2013.07.20 - That's The Way You Do It

Skeets, the little golden robot that usually tags along after Booster Gold, has been lurking around the Legion Headquarters now that he lacks a boss to tag along after. Although he has left a couple of times to visit the Stark building, he has mostly been a little golden ghost in the Legion HQ. Sometimes he is off in a high corner, processing data or talking to the building's resident robots and computers; sometimes he is completely unseen, doing whatever it is he has been doing since his boss vanished. Some of it may not, technically, be legal--but if he is tapping into secured data sources, he has been unnoticed so far.

At the moment, Skeets is a golden speck high up near the ceiling of the Legion Headquarters lobby, his single 'eye' flickering and oscillating with red light.

Vorpal walks into the Headquarters, hands in his pockets and looking around. He had been here once to look for answers, and had met Brainiac 5. Nobody could forget that meeting... but it still had given him no answers. So he was here again, trying to find something that will satisfy him. He walks up to the lobby, trying to find someone with whom he can speak.

There is a robotic receptionist at the front desk, who is generally polite, and speaks in perfect TwenCen English. "Hello. May I help you?"

Even if he were not within the lobby, Skeets would have noticed Vorpal's arrival; he has linked himself into the security monitoring systems for the headquarters. Dropping down seemingly out of nowhere, the little golden robot is suddenly inches away from Keith's face, his chirping voice still polite but with a slight manic edge to it. "I remember you," he says.

It's barely a minute after the curious purple cat enters the Legion Headquarters that another can be seen slipping through the doors. Ayla appears dressed for a date, perhaps an early outing with Vance. The skirt of her sundress rustles lightly, peeks of yellow showing from the panels inserted into the green dress, giving the short skirt more swing and volume. Green and yellow are both speckled with red dots, and Ayla's flat shoes match the red. Glancing around quickly, she runs her fingers through short hair, and her eyes settle on the vision of purple she had seen enter first. Of course, cats aren't the only curious ones. It seems some Winathians are as well. And so Ayla's feet move her in the direction of Vorpal and Skeets, as she offers a questioning, "Hello?"

Stepping out of the tubes, Garth makes his way to the lobby, having being alerted by the receptionist system that someone had come in to the security monitoring. "Hey Skeets... what's going on...?"

Crossing paths with his sister, however, Garth raises an eyebrow. "... Oh. Ayla. Going out again with him?"

At least his left eye wasn't twitching at the mention of Vance. Though he might at some point call him by name again.

Vorpal blinks, recognizing the little floating egg. "Skeets!" he says, taking a step back. The cat remembered Skeets very well, "I was wondering where you had---" he blinks again, as two people enter his field of vision. He noticed the exchange between Ayla and Garth, and he frowned, "... have I come at an inopportune moment?"

"Ms. Ranzz, Mr. Ranzz," Skeets acknowledges, almost perfunctory, swiveling to turn and 'look' at each of the twins before his attention refocuses on Vorpal. "You have been seeking the whereabouts of Booster Gold," says the robot, in a manner that indicates this is not a question; how he would know this is not something he seems inclined to explain. "Have you experienced any success in gathering further data about his disappearance?"

Is that a light blush as Ayla looks toward her brother? Surely not. "No... well, maybe tonight if he can get time away." She seems eager to turn her attention toward the others, and there's a look of concern on her face as she returns the greeting to the little robot. "Hey Skeets." None have been at their absolute brightest since the disappearance of Booster, but Ayla hasn't been quick to just list him in the 'lost' book. "No no," she reassures Vorpal lightly, "It's not a bad time at all. I'm Ayla. My brother, Garth," comes with a motion to include her twin. "You've been looking into this problem about Booster?"

"No, you're just fine. Ayla's just too early, it looks like," Garth shakes his head, before offering a hand. "Booster's just disappeared. Do you have information on him?"

Studying the cat, Garth motions towards Skeets. "He's been tracking information on him for a while, but we have nothing."

Vorpal blinks and looks at Skeets... how did he know?

Unless, of course, he had seen him sneaking around HQ. And that wasn't something he wanted divulged. Not when Garth would probably shock the hell out of him for doing that.

"I have not had any success... no...." he says, looking at Ayla and Garth out of the corner of his eye "I had John Constantine search the Afterlife, and he told me Booster didn't exist. I asked Doctor Fate and he said he didn't think he was dead, but he didn't have time to properly search. I spoke to Brainiac..." let us not say HOW he managed that... "... but nothing has come out of that... I don't know where he is." He says, his voice a little quiet at that last sentence. The gall he had had in asking people for help, going into debt with Constantine... and nothing. "I'm sorry, Skeets..."

