2013.07.30 - Robo Hobo

It's another summer afternoon. The weather in New York City is pretty nice, if not more than a little warm. It's sunny, with some light cloud cover. Karen Starr is trying to avoid pulling her hair out as she tries to straighten out financial issues with her company, and she -- along with many other people -- have not yet realized there is a giant metal thing completing its fiery entry into Earth's atmosphere and seemingly on a collision course with Metropolis. Like, this is a REALLY GIANT METAL THING. It is irregularly shaped, but seems to mostly be composed of a number of cubes and rectangles. Over-all it looks like a collection of giganto-huge metal boxes. Not very pretty, very large and boxy and huge.

It's as big as NYC itself.

Why no one detected it is a mystery. But eventually, the the fire and the dark shape growing closer will catch SOMEONE'S eye. Karen's ears are likely to pick up the air disturbance at least with her super hearing in a few minutes. But for now? Oblivious and trying REALLY HARD not to yell at people.

Normally, Othello is not one of those people that don their costumes during the daylight hours, unless he is doing a mercenary job, but he is still searching for the whereabouts of the Anomaly-Killer. Othello jumps from one rooftop to another, before stopping to raises his left hand to his ear. He taps his ear and says, "Test one. Test 2" A computer voice is heard in the earpiece, "Communications good, Signal strength still at 95." Othello thinks to himself and says, "Well, even if I do not found any clues on the Anomaly-Killer. I can still test all of these new devices. Othello prepares to jump to another room, when he begins the notice a shadow that is coming from an overhead object. "What the?"

Warm? You know what Pyre, princess of the Fire-Planet would have to say to that? "Is scoff!" Yes, a warm summer day on Earth is about as cold as BUTT for Pyre's people. Which is to say, the butt of something that is very cold and not warm and also possibly not a butt and instead more like ice or a stupid-cold planet like Earth. But right now, no one has suggested to Pyre that it is warm. It is at least warmer than it would need to be for her to not be freezing to death, being in the mid-90s, but the real thing she is using to get warmth is the sun. So she is currently lounging on top of a random restaurant rooftop in a bikini -- no, wait, that's just her normal garments -- and also with two spaceheaters sitting next to her and turned on 'high'. She chose a restaurant because it is full of food, and she has had various rare gems that are fairly cheap on her home world but worth tons of money here on Earth converted into local currency. So she has basically been sunbathing and going in and out of this restaurant and a few others all day. She is not paying attention to the sky so much as her three extra-large pizzas, but she'll notice when the amount of warm sunlight shining down on her decreases.

Gradually, people other than Othello notice the massive object falling from the sky. And they begin to point it out rather loudly. The typical noise present in the city becomes distinctly more panicked, and people IN the Starrware Industries building also stand around the windows and look up at the huge shadow. Karen, of course, notices and pops over to get a look herself. The tall blonde can see over the heads of the others present rather easily. "...Oh, man." She lets her personal assistant know to get everyone to follow emergency protocols and keep people from panicking. The moment his back is turned following those instructions, Karen is gone, changing swiftly into her costume and popping out the nearest available window.

Power Girl flies upwards, using her super vision to get a better look even from a distance. "It's always something..." she mutters to herself. .oO(What am I looking at here?) she thinks as she tries to scan for sign of what might be making the giant box thing fall. Is it just space garbage that didn't burn up for some reason? Is it a vessel? Maybe it's--Then Power Girl spots a stream of shapes pouring forth from various openings, and while they don't have uniformly identical bodies, they still seem to pretty clearly be robots of some kind. They're all headed towards the ground on hover bikes and built-in jet feet and rocket packs and so on.

Dozens... More like hundreds of them. .oO(Okay, time to try the diplomatic approach first. Maybe they're friendly and just need a hand.) The Kryptonian starts flying towards the nearest robot swarm at high speed, while trying to get in touch with Superman or Supergirl or anyone else she has contact info for with her radio. "Hey! Is that thing still able to fly!?" she demands of the first group of robots she comes across. The robots ignore her. "HEY! TOASTER BOY! I ASKED YOU A QUESTION!"

