Let's Start the Upgrades~ (Jin + Yong Soo)

[yongsoo]

Yong Soo grinned at the creation in his hands. It had taken some work. It was hard hiding solar panels into a headband and making it still look cute and unobtrusive. Even harder making solar panels small enough to fit and still provide an adequate amount of power. But, as the Korean bot reminded himself, this wasn’t going to provide enough energy to be a long term power source. The headband was just going to be a bit of a battery on sunny days to help supplement the dated bot’s perfectly functioning electoral charge.

It had been a bit fascinating when Yong Soo had met Mr Kirkland’s bot Jin. The bot was an older model that still couldn’t eat and needed to be plugged in daily. It was explained to him that Mr Kirkland was quite attached to the bot, and had no plans on ever needlessly upgrading him or replacing him with a new model.

So Yong Soo pondered in Ivan’s lab turned Yong Soo’s secret spy base (really, changing the rather ordinary door into a piston powered revolving bookcase was the best idea he had ever had, and why hadn’t Ivan though of doing something cool like that before anyways), sketching and designing until he came up with the perfect test model. It was a thick headband, stiff but still realistic looking. There were two wire attachments that would need to be connected. A small drill into the skull behind the hairline with some ports and it would even be noticeable~

Jin would be thrilled. Yong Soo had a feeling it would be the panda charm on the band that would win him over.

[jin]

Jin found an empty seat next to the meeting hall and plopped down, scanning the walls for any sign of a clock. He knew that Arthur’s meetings could take the greater part of four hours, so this time, he’d come prepared; there would be no more aimless pacing this time. After scooting his plush seat closer to an electric socket just in case, Jin slipped out his e-reader and began flicking through the chapters of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, trying to find where he had last stopped reading. For an ancient work of literature, he found the characters rather endearing, specifically Eponine. ...Though he wasn’t sure whether or not he should be concerned about being able to relate to a love struck crazy stalker girl.

After going through a mental checklist of the things his owner would need following his meeting (food, aspirin, and booze), Jin made a mental note to gather everything precisely 20 minutes before the meeting’s end. If he got certain things too early, they’d be cold by the time Arthur made it out. However, if he went to get them too late, he might not make it back in time to meet his ‘daddy’ at the door. Thankfully, having a computer for a brain made it very easy to calculate the right time to fetch things for optimum satisfaction.

[yongsoo]

Yong Soo entered the building that Arthur’s secretary said he would be at. Apparently the British man spent much of his days holed up in the stuffy room. It had been a struggle to get into a building. While the headband, mini computer,and even wires were fine. Security had no problems with that. It was the drill, the sodering rod and wire clippers they opposed. It had taken a lot of talking and some nice badges and papers he had Ivan make him to let him get away with things in the world of the rich and important.

Besides, there were too many cameras to just hit them in the head with the bag and take off.

After about forty five minutes of roaming the floor, he finally found what he was looking for. Jin was sitting outside the closed office room, sitting and reading over something on a tablet. He looked so serious and in such deep thought. Either he was reading a really good book or his emotional programming needed some work. It was probably his programming.

“Hiiiiii Jin~” Yong Soo plopped down next to the Chinese bot. “I have an upgrade for you~” He brought out the headband.

[jin]

Jin jumped a bit, his finger sliding down the screen and forcing him to skip ahead by several chapters, going from the French Revolution to some guy talking to a chair. Pouting, the bot looked up, waving dully at the speshul Korean bot that always tagged alongside Ivan Braginsky. He was annoying, but not unbearably so (for the most part); still, the idea of a bot being made from a human, under any circumstance, left a bad buzz in his circuits.

"Daddy didn't order any upgrades," Jin blinked, slightly annoyed that he'd been interrupted in the middle of one of maybe five action scenes in the entire book. "I should know...I'm usually the one who manages that kind of stuff."

He glanced down at Yong Soo's hands, blushing slightly at the sight of a very well crafted panda headband. Not that he would expect anything less from the Korean; being a bot that didn't have to do the typical bot duties obviously had its perked - having enough free time to think up aesthetic modifications like that, for example.

"Besides, aren't those things more of an accessory...?"

