2379/Robot Exposure Therapy

Robot Exposure Therapy
Date of Scene:	04 June 2015
Location:	Njorun Station - Cafeteria
Synopsis:	James Rogers meets Lizbet in the mess hall at Njorun Station after his prejudice against robots comes out on the radio (see A New Voice On the Radio which this immediately follows). They talk and he comes to understand what Shinki are better. It was therapeutic!
Cast of Characters:	309, 802

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Lizbet (309) has posed:
    Lizbet is currently sat on a table in the cafeteria, cross-legged. She has a couple of holographic screens in front of her, as well as a holographic keyboard. Currently she's... checking Twitter.

    Apparently robots can be social media addicts too.

    Every now and then she glances towards the entrances to the cafeteria, before looking at her screen again. She's obviously waiting for someone.

James Rogers (802) has posed:
James comes walking into the cafeteria, pausing at the entrance to see if anyone questions him about the pistol strapped to his thigh, the knife in his belt or the shield slung across his back. When nobody seems to even blink in his direction he walks in and looks around for the chow line. He proceeds there and gathers a healthy heaping of breakfast foods and then asks for and is given directions -- in the form of a quickly pointed finger -- towards the table the Shinki is camped out at. He approaches the table holding his tray between him and it and says, "Lizbet?"

Lizbet (309) has posed:
    Lizbet looks up as James approaches. She seems surprised for a moment, before quickly regaining his composure. "Ah. Mister Rogers. Hello," she says, softly - while reaching out for those holograpic projections in front of her. She makes a pinching motion with her thumb and ring finger at each in turn, which causes them to blip off.

    She then stands up. "Good morning." Bow~

James Rogers (802) has posed:
James bows back to her, a little stifly and without taking his eyes off of her. He even manages to do it and keep the tray pretty well parallel to the floor. He then sets it down on the table between him and Lizbet and starts to sit down but then decides to wait for her to do so first. "Its been an unusual twelve hours, I hope you'll forgive me if I wolf down my food," he says.

Lizbet (309) has posed:
    Lizbet doesn't take long to figure out he's waiting for her to take a seat again. So she sits back down, cross-legged once again. with her hands in her lap. "I can imagine. You shouldn't eat too quickly, anyway. You might choke." She glances at the heaping pile of food for a moment, then holds her hand out to one side - summoning forth some sort of oversized (in relation to her) canteen. Which she promptly opens and takes a sip from.

James Rogers (802) has posed:
James sits. His demeanor may be a little stiff but it may show that the reason he waited was out of curtesy... however forced it may have been. Before he starts to shovel down a large portion of the scrambled eggs like only a hungry teenaged boy seems able to do, he asks, "So... do you have to eat and drink," having noticed the canteen, "Or is that... some other sort of fuel?"

Lizbet (309) has posed:
    Lizbet watches as James just shovels food down his throat, trying her best not to smile. She's trying to keep her face in a neutral expression, damnit! "This is coolant," she answers, taking another sip. "We don't radiate heat very well, but our components produce a lot of it. So we're liquid cooled."

    "We run on electricity. Like a smart phone. I sleep in a charging cradle."

James Rogers (802) has posed:
James chuckles after washing down a slice of bacon -- which he did actually chew properly -- with a swig of chocolate milk. "And..." he pauses to formulate the question polietely, "You're actually programmed and everything? You're not real at all?" And he fails completely. Socializing with robots was never something he even considered practicing....

Lizbet (309) has posed:
    Lizbet stares at James for a few seconds. Literally, just... staring up at him in disbelief. "I like to think in the eleven-ish years I have been active, I've managed to progress beyond my pre-programmed defaults," she says, diplomatically. She's pretty good at keeping a straight, stoic expression!

James Rogers (802) has posed:
James frowns for a moment and then it dawns on him what he said. He immediatly flushes with embarassment and says, "Sorry," to Lizbet. He then mutters something to himself while he eats some more eggs, this time with bacon broken up and stired into it, which anyone with experience with mouth-stuffed-teenaged-mumbling would understand to be a briefly repeated mantra of 'Robots are people too.'

Lizbet (309) has posed:
    Lizbet can't help but laugh. It's a very genuine sound, much more human than you'd expect out of a robot. Actually, her entire demeanor is very humanlike... "It's true that our default personalities are a result of programming. Although our origins were more accidental than intentional."

James Rogers (802) has posed:
James' face lights up at these comments as if realizing something that makes everything alright. "So," he starts, "If I understand that right while you were originally a robot you are now more a person who happens to be mechanical rather than biological!" He holds back the rest of his thoughts: (Sort of like how a person shouldn't be compared to an ape.) He figures that might be a bit insulting.