Finally, Othello notices the object falling from the sky, and doesn't need to calculate how much damage that ship will make if it hits the ground. Othello tests out his grappling hook as he makes his way to the street. Once reaching the street, he spends a few moments trying to direct people away from the immediate area, but he realizes the futility of preventing saving anyone if this object crashes. Othello races towards the object's direction as he ponders a plan to do something to the object before it crashes. On the way there, he starts to see robots flying from the object heading towards the ground, and then he sees Power Girl

As the warmth decreases even further, the entire city gradually falling under an expansive shadow, Pyre notices rather quickly. The various people yelling also help, but it's the temperature change that really makes her think to look up, holding an entire pizza in both hands and long strands of cheese connecting her stuffed mouth to the the rest of the pizza. Eat pizza one slice at a time? Pshaw! "Mmph!?" Pyre inquires in dismay. Pyre's wrist-mounted super computer, Karkel, supplies, "It appears to be a space vessel of unrecognized design, your highness." "Mgllg?" "Mechanical beings who are not in the records, your majesty. It is unclear at this point if they are fully self-aware or not." "Hmmg!" "Yes, your highness. The aesthetics of the spaceship are quite unappealing, as you say." Pyre starts beating her chest with one fist as she chokes on her pizza but then points a hand into her mouth and expels a flamethrower blast into her own face. Perhaps not one of her more well-thought-out plans, but she doesn't have anything to drink. She doesn't normally drink anything! However, the build-up of heat in Pyre's organic incinerator she calls a stomach out paces the flames she has ceased shooting at herself and the pizza in her throat is quickly turned to ashes, removing the obstruction. After coughing a few times, Pyre puts her pizza down, stands up, adjusts her red hair (apparently not suffering any damage from the whole flamethrower blast to the face thing), and then points up at the robots that are heading down towards the ground from high in the sky. "Karkel! Be performing 'the hacks' in robo-butts! Force robo-butts is turn around so-is-ugly box and fly back to ugly-metal-robo-butt world!" Karkel hesitates before responsing with, "Your majesty, I do not know if I can--" "NOH-MEH-DAH! IS HACKING THAT ROBOT //NOW//!" "Yes, your majesty." The super-computer than attempts to wirelessly commence 'the hacks' upon the alien robots.

When the robots continue to ignore her, Power Girl puts priority on the giant vessel instead of the machine-people coming out of it. Maybe they don't speak English. Maybe they're in too much of a hurry to get away from their doomed spaceship to stop and chat. Maybe they're drones and not smart enough to reply. But it doesn't matter who or what they are or how smart they may be if that big collection of boxes hits Metropolis. Because then they'd all be dead. As the Kryptonian flies up towards the box itself, she notices it is coming to a halt. The exact means behind this are not evident, but she assumes anti-gravity of some kind.

She was intending to try to stop the thing, maybe carry it out over the ocean and slow it waaaay down so it doesn't cause tidal waves, earthquakes, etc. But since it stopped on its own, maybe she doesn't have to worry about it crashing after all! But then a thought strikes her. .oO(Wait, if it's still in control of its movement, then--) Then something more tangible than a thought strikes her, and all awareness outside of pain is wiped from her mind for a moment. A high-powered laser or energy beam of some kind streaks from one of the many boxes that protrudes from the other boxes and the 'main box' that all of THOSE extend off of. "AUGH!" Power Girl lets out as she is hurled back towards the ground for a moment. The beam was brief, but annoyingly painful.

Maybe it's a defense system of some kind for if she gets too close. But she doesn't care, because they attacked HER and they are endangering THIS city and she is going to have a WORD with whomever or whatever's in charge up there. She flies back up, arms held in front of her face to try to deflect or block the laser a bit this time. She can't just dodge it, or it'll hit the city below. It's good that she thinks to block. Because the laser fires again. And again. And then two or three buddies join in too. Her arms are already turning red from the laser burns, and she's usually not too bothered by lasers.

Ugh.

Meanwhile, as Othello works crowd control, trying to coordinate an evacuation, some of those robots swarm down around him and in other areas within line of sight and begin... Stealing things? "Set our people free, enslaver!" one of the robots -- a roughly humanoid one that seems to be held together primarily with some sort of adhesive tape from an alien world -- demands as he swipes someone's iPod right out of their hand. "Hey!" the teenager blubbers, "I have some really rare MP3s on that! You can't take it!" The robot ignores the reaching hands and runs off towards an electronics store to 'rescue' more appliances and techno-gadgets. More robots are all around, seemingly just taking anything mechanical they can see and trying to make off with it. Electric wheelchairs, cars, cell phones, 'Furbies', laptops, etc. They don't seem to be particularly well-armed, and some of these robots are short enough they could be punted by an average person. The fact that they're talking about RESCUING rather than STEALING may be something to note, however.

