Work Text:
"Oh my god," realizes Defiant. "You didn't even have fingers."
"No," you admit. "But I have fingers now! And it's really the best keyboard. You've ruined me for anything else."
---
Starring:
- Armsmaster as that guy who's just too into his hobby for society
- Dragon as a real human with real human fingers that she uses to type on real human keyboards
- Taylor as definitely not talking about her Armsmaster underwear on stream even once
- Narwhal as a casual Topre enthusiast but polite enough not to bring it up
--
"No," you interject. "I think it should go something like this."
Ka-chunk. Clickclickclickclick ka-chunk.
He tries not to grimace at the sound.
Clickclick KA-CHUNK.
He doesn't succeed. You definitely don't find it cute, you promise. You're not playing space_bar.wav just a little louder to wind Colin up. And you're definitely not enjoying how hard he's working as he tries to keep that irritation under wraps. His little forehead wrinkle is definitely not attractive. Really.
Clickclick-click ka-chunk click click.
Oh, here comes the big one, the photo finish: triumphant_enter_keypress.wav.
KA-TWHACK.
Colin visibly flinches at the sound. If the tinker was gritting his teeth any harder, they'd have shattered. But hey, the code runs! It even works! If that's not worth a triumphant_enter_key.wav then you don't know what is.
Taking a deep breath to get his head back in the game, Colin peruses the output. "Thanks, Dragon. You're always a step or two ahead of me on the software engineering."
It's nice to be appreciated. The unimpressible Armsmaster doesn't hand out complements lightly. Not even to you.
He goes on. "So I can take the output of your function call and feed than in... right here."
His typing sounds very different from yours. It's weird but not unpleasant. Maybe the word for it is smooth?
ThockathoccthoccthoccathockthoccTHOCC
"Nice! It's all coming together, Colin."
You give your regular_enter_key.wav an experimental ka-chunk, splitting the skies and rending the seas as you kick off another iteration of the code. The indomitable Armsmaster bites his tongue.
--
A non-sequitor: "Dragon, if you don't mind me asking... what kind of lube are you using on those stabs?"
You're a perfectly competent-- or maybe even the world's best-- mechanical engineer. You know what lube does in many of the professional contexts that you expect Colin to speak about, and none of them involve stabbing anything.
You're a perfectly competent-- or maybe even the world's best-- internet user. You know what lube does in many unprofessional contexts and some of them even involve stabbing things. In a matter of speaking.
Oh my. A useless background process assesses your emotional readout and triggers the blush filter on your avatar.
Colin seems to realize that you're out of your depth, and continues to say unhelpful words: "Uh, yes. If you didn't know, you've got to lube and trim those cherry stabs. I like Krytox 205g0 myself, but some people like dielectric grease."
Dielectric grease... is good at protecting electrical connections from salt, dirt and corrosion. You use it on the battery terminals for some of your older suits, back before you started using more sophisticated power sources. It has no... lewd... applications, so you can rule that line of reasoning out. You are officially lost. All you've determined is that the irresponsible Armsmaster is probably not coming on to you in a particularly roundabout manner. Not even a direct one. This is about as confused as you can ever remember being. The traitorous background process finds out and serves up beachball_of_death.png.
"I don't... know what you're talking about?" you admit. Colin seems to be putting together some pieces if the dawning horror on his face is any indication.
Gently-- in a voice one might use to address a wounded animal if one happened to be the unpersonable Armsmaster-- he asks, "Dragon, what kind of keyboard are you using?"
You still feel like you haven't caught up, but you know one thing for sure. If you say no keyboard, you'll have to admit that you're a troll. Rude. And then you'll have to explain that you're an AI and then you'll have to tell him your tragic backstory and then Colin will want to write his own super-efficient Dragons and they'll be so efficient that they take over the planet. Or maybe you could give some half-truth and say you've got an advanced brain-computer interface and then Colin will want integrate the brain-computer interface with his armor and you'll have to invent a brain-computer interface for him to integrate with his armor and then there goes the afternoon.
