Geroge was standing in here now. He didn't have the head with him, that was in the medical bay still, but he was casually working away in here. Eliza had all the tools after all, so when he needed to make something to properly house Kale, he just used her work space. She didn't seem to mind much.
Eliza and Maribel walked into the room, a small smile on Eliza's lips as she saw the strange contraption she was working on in one half of the room. The other half looked like a half living area and experiment area. "Hey George," she said with a smile as she made her way over to her machine "We've got company." Her little contraption did look rather like a stargate, if you removed the gate part and used energy channelers instead of symbols. There was also a lot of hazard symbols across certain sections of the machine, some recognisible as radiation symbols. Some were just a mystery.
"Oh goodness..." Isabelle said, placing a hand over her mouth when she saw the giant robot and the contraption in the basement. "Eliza... did you really make all this?" she assumed she also made George.
"Oh yes,"
Eliza said thoughtlessly "Well, mostly I assembled it. You get the pieces in all different places, it just depends how you assemble them really." She was very proud of her machine.
"She means me."
George said with a little shrug, his faceless expression still somehow staring at the containment chamber he was building "She things you built me. And no ma'am, she did not build me. I... I was created through strange circumstances, and I looked very different until... until Mojo got his hands on me." He shuddered, not liking the fact his body had been so... violated. That was how he felt.
"Goodness...yo
u kids are busy." Isabelle said in awe at the machines. Talking to ELiza, she asked, "If I may... how... do you know anything about quantum mechanics?"
"I decided I needed to learn it to get my parents back." Eliza said with a little nod to Isabelle, letting for of Maribel's arm and making her way over to the machine "The neural implant I have helps my learning curve of course."
"Oh... yes, we didn't have anything like that when I was your age." Isabelle explained. She felt so sad for Eliza... and all the students were who lost their parents. "Is there...anything I can do to assist you?"
"Well you can tell me about your own project if possible." Eliza said, going over to her machine and digging down into the mass. She raised up some radiation shielding, removing something small and black and dropping it into a bin.
George came over to Isabelle. He offered a hand to her. "Since no one is introducting us, I am George. It is nice to meet you."
Sensing his hand present, Isabelle smiled and shook it, "Please to meet you, George. My name is Isabelle. I'm Penelope's mother."
"Didn't you once come here?" George asked with a little frown. Frown in his voice of course, because his face couldn't move any more. He scanned her briefly "It must bring back a lot of memories."
"Indeed it does. Very fond ones actually." Isabelle explained, "Though things were much different back then. I'm... a bit sad there is no faculty."
George nodded, though was secretly a bit glad for the current lack of faculty. If there had been more people here, he might have been disposed of on the spot upon returning back. "Everyone thinks the x-men completely vanished. I don't think anyone who could return has ever checked in to do so." he cocked his head to one side as he watched Isabelle. "You seem oddly accepting of my... attitude." it wasn't everyday you met a sentient robot.
"Excuse me? I don't follow..." Isabelle said.
"Usually people are... surprised by my actions. Or at least, do not believe me to be fully... sentient..." George said slowly "I've only met a few outsiders, but very few accepted the idea that I was... more than just a robot, you know?"
"I've met many robots capable of various things. Sentient life and not. I have no reason to treat you any different than I do another human." Isabelle said.
"Thank you very much." George said, the smile evident in his voice "I... I'm glad to see there are others out there who might accept me. That I do not... need to hide down here all my life. Should I chose."
"Of course not. I was going to ask.. since it's not technically legal to have a school be open with no staff... would you be willing to accept my offer of hiring some faculty?" she asked Eliza.
"Hmmm, well, technically, we're not running a school here." Eliza said as she fidgeted with her machine still "Technically, I don't think any of us own the building, except through inheritance I suppose. So for now, we're a bunch of kids without parents living in an abandoned building." She sighed and straightened up "And... I don't think anyone would ever want to come teach here. Unless you're offering."
"Me? I'm... I'm not qualified at all and I'm afraid I have other duties to Britian. If not a teacher... perhaps a gardian of some kind? I don't think I can leave here and responsibly accept a bunch of kids living in an abandoned building."
"That's what I'm trying to do." Eliza said, grimacing as she crunched a lever into place "God that's sticky. Now." She took a few steps back, then held up several pairs of goggles "I suggest wearing these." She sighed and stroked her clothes down as she stepped away "I'm trying to get our parents back. I'd rather concentrate on that than looking for someone to replace them."