Skeets tilts back a bit, as if he were looking upwards in thought. He is silent, or at least, he is not saying anything aloud for a long moment. Then, he says, "That correlates with some of my findings... and actually confirms a few things about which I was not able to find sufficient data. Thank you." The robot does not sound disappointed, if anything this seems to have renewed his interest. Rather than sharing his insights, however, he starts to rise up into the air again.

Ayla looks brightened by the news from Vorpal as well, latching onto the first piece immediately. "Well if he doesn't exist in the Afterlife, then he's surely still alive somewhere. We just have to find out where." Because that's gonna be easy, surely. Like everything in life is easy. Blue eyes flicker back to Booster's robot buddy, and she speaks upward to him, "Skeets, don't spend all of your time alone, ok? You're a part of the team too." Sure, he's a robot, but he can be lonely too... can't he? Doesn't really matter to Ayla. "Thank you for your help," she says, looking now to the purple cat. "I didn't catch your name....?"

"Or it could be anywhen..." muses Garth. Considering how much of the Legion could get caught up in time-travel incidents...

Glancing back up towards Vorpal, Garth asks the obvious: "How'd you meet Booster, anyway...?" Right, right, Garth had met Vorpal already, and so brother answers sister, "Oh, this is Vorpal. He's been by a couple times..."

"This is my second time here, actually," FALSE. Third time, but Vorpal's not going to blow his own whistle. "Skeets-- wait, what do you mean?" he says, looking at the retreating bot with puzzlement etched on his face. Thinking about something Ayla said, he clarifies "Actually it's not that he doesn't exist in the Afterlife. The afterlife has no record of him existing... at all. I found that... discouraging."

Skeets hesitates in his upward flight, turning to look towards Ayla. After a moment, he says, "I'm sorry, Ms. Ranzz. I've been doing a lot of data processing since Booster vanished, and I think it has been consuming me. I feel as if I'm on the verge of solving all of this, but the answers still elude me." He bobs down a little lower, and explains, "That there is no record of Michael in the afterlife makes some sense to me... technically, he has not yet been born. But this also confirms my hypothesis that he no longer exists in this reality. The issue, of course, is that this also implies that he will not return to this reality. I believe he traveled both temporally and trans-dimensionally."

There's a quick nod to the purple cat as Garth provides a name for Ayla, but a frown grows as the situation of Booster apparently not existing at all becomes clearer to the young Winathian. "Well, we're all proof that time travel isn't an 'out there' concept. And I've read up on the Omnicom about other dimensions." Her words are more musing and thoughtful than actually productive, and she shakes her head. "No, there's got to be a way to get him back here, in this reality. Anything else is simply not an option." Despite the odds, she will not accept anything less. To do so would be tantamount to admitting none of the Legionnaires will ever get back to their own realities.

"Well, I've left a note with Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four. Oh, and there's a girl who's supposed to stop by later that's from another dimension, except she can travel back and forth... maybe she can travel elsewhere, too..." Garth muses. "Think we could find something."

"Like hell he can't!" Vorpal says vehemently. Maybe a little more vehemently than he intended. "If the goddamn Cheshire cat can exist and create someone in his image, there has to be a way to bring Booster back. I got sucked by a death vortex into the Haitian version of Hell and jumped through the eye of the Loa of the Dead. You're telling me that is somehow 'easier' than finding Booster? I don't believe it!" The cat shakes his head, "... keep working, Skeets. We're going to bring him back one way or another, I don't care if I have to sign a compact with the Eldritch Molestator of Souls or whatever. Friends don't leave friends dangling in dimensional limbo."

Skeets tilts again, as if he were looking aside and towards the ground. Then, he says, "Well... I have been doing rather a lot of illegal activity lately, in the form of breaking into a variety of databases that were meant to be secure or private. Although this does not pose a problem for me on a technical level, on a moral level I am normally against such violations... but going through more legal channels was getting me nowhere." After this admission, he looks up again at the biological people. "I had been working on a way to trans-dimensionally scan for Michael's bio-signature, but the sheer multitude of alternate chronologies and dimensions made such an idea unfeasible. However, I now think I can narrow down the number of dimensions I would need to scan. But even if I do find him, I have no way of actually traveling there."