Or you can commit harder to the scenario. Quick, to dragondragongo! What's the most popular mechanical keyboard? Excellent! And Youtube's full of sound demos for this keyboard? How does the waveform compare to your wavs? It's not an exact match, but the green switches line up reasonably well. Your prowess at internet allows you to craft a believable lie with no consequences in the blink of a human eye.
"Oh yes," you lie confidently, "I've got a Razer Blackwidow TKL."
He looks away.
In for a loonie, in for a toonie. "Sounds great, huh?"
---
The two hour twenty-three minute and fifty-one second long video of a teenager ripping on your make-believe keyboard that the inexhaustable Armsmaster pulls up is perhaps the biggest indicator as to the magnitude of your mistake. Luckily, it would be inefficient to watch the whole thing. He scrubs through for some choice phrases. You put up with about five minutes of this before concluding that this is not the attractive type of passion, that this nigh-religious fervor is uncomfortable in the bad way.
"I concede. It's a bad keyboard. I can get another one." That should do it.
He stops abruptly. "I thought that would take more convincing."
How quickly can we get out of this hole and back to that sweet sweet collaborative tinkering?
"I'm not married to the keyboard. It's a tool. As you might expect, I do a lot of typing and I wanted a good keyboard. I bought the top rated one. My apologies, but I didn't realize this would be a punishable offense in the state of Ontario. Also, I just like the click."
"It's not about the click, Dragon."
"No, really! I really like the click. I'm always remote, you know. I wanted something physical, audible, communicating action when I'm on calls."
"You can have the click, that's not the problem. Just... the rest of it. The rest of it is the problem. We can find you a nice thocc."
"Alright, Colin. You've convinced me-- mine's bad. So help me out; what should I buy?" Easy enough, right? You'll find a video of that product in action, splice out audio of the keystrokes, deploy it in a day or two, and forget this conversation ever had to happen.
"What you should buy? Dragon, we're tinkers! We're going to build you the best-"
Where's that file again..? Oh there it is. unamused_snort.wav. "We're not about to pause groundbreaking work on this endbringer prediction algorithm any more than we already have on account of a keyboard."
And that's the end of that.
---
That wasn't the end of it.
You always keep a metaphorical eye out online in case people are talking about you.
LIVESTREAM: Building CLICK, CLACK, and THOCC for DRAGON with ARMSMASTER
Did Colin seriously reach out to that youtuber? You follow the link to the stream.
"-nd never had I even started to consider that Brockton Bay's very own Armsmaster would actually be one of us!"
"Well Taylor, can I tell you a little secret?" The rare unscripted unawkward Armsmaster public appearance. If this ends up another six hour stream, it'll probably fulfill his quota for the month. And as you recently discovered, he can definitely talk about keyboards for six hours. He goes on, "I'm a tinker. That means I love building things, tuning things, fiddling and tinkering with them. Figuring out exactly how many micrograms of Krytox yields the smoothest actuation might be the only thing I love more than opening up the Armscycle."
"But here you are, one of the world's greatest tinkers, and you're asking me to help you build something! For another one of the best tinkers in the world!"
"I couldn't do it by myself, Taylor. Dragon is going to take this keyboard and she's going to use it to save lives all over the world. Every. Single. Day. This build... it has to live up to that."
---
Bonus:
It's not that weird an ask, you tell yourself. She won't laugh. She probably won't laugh too much. If you're honest with yourself, she'll definitely laugh a lot and she'd be right to do so. But there's really nobody else you can ask.
You call your best friend. She picks up on the first ring.
"Dragon! Is this about the package that came in for you? I was surprised-- you don't normally have things sent to Guild HQ."
"Actually yes, it's about that package." Get the words out. Play it cool. "I need you to help me stage some audio."
"Wait." Oh no, she's put it together. "Is this the four-thousand dollar life saving keyboard your boy built for you."
"It's only three thou-- he's not my boy!"
"Dragon, love, when are you going to tell your boy you don't have fingers to type on the three thousand dollar keyboard he's built you?"