, he would leave the ship at some point, report to his superiors, and nobody on the Equinox would even suspect that it had been him responsible for the information getting back to the UNSC.

But he could not be totally boring. He could not be a blank slate. There must be two or three things about him that marked him as a person. People were suspicious of men like that, believing them to be hiding something.

So he could show his music. He could show his interest in cooking. He could be open, to a point, about his faith. And those would be the few things that would make him ordinary.

As they left the med bay, Lincoln let Pegasus lead the way, trusting that he would know the way better than Lincoln would. This ship was huge, built for tens of thousands of people, and needless to say he was still figuring out how the hell he even got around.

“And yes, sand indeed. However, I have not considered the construction of castles from sand, admittedly. I was not aware that was, um, an art form,” Pegasus said thoughtfully. “So no, I’ve only ever applied sand to paper — but these castles sound interesting. You would need an awful lot of sand, wouldn’t you, to make a castle? Have you ever attempted this feat, Agent?” He narrowed his eyes and twisted in his steps, opting to walk backward as he spoke. He soon realised that his speech was punctuated with hand gestures and movements - body language more animated, more friendly, even - so he clasped his hands behind his back and swivelled round once again. He couldn’t be too friendly. That was probably just dangerous, but…then again, he was about to show Lincoln his artwork. That was pretty friendly. And a little personal.

Ah fuck, he was far gone, wasn’t he?

…Whatever.

Well, he wasn’t getting rid of the little spring that’d returned to his step — not today. Not when it’d just made its return. Might as well let it enjoy its time here.

The Restoration Lab had little sections, lovingly(?) reserved as a space of privacy and sanctuary for the each AI aboard the ship. Pegasus seemed to be one of the few Units that often and actively made use of his assigned space - or maybe it just seemed that way? Huh. He didn’t know. He didn’t really care either.

Reached the door, identified himself, peered on in. Said hello to little A.I Claws, who didn’t seem to be doing anything in particular. Oh, hang on — Claws was powered down. That’s right, Pegasus had been doing that earlier, hadn’t he? Just easing Claws down, before sparking the little guy up again with a call to wake. It was very easy. And it was comforting, too. At least something would wake when he told it to; at least he had control of some little part of his life.

"Well, video games are.. well.. games." he chuckled, not knowing how to properly phrase his sentence. "Only, you play them using a device like this one." he pointed to his tablet. "There are games that you could shoot bad guys, build a city, command an army, play football or any sport for that matter. Here." he tilted the screen to Pegasus as it showed a game of castles and kings. "See? A game." 

He held his tablet over his chest again and started surfing through the cloud servers so he could access is wireless drive back in his room. He remembered leaving it on, just like always, so he could retrieve any necessary files that he keeps in that pod-like device. 

And well. Pegatron was certainly a new one, but once again -- before he could get his head around this sparkling new nickname -- he was distracted by yet another technological wonder. 

A...a "comic". A comic? A comic.

Pegasus reached forward tentatively, transfixed by the tablet's current display. He glanced down at Jefferson, before raising his fingers to his lips and glaring intently at the screen. 

Interesting.

There's an image. No! There are multiple. Pegasus cocks his head. Little white bubbles float around within coloured, illustrated panels. Text occupies such bubbles, and it takes a little while for Pegasus to realise that they're supposed to...work together. Damn.

Now that, that was more than interesting, that was absolutely radical.