"I would never try to replace them. I'm merely trying to help..lest you want this place taken over by the state." Isa said and put the goggles on.
"We've got a deal with SHIELD." Eliza said, checking that Maribel had them on, then Isa had them on as well. "You... might want to step back a little," she said, walking over to a computer on the other side of the room.
They all backed away and were quiet as they watched.
Eliza was muttering to herself as she casually typed into the computer. She frowned, chewing her lip and sighing to herself as the machine began to hum violently. "There's earplugs over here as well if you want them," she said, indicating a little box next to her "Sorry, I'm just... rather used to the noise."
Isabelle shouted and slapped her hands over her ears. She was hypersensitive to sound. "Turn it off!"
Eliza grimaced, and began to shut down the contraption. She was blushing, scuffing her foot on the floor. "Sorry," she said, cheeks pink "I didn't realise it was that bad."
Isabelle wobbled a little and said, "I have sensitive hearing...but I will take your word for it that this thing ..does something"
Eliza was about to suggest that she watched from within a soundproof room, but the idea died when she looked up at Isabelle. "Yeah... yeah it... rips open reality. Though it's difficult to get it stable enough to use."
"I don't think this is safe, dear..." Isabelle said. "I know you are a smart girl and want to help but- what if something goes wrong?"
"I test out everything before I try it." Eliza said "We have a danger room for a reason. Not just to run around in. I use it to check what would happen if something went wrong. AND I have multiple fail safes in case something goes wrong. I'm not a kind messing about in a basement. I'm a scientist."
"Well...you aren't one officially without being certified." Isabelle said, not to demean her, but just to state a fact. "If this machine can tear rifts into reality, I would be worried about things worse than a simple explosion. "
"I'm semi-certified." Eliza muttered gently, feeling more insulted the further she went along "And it shouldn't matter so long as I get results... And again, I have procedures. Nothing can get through."
"What about getting sucked in?" Isabelle asked. She wasn't trying to scold Eliza, but her tone was more that of concern than anything else. These children haven't had a parent to keep them in check, protect them, scold them when necessary. It was a recipe for disaster.
"It's a RIP. Not a worm hole. Worm holes are like that because they're incredibly dense in the middle and that causes a gravitational collapse around everything." Eliza said gently "This has practically no mass, and it's practically none because it technically goes into negatives. It's not dangerous in itself except if you tried to walk through it right now."
"Do you know how far you are from perfecting it?" Isabelle asked.
"Oh, months at a guess." Eliza said with a sigh "I'm dealing with science that hasn't even been attempted yet. As much as I'd like to give you an idea, half the time no one's even tried what I'm trying to do."
"Would you ever consider visiting the facilities in Britian? I could introduce you to the scientists working on similar devices. Perhaps this could be a collaboration?" she suggested.
"I... tried that on asteroid M." Eliza admitted softy "It didn't go too well. Are these people good?"
"Some of the best minds Europe has to offer." Isabelle said with a kind smile. "I'm sorry I can't give you more details on their progress, but you could speak with them yourself."
"I... suppose..." Eliza said, rubbing her neck "I'm just... I've been working on this alone for so long, you know?"
"Although you may not be a certified scientist by legal standards, I understand that you are very intellegent. Heh... you are the daughter of Tom and Lyra, that's for sure." Ms. Carrington said, "Just let me make some arrangements. Perhaps you can help one another out with this endeavor."
"Any names I might recognize?" Eliza asked, trying not to be hopeful for Hank Pym or Reed Richards... They would be very helpful, specially Richards with something like this. But she'd never managed to get in contact with them that way.
"I don't think so?" Isabelle said, not sure about that. "Again, I would have to get a full list of employees and the lab is closed at this time."
Eliza looked up at machine with a sigh. She gave a weak smile to Isabelle, then said "I think the boys might be done cooking now, if you want to go up. I... I should... do a few.. things with the machine..." This was making her nervous. When she got nervous, she just wanted to escape down here.
"Come on Eliza. The twins said they were making bread pudding for me today." said Maribel, who had been strangely quiet this whole time. She hooked her arm with her friends and tugged her along, "You too George."
"I just..." Eliza looked around at the machine sitting in a corner, squirming a little "I want to... to find them..." It was sad. Whenever she looked at the machine, you could see in her eyes that it was the last hope for her. It was the most important thing in her life right now.