Ayla's eyes widen slightly at Vorpal's outburst, and she unconsciously takes a step toward Garth, looking to her brother as she does. Her eyes hold on him for a moment before she looks to Skeet, head tilted as she listens to what he's got to offer. "Well, then, maybe the girl Garth knows will help with that?" she suggests. It's a little quieter than she has been, and she sidles yet another step nearer her brother.

"Vorpal...?" Garth says, being preternaturally calm (and if Ayla remembered anything of this, that was an indication of what could be a raging thunderstorm coming after if she didn't head him off quickly). "We'll do what we can, but the only thing we can do is wait."

Oh how often Rokk used those words on him. And now he had to use it on the next person. "We will track this down, but until we can do it, we just can't force the issue. Otherwise..."

Vorpal looks at Garth with a rather loaded look. Cats knew about patience. But it was much better when they decided to be patient, versus other people deciding for them. He looks at Skeets. "You do the searching, Garth will talk to his Hopping girl... and I'll talk to people as well. One of us is bound to come up with something. Even if I have to set up camp in Oblivion until I ambush Zatanna or the Sorcerer Supreme or Madam Mim and Merlin. Someone out there must make it their specialty to shimmy between dimensions. Some pointy-hatted wand-waver out there must have a hold of it. I'm sorry for the outburst... but I prefer action. And while Skeets does his pinpointing, I'm going to go and pester anyone I can who might know how to do the Time Warp through a dimensional portal so they can tell us how to take that jump to the left." He looks at Skeets. "... let me know the minute you have something, Skeets." He looks back at Garth and Ayla, "I'm useless with science, but I'll see if any wizards out there can help. You let me know what you find."

"Trust me, sir, no one wants to find Michael more than I do," Skeets tells the ruffled cat. "I'm considered a non-person in this era, little more than property. And beyond my own personal safety, he is my friend." Rising into the air, slightly, Skeets says to the Legionnaires, "Ms. Ranzz, Mr. Ranzz, if you'll pardon me, I'd like to go start this scan... I'm very grateful for being allowed to stay in the headquarters during this time. I think if I did not have access to the technology here, my search would be impossible."

For all that her brothers clashed, it's amazing how many things Garth and Mekt have in common. Like their temper. One final step puts Ayla close enough to reach over, laying one hand warmly on Garth's arm, giving a gentle squeeze. "We all want the same result out of this," she says calmly. "And I think that no matter how much time it takes, we'll come up with something. Unless we're beating each other up," she adds pointedly. "I'm going to get cleaned up, and then get something to eat. Garth, why don't you meet me down there." Before she turns to go to her room and change out of yesterday's dress, Ayla pauses to look at Skeets. "I don't think you're property." Vorpal? Well, he gets something of a confused look, because Ayla didn't follow his point about jumping at all. If it was as easy as jumping, Booster would be back by now. Still, she flashes him an uncertain smile, and turns to go in a swirl of green and yellow skirt, dotted with red.

"... all right. I'll be back, Skeets." Garth nods briefly at Vorpal, as he turns to move with his sister. "I'll go there right now, get a table." He doesn't even have to tell Skeets to let the Legion know when Booster was found, because it would take time, and no amount of pontificating was going to make it go faster until the means was available... not that it would stop Garth from doing so to Rokk when there was a chance...

Vorpal nods at Skeets and the others "... alright, time to go where Everybody Knows Your True Name, I guess." The cat returns Ayla's smile with a nod, and heads out of the building... he has work to do. It was better than sitting around and doing nothing. Doing something, whatever it was, helped channel the frustration and uncertainty. He would not get through the next door he opened... but rather, he would come out on the other side into a place unlike most on earth, where the clientele was... shall we say, enchanting?

LATER:

Skeets hovers in the Legion's lab, interfacing with the computers there. He does feel at home with this technology; computers in the current era are not scintillating conversationalists. He is, and has been, doing trans-dimensional scans in the hope of tracing Booster Gold's bio-signature, essentially sending brief projections of his positronic consciousness probing into other realities.

In one, with static-strewn skies and dusty magenta soil, he gets a probable match. However, it is possible this is merely a Michael Jon Carter that belongs in this particular reality; it bears further investigation.

Like a tiny gold ghost, the nearly invisible projection scans the garish landscape. There are floating monitor screens here and there, so the robot drifts closer to one. Skeets' eye flickers as he watches the images, and then he abruptly blinks out of sight.