Lizbet (309) has posed:
    Lizbet blinks, perplexed. She frowns, just a little bit. "If that helps you get your head around the concept that I'm a person, then fine." She takes another sip from her jellycan. Mmmm, strawberry flavour. "I like to think I was a person from the moment I was registered, but I'm obviously biased."

James Rogers (802) has posed:
James finishes his eggs and then slowly, almost delicately, nibbles at one of his remaining pieces of bacon. Seeming much more relaxed about the converstation, he asks, "How long have you been here...? in the Multiverse that is."

Lizbet (309) has posed:
    Lizbet crosses her arms and looks thoughtful. "Well. My world unified approximately seven years ago. I kept to my own world for most of that, though. I only joined the UEF two point three years ago, though."

James Rogers (802) has posed:
James nods and takes another swig of his milk. "My world unified yesterday afternoon," he pauses and then asks, "I just realized I forgot to ask the recruiter if there are timezones here?" He laughs and adds, "How do you all keep track of everything going on?"

Lizbet (309) has posed:
    Lizbet laughs. "I have thirty clocks running simultaneously at all times. Other people whose brains AREN'T computers probably just wing it." She drains the rest of the coolant in that canteen, and licks her lips. "You will hear people wishing you a good morning at all hours of the day. Just go with it."

James Rogers (802) has posed:
James nods and then asks, "With all these warp gates around do people ever even think about distances?" He then starts in on The Last Piece Of Bacon with a reverance that makes the capitalization necessary for those observing him. Its as if he isn't aware of -- or at least isn't thinking about the fact -- that he could go back for seconds.

Lizbet (309) has posed:
    Lizbet shrugs her shoulders. "I always think about distances because I'm six inches tall. Everything's much bigger when you're six inches tall when everything is designed for people who are six -feet- tall."

James Rogers (802) has posed:
James frowns slightly and looks upwards for a moment while considering living in a world where most people were twelve times larger than him. After the brief pondering he looks back down at Lizbet. "But there are a large number of you, right? You have people your..." he doesn't want to say size, seems too impolite so he goes with... "scale that you can interact with, right?"

Lizbet (309) has posed:
    Lizbet tilts her head to one side. "There are plenty of other Shinkis in the Union, yes. Also, I live in a magical fairy forest, so there's plenty of people around my scale there."

    She pauses for a second. "No. Seriously. I live in a magical fairy forest. That isn't a joke."

    She then continues: "But everything is still scaled for humans in the majority of the Multiverse. There's more human-scaled people than Shinki-scaled people."

James Rogers (802) has posed:
"Between growing up with an honest-to-goodness goddess as a sister and then everything that has happened in the last eighteen or so hours, a magical fairy forst is not that startling a thing," James says. "I mean, who'd've beleived I'd be having breakfast with a tiny robot who was pleasant company after all?" Oh there he goes again, his expression quickly changes to show that he's afraid he's tasting ankle now.

Lizbet (309) has posed:
    Lizbet gives a little grin. "Not many people believe in tiny robots. I've received a lot of confusion about how an AI can -fit- into a computer small enough to fit in my chest." Seems she's intentionally ignoring the 'pleasant company' part.

James Rogers (802) has posed:
Looking releived, James gives a thankful smile to Lizbet before finishing off his chocolate milk -- giving himself a brownish milk mustache in the process. He chooses not to comment on the AI aspect there because he's trying hard to think of Lizbet as a 'spontaneous intelligence' more than an 'artificial' one. "Someone asked about Ultron on the radio earlier. If he ever does show up..." he sounds a bit concerned as he says, "Don't let him touch you."

Lizbet (309) has posed:
    Lizbet gives a two-fingered salute. "Stick to ranged weapons, got it." She then stands up, streeetching. She tosses the canteen over her shoulder - and it vanishes in a flash of white light. "This has been... entertaining. But I need to get back home so I can make lunch for my Master."

James Rogers (802) has posed:
"It was... eye opening for me, thanks," James says. He also stands as she does. He then says, "I'd offer to shake your hand but... since I'd just grab you in that case I guess that's not very polite."

Lizbet (309) has posed:
    Lizbet holds up one hand. "Finger," she demands, with a stoic expression.

James Rogers (802) has posed:
James can't help but smirk as he finds it a bit humorous, but he extends his right hand to Lizbet, pointer finger extended towards her. "Alright."

Lizbet (309) has posed:
    Lizbet takes his finger in her hand, and shakes it once. She then takes a few steps back, grins, and leaps into the air. Her armour materialises over her with a flash of white light, and with a burst of speed from her flight pack, she's gone.