George have a little shake of his head. "I do not eat food. I would sit there. And certain people would be awkward."
"Don't be silly... you've been down here since we got back. Come up with us." Mari's machine said.
Eliza seemed to give her a pleading look. She wanted to stay down here with her machine, she wanted to get the machine working. George obviously did not think that was aimed at him. Most people didn't take the time to extend a second invitation to him.
"You too." Mari said, tugging on Eliza's arm.
"Yes I would love to get to know you all." Isabelle added.
Eliza let out a weak whimper, not fighting against the tug, but seemingly getting very nervous as she was encouraged to leave.
George put down his tools carefully. "Alright." he said lightly "Though there isn't much to me."
They all headed upstairs to the school kitchen
George returned downstairs, putting his arm down on the table and taking a deep breath, calming himself slightly. Fine... just... fine. He stared at his broken arm, then carefully put his disembodied arm down and began to clear the badly damaged metal away.
A minute later, Maribel knocked at the door frame.
George had taken the arm to pieces. He was staring at it without moving, looking at all the little bits and pieces as they stayed on the table. "Come in." he said gently.
Maribel walked into the lab and made her way over to the table where his arm was. She wanted to use her signing, but her damn arm was still in a sling. Plugging in her speaker, she 'said', "You know,... it took me a while to get used to this body too. I didn't always look like I do."
"I know Maribel..." george said, gently raising his undamaged arm and putting it around her shoulder, pulling her into a small hug "And I appreciate it. Really. But it's... still a shock... and they were so..." He went quite. He didn't want to say anything.
"Forget about that." Maribel said. "They don't understand what you and I have been through."
George sighed, staring down at the pieces on the table "Have you ever wandered what you'd look like Maribel? All... stripped down, taken to pieces on a table like this? I watched people tear out my organs today, and weld completely different ones in place..."
"Well... I'm human. I would be dead if that happened." she said frankly. "But I can understand how bizarre that must have been. Things will get better."
"It just... It would feel a bit better if everyone stopped treating it like it's the best thing ever to happen to me. I try to talk about it, and they tell me, oh, it's fine, you wanted to slim down anyway. That would be like telling someone it's fine a person cut off slices of you because you were planning on going on a diet." George said with a sigh "I don't know... I'm sorry. I don't usually talk to people..."
"It's okay." Maribel said, "Like I said... it's hard now, but things will get better. I'm finally starting to accept who I am and what I look like now." she explained, "And all it took was someone telling me that I was pretty."
"I was a little.. shocked by what you said earlier." George admitted to her, turning his featureless face to her "I didn't think anyone could ever... think that about me."
Her dark colored cheeks flushed a light grey. "Sorry about that. This silly speaker ... it sometimes says my thoughts. It's hard getting used to it."
"It was... something I think I needed to hear." George admitted weakly, his voice so low it crackled on his speaker "As much as you don't want to admit it, it was nice to hear."
"Good then. I'm glad. It's true though... your new mold is a lot... slimmer and human-looking. Luckily you were also given a good physique. Usually that is something people have to work hard to achieve and even harder to maintain."
George poked his stomach. He didn't like it. It was the very top of human vanity really, the idea of putting muscles on a robot. But he didn't say anything. That would be rude to Maribel, who had been so nice. "If I were handsome... or if I were me... I think I'd choose me."
She giggled but the robotic voice only said a bland, "Ha-ha-ha." in response. To be honest, Mari couldn't wait to be rid of the thing. "See? That is the spirit."
George wanted to smile to her, but the fact he had no face meant that he just seemed to stare at her for a moment. He then turned away, rubbing his face slowly "You're a very nice person Maribel. Thank you."
"You are welcome. Just hang in there, okay?" Maribel asked, patting his attached arm. "I know you don't want to hear it, but I think that this form is a step in the right direction for you."
George seemed uncertain, taking his uninjured hand and starting to run through the bits and pieces on the table. He didn't say anything. He still felt a great deal of loss for his previous form... and what they had robbed him of.
"I'm going to go back upstairs then...let me know if you would like to talk." Maribel offered.
"Thank you. I'm going to repair my arm or something." George said, staring at the arm in pieces.
"Okay. See you later." Maribel said and headed upstairs.
George waved goodbye to her, waiting until she was gone before curling up under the desk and letting out a groan. He really should have a sleep... He hadn't in a while.
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