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[vehicon-thrust.livejournal.com]

So, Thrust thinks, this is a farm. Well, it's flat.

It's actually not impossible to keep a low profile if you're a big pink robot motorcycle, it's just tricky. It's particularly difficult when you're working on getting your refuelling station set up semi-permanently (Oliver had helped him move it somewhere out of the way, but Thrust is doing fiddly work, now, that he wouldn't trust to anyone else) and reliably running the way you want it to.

Really, being somewhere out of the way on the Cooper farm (at least Thrust hopes it's still the Cooper farm; he doesn't know where the territory ends) is only a marginal help. He is, after all, seven or eight feet of brightly-colored robot fiddling with a machine made out of part of a light pole with four rather small solar power panels, a pressure cooker, a toaster oven, and many other less recognizable small appliances securely welded to it. Further welded sections of light pole make up a sturdy square base. There are symbols carefully painted onto the pressure cooker-- one is pretty self-explanatory, even without the dialogue, but the other is a little more unusual. (Hey, it's technically a Vehicon refuelling station, even if it's a refuelling station in the same way a vending machine is a restaurant.)

Thrust fiddles with tubing and wiring and connections, now and then tossing a manipulatory-appendage full of organic matter (mostly grass, although with the occasional dirt clod) into the pressure cooker, then peering at the toaster oven before continuing to make adjustments.

He really wants just a vending machine, see, not a still.

The whole thing might look a little bit odd, to a passing human.

Comments

[alwaysroomforhope]

It looks, Steph thinks, like something Sokka is going to go absolutely nuts for. Machinery and tubing and stuff! Cool.

She slows to a halt and swings herself off her bike to come over and investigate. Waiting for invitations is something Steph has never found particularly useful.

Also.

Robot.

"Hi!"

[vehicon-thrust.livejournal.com]

A very large pink head swings toward Steph, bright red optics behind a darker red band moving to focus on her.

Yup. Totally a robot.

"Hey," Thrust says, simply, voice deep and gravelly and not sounding particularly mechanical or robotic or precise.

... Alas, his greetings don't get longer even when he doesn't have his hands full.

[alwaysroomforhope]

"Totally dumb question," Steph says, grinning, "but ... are you a robot?"

She has to ask.

[vehicon-thrust.livejournal.com]

"You gonna do somethin' about it if I answer somehow you don't like?"

It's a serious question asked not quite seriously-- at least she's asking, right?

[alwaysroomforhope]

Steph grins, considering this.

"Well, what would be the answer that I don't like? I mean, I think I like robots. Probably. As long as you're not a killer robot. But if you were a guy in a robot suit, that would be ... okay, I couldn't say weird, I dress up in a cape and mask for kicks. But I'd probably give you a totally funny look."

[vehicon-thrust.livejournal.com]

Thrust laughs at that-- that's three for three all right on the females of this species; not a bad record. (He'll ponder the males when he's met more of them.)

"Yeah, I'm a robot. Built a warrior, but ain't killed anybody." Not for lack of trying, but like she needs to know that. "And if I had some kinda organic in here, I couldn't transform without squishin' 'em."

[alwaysroomforhope]

"Cool," is the verdict on that.

"Wait. Transform?"

[transbender.livejournal.com]

Thomas can't help himself. He let's his muscles stretch, letting his body bend upwards, so he's on the same height as the weird robot thing. "Is that a still?"

[vehicon-thrust.livejournal.com]

"Nah, refuelling station," Thrust answers, then notices the unorthodox position, for a human. "Nice trick."

Probably Thomas the elastic guy, then.

[transbender.livejournal.com]

Thomas lets a grin spread across his face. "Gee thanks, I like it. Refueling for you?"

[vehicon-thrust.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. Haven't rigged anything else to run on energon, and I kinda like not starvin'." It's something you get used to, really, even if Thrust doesn't sound immediately bothered by the prospect.

[transbender.livejournal.com]

"Ener-" Thomas shakes his head. Oh god, you gotta be kidding. "So, what are you filtering into it?"

[vehicon-thrust.livejournal.com]

Hey, robot. With a headlight on his head. Is it so out-there, all things considered?

"Right now, mostly plant matter. Used gasoline a while back, didn't have things filtering right, wound up with high grade." He chuckles. "Knocked me off my aft real fast.

"... So I guess it could be a still, just not one'd be any fun for you."

[clockwork-son.livejournal.com]

Passing human? Yeah, that's Gabe all right.

He opens his mouth to ask how that works (where 'that' could as easily go for Thrust as for his kludge of a refuelling station)...

...and then shuts it again, smiling quietly. Huh.