[yongsoo]

“Oh, no one ordered an upgrade for you. I decided to do it by myself.” Yong Soo started to dig through his bag. “You see, I was talking to Ivan about why Captain K didn’t upgrade you, and he said it was for sentimental reasons. So I asked him if he thought you being a plug in kinda powered model was difficult or anything. And he said it wasn’t really but I was thinking, what if something happened? Like if you were on your way home from a long function, and the car got stuck and your charge ran out and you were stuck offline for a couple of hours before Captain K was able to get you home? So, I was thinking, if we can’t upgrade you, what could we do to supplement your power? My first thought was solar power panels intigrated into your skin like mine, but that would take so long and be so expensive and messy that Captain K would never let me do it. So I thought, how else could we use solar panel? Well, most panels are too big and cumbersome, so I went with a network of itty bitty teeny tiny ones into a headband because a headband would be up top and uncovered so it can soak in solar rays. Also, since your hairline is like, right there, I can put in tiny little ports to connect the attachments too that would be invisible underneath your hair~”

With a grin much too large on his face, he held up the drill he had unearthed from his bag. “So let’s put your offline for a minute so I can drill a couple of holes into your central processing unit.”

[jin]

Jin looked at the headband skeptically at first, becoming more intrigued as Yong Soo explained how it would work. By the end he was all for it...that is, until the other pulled out a friggin’ power tool from his shoulder bag. Gold eyes widened for a bit before the bot put on a brave face.

“Okay, first off, I don’t drive,” Jin said, beginning to scoot away from the Korean who looked far too happy to be holding a pointy instrument. “Second, unauthorized bot upgrades are banned according to subsection D of Rule 45, page 108 of the Bot Ownership manual.”

He held his tablet in front of him protectively as he stood up, backing away. Okay so technically, the headband wouldn’t be a full blown upgrade, making the rule against them null and void, but he wasn’t about to let Yong Soo drill holes into his head out of the blue. While he knew the other bot knew what he was doing, the idea of being offline for any length of time in public was unappealing, not to mention his switch was located on a rather intimate part of his body.

Jin considered entering the meeting room to complain to his owner, but swatted that idea away almost immediately – putting his own concerns over Arthur’s was unacceptable. Besides, the blond had more important things to concern himself with. Bottom of the barrel, Jin had to keep reminding himself that he was the bottom of the barrel.

His back met the wall after backing up too far, causing him to squeak a bit; he was now holding the tablet like a weapon.

“...Seriously Yong Soo, put the drill away or I’ll totally call security.”

[yongsoo]

“It’s just an example scenario.” Yong Soo waved off, looking for an outlet to plug the drill into. “And this isn’t technically an upgrade. It’s an attachment that happens to require a port to function properly. Rule 45 only applies to full upgrades which requires a data packet greater than 27 Gigabytes.” Yong Soo grinned as he stood upright.

Huh, why was Jin huddled against the wall holding up his ebook thingy up like a shield?

“Huh? Security? Why would you need to call them? Do you not want me to touch your switch. I didn’t know you were that modest, but I guess that’s understandable. You know, this headband would help lengthen the time between your power ups.”

He hummed a moment, absentmindedly turning the drill on to test it.

“I guess we could keep you online, but that would feel really weird when I drill into your head.”

[jin]

Despite knowing that he was incapable of feeling much, including pain, the idea of someone bringing a drill to his skull while fully conscious was enough to make him squirm.

Still, he wasn't about to let the Korean touch his switch, and crossed his legs defensively in protest.

"Why do you need to drill into my head anyway?" Jin asked, slightly irritated, but mostly afraid. "You've enough time to play around with things like this - can't you just make them wireless? Just because I'm an older model doesn't mean I have to go all ancient medieval torture on me."

[yongsoo]

“You can’t make a power supply wireless.” Yong Soo shook his head. “That’s like saying ‘Hey, Yong Soo, can you make me something that gives off enough energy that I can charge without plugging in?’ That’s crazy talk.” But now Yong Soo was thinking. How would a wireless power supply work? Power was an internal thing. You couldn’t just hook up some transmitters and radio the energy to a device.

At least not yet... If he could create something that received electrical waves in a way similar to solar power. No, no. He had to stop himself before he got to invested. He still had to finish fine tuning his prototype cat ears and tail, and move on to the bunny model, then the puppy. Not to mention that he should start writing out his thoughts for the live model dance step installation program. Oh! And he still had finish the rest of Final Fantasy XLIII! Best put the ideas of wireless power sources to the back of his mind.

“Come on Jin. If I made it wireless, then I would have to take off your skullcap and put the new materials right into your central CPU. The drill is must less intrusive than me rooting around, literally, inside you head.” It was a lie, but Jin would much rather choose an alternative to the Korean bot rooting about inside him.

[jin]

“...Fine,” Jin finally relented, setting his tablet down and waiting for Yong Soo to do whatever the heck he said he was going to.

