Stranded discussion

[[WIP]]

012 pokes her head round the door to see into the room. It's a rather small space with a desk in the corner, more storage than could be counted, and a small window looking out onto a beach. She walk so over to the desk and rifles through the draws, looking for a pencil and paper.

The lights are off in the room, with the window providing the only illumination. The floor is carpeted with a short white rug. The titanium walls are covered with false hardwood panels.

In one desk drawer are a few cargo manifests signed in haste by, presumably, the captain and a second signature. The names are hard to make out at a glance due to the heavy stylization of the signature.
There is a Newton's Cradle in another, which presumably would have been set on the desk after the crew had arrived. There is also a ceramic cup full of pens of all sorts. In an adjacent closet are a few white uniforms and a dressier one with blue accents and epaulets.

#001 began searching through the storage shelves. Most are empty. It seems that the captain intended to collect trinkets over time one they'd arrived. He unwrapped some protective material from an object in a battered box and found an animal skull of some sort. It had sharp teeth in an elongated snout and seemed to have two eyes holes on either side of its head and a third in its forehead. He manipulated a tusked lower jaw and spoke in a low voice as He turned it to face #012. "Hello! What are you doing in my office?"

She laughs "oh my gosh, 001 put that down!" She shakes her head in an amused way and sits down at the desk with a pencil and paper. Immediately she starts scribbling design she and ideas for rpototype vending machines.

"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy." #001 quoted the only line he could ever remember of Hamlet in a silly voice. Wait, he thought, Why do I remember Hamlet and Treasure Island but not my name? He set the skull down on its shelf and decided to see what #012 was up to. "How do you knw what you're doing?" He asked.

She shrugs "I just do. I don't remember who I am, or where I came from, but I remember this." She scribbles down a few notes in barely legible handwriting. "I also know you were just quoting Hamlet. I would have gone for 'to be or not to be, that is the question'". She adds a few more side points. "Done. Maximum efficiency. Now all I need are materials"

"That would be the wrong soliloquy for the skull, though." #001 replied. He stidied the notes but could make little headway toward understanding them. "I'm not even sure how a regular vending machine works to be honest, but this is beyond esoteric to me. Might as well be arcane."

She snorted. "Trust me, it's just basic engineering. And I garuntee it will be faster than the other vending machines." She stands from the desk with the paper in hand. "Come on, I want to have one more look at the vending machines in the lounge. Make sure I'm not missing something." She tucked the pencil behind her ear and headed for the door.

#001 followed, curious to see what she'd do. The vending machine hadn't seemed that slow to him. But then, he had no metric to base that assumption on. "Just pronise me the Jukebox stays as it is?" He asked. "It's perfect." The speakers were now playing Same As It Ever Was by Talking Heads.

"Yeah, yeah" she says distractedly "don't worry I won't go anywhere near your precious jukebox" she takes out her plans "we need materials" she says.

"Where?" #001 asked. "Unless we can find scrap yard these parts will need to be custom fabricted. We'll need forges, furnaces, presses, hot rollers, cold rollers, picklers for annealing..." Why was this starting to make sense?

She raises her eyebrows "now who's the genius" she grins. "What's also lucky is that I know exactly how to use all of this things. Don't know how I know that, but I do."

"Sure, but that's days of work. If not longer. And where would you find the equipment? Or the raw materials? I thought you just wanted to reaarange the existing parts. Which I don't think would be feasible."

She sighs. "I suppose I could just modify it. Wouldn't hen as good as the idea I had but-" she shrugs "gotta work with what I got I suppose"

((Maybe they can find some scrap parts from another portion of the station at some point? Also, #003 has a forge. So we can meet with her. But I don't want it to be right away.))

"There's a lot of systems down all over this place. I'm sure you can find something else to fix. The lights would be a good start." #001 said trying to offer an alternative. He felt bad for shutting her down. For creating problems without offering solutions. Constructive criticism was more about the first half.

Oopsieee! Kinda forgot abt this. Sry I hadn't even realised you'd replied- 💀🗡))

She shrugs and scribbles some stuff down on the paper, readjusting her plans and making alternative solutions to the obvious problems

#001 thought about what to say. Eventually he landed on, "So, you wanna explore... wherever we are? Or do you need help with your projects?"

She looks up "I wanna explore. Projects can wait." She crams the paper in her pocket