1965-08-07 - Be Awake When the Robots Get Here
Summary: Exhausted, the team looks to the future, future profits, and future threats
Related: None
Theme Song: None
nate-grey elmo jp 


JP was sitting at the workbench downstairs with a transmission taken apart in pieces. The winds on Hurricane Jean-Pierre have slowed considerably and he was operating mostly alright. His hand was bruised up but this was to be expected. Fingers took the metal bristle brush to clean one of the parts, reseated it, and he waited. Both hands rest flat on the counter and he stared at the part letting some of the pieces move… but not all of them were. It was a curious side-effect of his ability that a machine need not be whole to be operated by him which really seemed to help him fix individual pieces and test for effectiveness.


Daisy pulls up to the curb. Before Elmo gets out, he just kind of slumps over the steering wheel, forehead pressing on it, in an attitude of complete exhaustion. He stays like that a minute. Then gets out and schleps himself into the garage and slumps on the stool next to JP, bending himself in half so his elbows are on his knees and his head is in his hands.


JP was eyeing the transmission in front of him and tilted his head. He was unhappy with it. Reaching forward with one dirty hand he took the glas sbottle wihth athe half drank coke in it, took another sip, and wordlessly set it in front of Elmo. The part clanked. It wasn't a great sign, but around here it just meant they weren't fiished yet. Millie Smalls was crooning away in her squeaky loveable fashion. Gearhead just gave Elmo's knee a squeeze.


Elmo's hand slowly reaches out and gropes around for the Coke bottle. He achieves it and slowly slides it off the workbench. Slooowly sits up so he can take a swig. Then leans forward on JP's shoulder with a thud, bottle hanging from one hand.


JP bumped the top of Elmo's head withthe side of his where it rest on his shoulder. JP was tired too. He was back to pretty much not sleeping like a pit bull guarding his humans…well Mutants. "Je t'ai eu, ma cherie. C'etait un long voyage. Si c'est plus long?" His grubby hand pat Elmo's knee and let him just rest there, "Je vais vous chercher." He knew the odds were great Elmo didn't know what he said. He reasoned rightly were it in English Elmo might still not be paying attention anyways. "He sleepin." He checked.


Elmo mumbles, "Merci," but whether he understood enough French for that to be the correct response is a mystery. He just lets himself hang like that a little while, head on JP's shoulder, while JP works. Eventually he sits back, rubs his face. "You okay?"


JP still sat at the workbench in the open bay of the garage. Everyone was tired, and Elmo might be napping on a shoulder here- wait… nope… he moved. We have movement, people! It's OK! JP's left hand was bruised to shitbut it didn't seem to be holding him back as he idly was rebuilding a transmission and testing the parts by making it operate on his workbench. His skill wasn't mighty, but it was handy. Shit he was able to control a whole Sentinel in the future so that counds for something maybe. Elmo's question got a shrug. "I'm alright. You know me, I ain' gonna complain, man. You look beat."


Elmo eyes JP's bruised knuckles. "So who got the other end a that?" JP and punching go together like chicken soup and matzoh balls. Elmo slides the Coke bottle back over to his partner. "Yeah. Kinda," he mutters, about him looking beat.


Entering the garage is Nate Grey! Wearing his leather jacket and pants as usual, he actually wears a shirt today! A simple rock and roll shirt, but what can ya do. The extreme Psionic looks to Elmo and JP, small smile on his face. "I see you two have been busy. Anything knew I should know about?" of course, he was probably drawn by commotion that their minds made.


JP shrugged and grinned faintly and tiredly, but oh, even those eyes were grinning. SOMEONE caught his hands for him before they flew away. "Don' worry bout it." He took a drink of the Coke and greeted, "Hey Nate." before the man finished walking in. Did he have eyes in the back of his head now? Oh yeah, he had radial awareness from controlling the transmission. Right right. Turning halfway around in the stool he grinned to Nate, "Eh, that depends on how many dirty footnotes you wan' get. Feel free to crawl up in there." Punctuated by a wink. Only JP would see someone reading his brain as him trolling them. "Vitale' sick. He can't get sick but he heal up someone real sick and now he sick so we sorta holdin in there an' seein how it goes." He looked to Elmo and said "I let Sev know. I ain't tell V that though."


Elmo's mind is almost always a commotion, even when he's drooping over like a wilted dandelion. There's so much going on in there, a constantly-churning lightning storm. Makes a sharp contrast against the way he's slumped on the stool, chin propped in a hand, holding so still that it's, frankly, weird for him. "Nate, buddy. What's up?" He gives JP a dubious look when he's told not to worry about it. "That's the best way to make me worry about it, yannow." He nods, understanding, about Sev. Vitale misses him a lot. The two of them know that. Nate knows that, if he's bothered even skimming their minds.


Of course Nate knows that. He seems to nod lightly as he sits on the couch after snagging a beer for himself. "It's been a day, let me tell you." and he's read Elmo's mind SO many times. It's like a scrambled puzzle in there. But, geniuses often have complex and hard-to-read brains so…good job bud. "Not a whole lot. Came to check in on JP and see if anyone else was messin' with shit between him and his kid." His eyes shift to JP then. "Huh. Vitale's sick? I didn't think that was possible but…when you put it that way, it makes sense." he takes a swig.