While he didn’t appreciate being worked on in the middle of Arthur’s business, the idea of the Korean messing around with his circuitry was even less appealing. Sure, his owner would notice any changes and demand for them to be changed, but...what if he didn’t? What if the blond actually liked that Yong Soo had made him smile more, or laugh, or...or meow like a cat? He’d noticed the other bot seemed to enjoy making ‘happy’ modifications of that nature, and wouldn’t put such mischief past him.

“And just to make a point – I don’t think making a wireless power source is crazy, ” he added, crossing his arms. “If you’d quit spending so much time on your kinky side projects and focus on developing products that would be of actual use to people, I’m sure you could figure it out. You’re capable like that. ”

And that was Jin’s backhanded compliment for the day.

[yongsoo]

Yong Soo let out a squeal of delight as he descended upon Jin. It really was a simple procedure. All the CPUs were constructed the same way. He had Jin’s hair clipped out of the way and was applying a gel that would temporary cut off the electronic signals in Jin’s scalp so he wouldn’t feel any pain with the drilling.

“They’re not kinky side projects.” Yong Soo tsked, thinking of his work. So maybe someone could find the nekomimi project the works of a fetish. And maybe the traditional belly dance routine could be used to warm up for some late night activities, but it wasn’t like that was the sole purpose of his projects. “It’s not that a wireless energy source isn’t possible if you think outside the box, but it’s not practical. It’s much easier just to intergrade solar panels into everything if the option’s there.”

A small part of himself curled, pleased at Jin’s round about compliment. “Thank you Jin. It’s good to know that you believe in me.” Of course it would be foolish not to believe in the guy currently sodering wire into ports drilled into your head.

About seven minutes later, everything was all set and the headband connected and put in place. “Alrighty, you’re all set Jin. How’s it feel?”

[jin]

Jin stuck his tongue out as he felt the gel being applied, unused to the odd texture. It smelled pretty good (like blueberries), though hoped it wouldn’t stain any of his clothes. He kicked his legs back and forth innocently as Yong Soo lied through his perfect teeth about his side projects being useful. Honestly, the one people who ever bought those stupid things were teenagers and the creepy old men with beards that Arthur had warned him about.

It was useless arguing with him though – the Korean had a thick skull. ...He also had a drill to his head and unlike Yong Soo, Jin knew when to keep his mouth shut.

Jin stifled a yawn as the other bot finished the job, blinking sleepily as he reached up and felt the small accessory that would supposedly help him charge like the newer F.A.C.U. models. He liked that it was small, and liked it even more because it was cute, but he wasn’t about to admit that, especially since there were now two new holes in his head.

“I feel exactly the same,” he answered dully. “Except now I have a headband welded to my skull.”

However, it came out sound more like:

“Lluks ym ot dedlew dnabdaeh a evah I won tpecxe, emas eht yltcaxe leef I.”

[yongsoo]

“... Opps. That wasn’t supposed to happen.” Damn, and he had everything planned so perfectly too. He had gone over and over the scan of Jin’s cpu (something that neither the Chinese bot nor it’s owner knew he had) again and again. The two ports were made directly and shallowly into on of Jin’s power cells. His vocal center wasn’t anywhere close to where he had done his drilling.

“Okay, let’s see what’s sparking the world malfunction. I’m gonna ask you a couple questions to see if I can narrow it down.” Worse come to worse, he could always pop Jin’s head open and take a better look. “Can you understand what I’m saying? Shake your head yes or no then verbally answer.”

[jin]

The smaller bot shot Yong Soo a quizzical look.

“Nac I esruoc fo haey (Yeah, of course I can).” Jin said after nodding, looking a little apprehensive. “(Yhw? ...Deneppah tahw? Gnorw s’tahw? Od uoy did tahw? (Why? …What happened? What’s wrong? What did you do)?”

Turns out his apprehension earlier was completely justified. D’oh. And he really thought the Korean knew what he was doing too... Oh well. Hopefully whatever was wrong wasn’t permanent, and if it was...well. He did download that new set of kung fu action commands the other day...

[yongsoo]

“Okay. Cognitive response is perfectly okay. And you seem to understand what you’re saying as well just fine and dandy.” Digging through his bag, the Korean tried to find a piece of paper and a writing utensil. It wasn’t like he ever had them. In the day of laptops, tablets, bots, and cellphones you ever needed to write information down anymore. After a few moments and holding his bag upside down to dump out everything inside, he found a package of tissues and a purple eyeliner pencil. Not ideal, but it would work well enough.

The Korean bot shoved the makeshift items to Jin. “Okay, now I want you to write down these two sentences. ‘The quick fox jumped over the lazy dog.’ And, ‘She sells sea shells by the sea shore.’ Take you time and don’t worry if the pencil’s kinda crumbly.”