"Hello," he greets, suddenly cheerful.

[vehicon-thrust.livejournal.com]

"Hey." It seems to be Thrust's standard form of greeting, coupled with a nod of that heavy-looking head. He reattaches a few cables that run from the solar power panels-- which look like they've been taken from highway call-boxes, they aren't very big-- to the pressure cooker emblazoned with warning labels.

(He's also playing a game with himself, as well as trying to adjust the level of energon refinement to his refuelling station. He's keeping track of his impressions to human interactions based on gender.

Look, there's nothing to shoot at around here, really, he's got to do something to keep from getting bored.)

And to think he'd been worried about people screaming or fleeing in terror only to return with torches and pitchforks.

[clockwork-son.livejournal.com]

Gabriel is unlikely to fetch a pitchfork.

His other pair of glasses, maybe. Thrust is interesting. So is his... hmm, okay, this bit does this and connects to that and the next part is obviously supposed to go there and...

"--Matter-energy converter?"

It's not quite inquiring enough to be a question and not quite certain enough to be a statement. Understanding how something works does not automatically lead to understanding what it's intended to accomplish, although it allows for some very educated guesses.

[vehicon-thrust.livejournal.com]

"... This part, yeah," Thrust knocks what is most technically a wrist against the pressure cooker. "Good eye."

He does not add 'for an organic.'

[clockwork-son.livejournal.com]

Possibly a good thing.

"And you..."

The frown is intrigued rather than displeased. "...ah, nice to meet you."

Forgive him for not being politer. Trying to follow all the interlocking connections and potentials of the mechanisms that allow Thrust to transform is giving him a bit of a headache. It's a good headache, but still.

[vehicon-thrust.livejournal.com]

Thrust is happy to give demonstrations of his transformation sequence. Humans have the best slagging reactions to it. Still, can't argue with the articulation. (There's other stuff, too, like the fact that there are energy weapons built into Thrust's hands and that one of his manipulatory appendages does double-duty as a grappling hook, not to mention the array of scanners and sensors that would make him a formiddable spy if any of them were designed for use on an organic world and then there's his spark, which doesn't seem to power anything or even really hook up to anything, but Thrust would just be a big pink heap of spare parts without it.)

"Likewise. Name's Thrust."

He doesn't extend a hand. Not exactly his habit-- might have something to do with the weaponry. But he doesn't sound displeased, just vaguely amused.

[eureka-bell.livejournal.com]

...

OH.

MY.

GOD.

Steve was having something of a bad week concerning one of the farm's new arrivals, which is the reason that he's come a-wandering. Now? If you think you've seen a face light up, you're wrong, unless you're seeing his expression right now. There actually are no words.

[vehicon-thrust.livejournal.com]

Thrust is getting kind of used to the fact that humans stare. He's also aware that this is the sort of stare that means nobody's liable to start shooting. Gibbering, maybe, but it'd probably be the sort of gibbering he could deal with.

"Hey."

The refuelling station is working, now, thanks to Gabriel's advice, and Thrust is just finishing clamping the conversion tank (it is totally a pressure cooker, or was, in a past life) closed over a load of organic whatever, mostly weedy grass and dirt clods.

[eureka-bell.livejournal.com]

THE GIANT ROBOT IS TALKING TO HIM.

Stephen glees, with a slightly overstated "hey!" and wave, the combination of which are more usually associated with stalkers and fangirls.

"...Hi!"

[vehicon-thrust.livejournal.com]

Thrust's really only... oh, eight feet tall, tops. He feels very tall, on Earth.

But based on Steve's reaction?

Yeah, Thrust is totally not getting shot at right now. "Name's Thrust."

Well, like he's got much better to do while his lunch... transubstantiates. That's as good an excuse as any to talk to somebody, right? (This is gonna go to his head, someday. He's a robot, not a rock star!)

[eureka-bell.livejournal.com]

"Stephen! Bell!"

At some point, through the sheer force of magnetic attraction, he's gotten close enough that they could shake hands. It looks like that could be a dangerous occupation for Steve, but he offers to anyway, with a marginally shellshocked expression.

There are a million and one questions lining up in his brain as they speak, but at the moment so... you're a robot, eh? has shoved its way to the front and will not shut up.

[vehicon-thrust.livejournal.com]

Well, hey, if he wants to fondle the turrets...

... Okay, actually, no fondling, but Thrust is willing to attempt a handshake. This involves letting Stephen do the gripping and the shaking, however, but Thrust will go along with it.

"First time you've met a robot?"

He's learning to spot that, too. (It's not hard. He seems to be everybody's first robot, so far.