JP grinned faintly eying Elmo's ire. "Yeah but you perk right up like a plant when I say it." Because antagonism was the root of all…something." By contrast to Elmo's brain JP's seemed displaced to always be in two places at once, seeing everything as an opportunity to capitalize on, assessing threat and probability of success, and usually almost always something dirty that could involve anyone. Hey, his criteria was 'is interesting' on heists, people, and food. All in all he was not a hard read save for also picking up a Dodge as if it were part of himself or a door mechanism, or some fire escape. The man lived and died by his Id it seemed.

JP frowned a bit with a nod. "Yeah. I'm worried bout em. Like people who get sick know how to deal with it, but people that are used to it bein over and then it not bein over? That' somethin."


"Tell me about it," Elmo sighs. He and Vitale are rapidly getting on each other's nerves as Elmo insists Vitale needs to rest and Vitale insists he needs to do whatever he wants. He scowls faintly at JP—not serious, just a 'yeah yeah, up yours, Bonaventure' standard scowl. "You know what he did? He made me promise to ask a girl out, before he'd eat. Frickin' jerk."


Nate simply looks between JP and Elmo, simply laughing at the latter. "I bet twenty dollars that it was that motor chick." he grins then. before his eyes fall upon JP. "Well…I know he'll feel better. He isn't our resident healer for nothing….or the one probably besides me with the most common sense." he teases lightly.


JP only seemed to preen, even at low energy, at the wall of retalition in that scowl. "Tell V t'mind his own business. Also try askin em. You come in like that Aqualad the Hun guy and he ain't ever gonna listen. He's a grown fuckin man. He ain' in this family cause he listens to rules." He paused and shrugged, "Well rules that ain' mine." The girl cropped up and very seriously offered, "Just sit tight. I got this. I'll take her out. It'll be okay." To Nate he grinned with some amusement, "Uhhhh definiately not Dizzy or trust me I woulda." There was a story there but he reckoned it wasn't his to tell. "Get you head in the game. We got a job comin up. Worry bout skirts later."


"The what?" Elmo says, confused like he's often confused with JP's unique take on English. "Definitely not Diz," he agrees, grinning wryly at Nate. "I ain't her type." He rolls his eyes, expressive and exasperated, at JP (who, let's be honest, could date literally anybody he wanted to), but he settles forward, a little energy returning to him at the prospect of action. "Yeah. What we got."


Nate chuckles a bit. "Heh, sory, sorry! I see you makin' eyes." he teases Elmo before he looks to JP with a small shrug. "Alright, tell me what we've got going on?" he crosses his arms then after taking another sip of that life juice.


JP looked up at Nate with that bullshit bayou charm seeping into his grin, "He give her the same eyes he give me tryin t'make her hair fall out usin his mind?" OH he knew he punched Elmo's buttons like an ape at a piano covered in peanutbutter. Let that mental image sink in. Boots swung down and landed though that hand squeezed Elmo's shoulder. There was something there and it felt like I told you. Eyes were on the wall though pulling down a few things, "We got a couple things. One is that job. Time's crawlin closer. If we ain' got V on his feet we gon' seen another set of hands an' I might got a guy for it. Jes…trust me on it. But that bank job is gonna come up sooner than we plan and if it ain't gonna go off clean we don't want to go runnin in hot cause that's how we get shot and V can't reverse that right now, yeah? Elsewise? Had this… what'chu call em? Them vision things where you seein things ain't happenin yet? Primadonnas? I had a primadonna aout them robots."


Elmo throws a hand and complains, "Naaaa-aate," getting a whole speech's worth of kvetching into one syllable. A gift of his people. He huffs an aggravated sigh at Nate. It's a little distracting, but then JP's going into some details and he sharpens right up, listening to him, watching him with suddenly-alert eyes. "Premonition. You hadda premonition."


Nate chuckles a little bit. "Heh, pretty much." he says to JP before Elmo gives him the whiney complainey version of his name and he lifts his hands up defensively! "Alright, alright, I'll step away from it." he teases the poor jewish mutant before his eyes go to JP. "Premonition. Often called Precognition as well. What did you see?"


JPwaved his hands in a circle and watched the ceailing more than either of them. JP was lost in JP remembering shit land. "Yeah them . So like, you know that guy that went with us to Orleans? Oui? Oui. So like He, Lucian, wa sthere with this gal. Cute. Real cute. Real scared of…everythin but ya know it was like … everything was bright colours and everyone bein' like happy cause they told they was? Real weird. Enforced joy like a prison without bars." He looked finally to Nate, "This sound at all like what ou know about nothin?"


"Yeah. Lucian. Helel ben Shahar, he's called in Torah," Elmo says. In other words, literally Satan, the Morning Star. "He was in the future too?" He glances at Nate, wanting to hear what he's got to say.


Nate seems to ponder a moment. "As in…the Devil?" he looks to Elmo before he shakes his head. "Didn't see him in the Future. We were probably in different parts of the world at the time." he shrugs then, before he looks to JP. "Not even a little bit. What I know of is quite literally hell."


JP held up a hand and said, "Hey, May be the devil buuuuut Devil have my back so I'm like.. I'm torn on that one. Really guy's been in all the history you sound surprised like he ain't gonna be in teh future oo. I mean he just… IS." Looking back to Nate he shrugged, "I touch down before you got there, could be two points like one thing happenin super befor ehte other. I didn' know what you knoew of history and stuff if maybe it sound alike." Looking back to Elmo he cleared up, "So yeah he's there but he ain't the one bringin me there. It was some lady."


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