Karkel succeeds in accessing the memory of a number of the robots, as they are not terribly sophisticated. The issue is that they are not terribly sophisticated, so some of them just plain don't have the technology necessary for Karkel to access them this way. The few he DOES get inside of, however, seem to have moderately okayish A.I., and while they may not be very smart they are all reasonably qualified to be considered self-aware. They seem to mostly be, as Pyre said, robo-butts. Or, more accurately, robo-bums.

As in homeless robots. Depending on how deep Karkel delves into their memory, he may learn more or just gain the means to seize control of their functions and make them stop 'rescuing' other people's property.

"We were sent here for this purpose." Othello rushes towards the group of robots, as his mind starts to work on a strategy, "It is folly to believe that things that you are taking are blessed with life. If you do not quit your action, we will be force to teach show you your folly." He draws his pistols out and aims them at the largest group of robots.

Karkel gets a reasonable idea of what they're dealing with, but delving too deeply into memory was not ordered at this point in time, just performing 'the hacks'. "Connection established, your majesty. I have control over some of the robots, but the others do not have remote connection capabilities that I can detect." Pyre frowns, not being much of a computer person, and just says, "Is tell robos to go home. Pick up other robos what not listen and being taking them too to place that no can has be any single good, tah!" Karkel acknowledges the command, and then tries to direct some of the robots he has gained control over the bodies of to get the other robots who he does not have control over to return back to their ship. Force is probably not best in this case, so he has the robots he can control simply tell the others they are needed back on the ship and that this is the wrong planet and similar confusion-sowing commands. Who knows if they'll listen? But it's something at least, and better than giving Pyre reason to risk herself in combat.

Several of the robots on the ground let out a collection of various electronic sounds of dismay as they have GUNS pointed at them! Mechanical guns! "Life not important! Only being machine!" one of the robots calls out, its head looking something like a VCR player with stereo dials for eyes. It shakes a robotic fist in indignation and then charges at Othello! But then that robot is stopped by another nearby robot who looks like an oversized robotic baseball glove with glowing red eyes in its fingertips. "No, no. Error. Wrong planet. Error. Back to ship." VCR-head turns in confusion and lets out a stereotypical, "Does not compute! Lord Robo Hobo designated planet as correct!" "Error! Error! Lord Robo Hobo says back to ship! Regroup!" The other robots all seem just as confused by this turn of events, but they do not question the mighty 'Lord Robo Hobo'. If he is passing along a message like this, who are they to argue? So, without further conflict, but definitely some suspicious looks at Othello as though he was the one who had done wrong here, they climb aboard their various rocket dog sleds and anti-gravity blimps and jet-powered pogo-sticks, and take back off into the sky.

Though they don't take anything else, anything they were carrying is kept clutched in their hands. Which was, thankfully, not that much. But somewhere down there, there's a teenager wailing and gnashing his teeth and shaking his fists at the sky in despair that his iPod is gone. Poor baby. It's just a damn iPod. Buy another.

Meanwhile, Power Girl has managed to get close enough -- while under heavy laser fire -- to land a single punch on the ouside of the Robo Hobo ship, severely denting it but not penetrating the exterior. It seems to be enough, however, that as all the homeless robots get aboard the ship, the giant collection of boxes starts to raise back into the sky, and start heading out into space! ...Wait, is that it? A city-sized spaceship with hundreds (at least) robot minions, they get threatened with pistols, hacked a bit, and a single punch is thrown, and they just leave?

...Well, they're bums not some kind of invasion force. Still, as Power Girl winces at all the red burn marks all over her, even as they start to fade and heal thanks to the solar energy she has stored in her cells from the yellow sunlight, the blonde feels like this was WAY too easy. She sighs and heads down to where she can see a couple other heroes (Pyre and Othello, duh) to talk to them and see what happened on their end, and maybe see if there's anyone who needs help with clean-up post robo-attack.

Othello is about to fire on the robot, until he sees them start to retreat. He looks around the area, and places his pistols back in holster. Othello thinks to himself that he really needs to look into upgrade some items at the Stark and Lex Expo. There are very few strategies that he had that would not have caused considerable collateral damage." Othello raises his arms in a shrug and does one more scan of the area, before making his way to one of the alleyways.

Pyre thumps her chest with one fist and nods seriously, "Hoh! Robos is perform 'the fleeing market' before Pyre's wit and power! Pyre has show not to mess with her! Oh-hohohoho!" Karkel just says, "...Yes, your highness. You certainly showed them." Pyre snaps, "Pyre knows! Pyre is just has speak that!" Then she plops herself down and goes back to her pizza.