The Roof: You Are a Poor Scientist, Dr. West!

[Robert West]

((open thread))

It was early in the morning and someone had painted a target on the roof of the dorm building.

And that person was currently hooking together cobbled together equipment into one of the electrical mains. It was the first test of a brand new toy and Rob had that look of manic excitement that meant something was probably going to catch fire at some point.

[Nailah Weaver]

Nailah had been mostly stretching her wings and experimenting with some aerial maneuvers over the Point, but after a while she'd noticed the giant bullseye on top of the dorms. After circling above for a second she glides down and lands near the edge of the roof, jogging a couple steps to lose her momentum before folding her wings and curiously looking at what Rob is doing.

[Robert West]

"Hello," Rob says, looking distracted by fixing a bit of wiring. Something sparks and he hisses at it. "Be nice!"

He glances back over at Nailah, looking at her feet to make sure she isn't in the target area. That would be bad. "Ms. Weaver, right?"

[Nailah Weaver]

"Or just Nailah. What are you doing here?" She doesn't sound outright suspicious but there's a bit of uncertainty in her voice that suggests she's still trying to decide if she should try to stop the guy who painted a target on the roof.

[Robert West]

"Nailah. I'm Rob. Robert West," Rob says. "Did you know that? Anyway. This is science. I'm building a long-distance teleportation system and I needed an open space where people couldn't stumble through while playing ultimate frisbee."

"I didn't account for bird...lion...sphinx people, of course."

[Nailah Weaver]

"Hmm, well that's pretty considerate actually." Something about Rob seemed to rob her the wrong way and she feels like she should stick around to make sure he doesn't blow up the dorms after all. "What are you trying to teleport?"

[Robert West]

"A car from the garage," Rob says.

[Nailah Weaver]

"Well... I guess if it works then you can just put it back the same way." she's forced to admit after she initially felt the urge to yell at him for trying to deposit a car on the roof.

[Robert West]

"Theoretically," Rob says, holding up something that looked like a cross between a smartphone and an alien circuit-board. "Ready? 'Cause you'll really need to stand clear if you don't want a carburetor where your ribcage used to be."

[Nailah Weaver]

Nailah gives Rob a defiant stare as she quickly makes sure that 'I don't want to be caught in Rob's experiment' doesn't result in any instructions to step backwards.

[Robert West]

Rob presses the button and there's a crackling flash of energy. Kirby dots briefly swirl around the roof as forces that probably should not be tinkered with are treated with reckless abandon.

And when the light show cleared an instant later, steam was rising off a neat circular section of grass that has replaced part of the roof.

"...That's unexpected," Rob says.

[Heather West]

A second or two later a blue flash of energy manifests itself in mid-air and extends itself downwards onto the circle of grass before coalescing into two distinct human shapes, one with brown, the other with brown hair. The brown-haired one looked disturbingly familiar.

[Nailah Weaver]

"Uhm... That's not a car." Nailah blinks.

[Robert West]

"Heather?" Rob asks. "...Nina?"

For once in his life, Rob looks shocked. And at a loss for words.

[Nailah Weaver]

"Uhm, hi, I'm Nailah." she says as she eyes the two new arrivals. They definitely don't look old enough to be students here so who knows where Rob teleported them in from.

[Heather West]

"Robert!? What did you do? Where is..." she stops herself before accidentally revealing Perdita's existence to her brother. "What did you do!?" she instead repeats for emphasis.

[Robert West]

Rob starts to protest his innocence when he's tackled by Nina in a very enthusiastic hug.

"Gagk," Rob says as the wind is knocked out of him.

[Nailah Weaver]

"What is going on? Who are these girls, Rob?" One of them certainly seemed happy to see him. The other... not so much

[Heather West]

"I dunno. You'll have to ask my brother." She didn't really have a way to know that this wasn't where Perdita had intended to teleport them to, but her brother's presence and the fact that there's equipment set up around her blabbering about ripping and tearing things through space makes it a pretty natural assumption that he hijacked them somehow.

[Robert West]

"I didn't do anything," Rob says, pushing Nina away. "I was trying to teleport a car!"

"And you're supposed to be dead," Rob snaps at Nina.

"I got better," Nina says.

[Heather West]

"Then you screwed up and it's still your fault!" she insists. "Send us back to... to where we were supposed to go!"

[Robert West]

"I don't know where that is!" Rob snaps. Between the dead people and his family, he is very uncomfortable. This feels like a trick.

[Heather West]

"Then figure it out! Our friend is probably worried where we went." She looks pretty wired and a little backed into a corner, especially with Nina apparently knowing and liking Robert.

[Nailah Weaver]

"Where were you anyway when Rob turned on his machine?"

[Robert West]

"Absolutely not," Rob says. "You're both staying here."

Nina was leaning over the side of the building, "Ha! Look how high we are, Heather!"

"...What's wrong with her?" Rob asks. "She seems...different."

[Heather West]

Heather looks hesitant to answer Nailah's question. She doesn't know where she is and the only person here she knows is not someone she particularly likes. She's kind of glad he distracts her from Nailah's question though.

"She was in the basement. Dad was... doing stuff to her."

[Robert West]

"He's been experimenting on mutants," Rob says. "That's what Madison said."

Apparently, word of Madison being hit by a car had not reached Rob yet.

[Heather West]

"She's not here, is she?"

[Robert West]

"I hope not," Rob says.

Nina was trying to spit on people passing by.

Rob sighs and looks at Nailah, "Nailah, these are my sisters. Heather and Nina."

[Nailah Weaver]

"She's a little... spacey, isn't she?"

[Heather West]

"Wh-what..." Heather's face loses all color as the ramifications of what Rob just said sinks in. She looks over at Nina, then back to Rob. "But... Dad he... in the basement..." she stammers.

[Robert West]

"This might come as a shock, but I don't think we have the best parents, Heather," Rob says, sounding a little bitter and sarcastic.

"My brain is in a constant regenerative state!" Nina says happily,

"I should go talk to the Headmistress about this," Rob says to Nailah. "Can you stay with them? Make sure they stay safe?"

[Nailah Weaver]

"Uhm, yeah, sure. You two okay with that?"

[Heather West]

Heather frowns but hesitatingly nods. "We need to find our friend though. She helped us and I don't think this is where she meant to send us."

[Robert West]

"Who's your friend?" Rob asks.

[Heather West]

"That's none of your business." she says. Just because they're a tiny bit united against their terrible parents doesn't mean they're suddenly friends. Rob would probably just end up wanting to mess around with Perdita with his dumb power and breaking her somehow.

[Robert West]

"Oh, yeah. I forgot. You're a bitch," Rob says. "I'll be back."

Nina started to follow Rob, but Rob glared at her.

"Stay," Rob says, before heading out the door and leaving Nailah with the two girls.

[Heather West]

Heather sticks her tongue out at Rob as he leaves. She wanders over to Nina to give her a big hug, pointedly ignoring Rob's winged henchwoman/assistant.

Once she's certain Rob is far enough away she turns her attention to Rob's stupid machine. It's a jabbering mess, of course, but it's also a powerful piece of equipment. Maybe she can convince it to send some kind of signal for Perdita to recognize while Rob is gone. The machine has parts that are meant to send signals and it has some kind of receiver. She doesn't understand how either of them work, but she doesn't have to to tell the machine to do what she wants it to, even if it feels like grabbing something moldy and slimy that's gibbering like a lunatic in her head the entire time. It's the least she can do for her friend.

[Robert West]

The machine is a gibbering mad-thing, but it's fairly easy to convince it to send signals wherever you wanted, although understanding how it accomplished this was not something for a sane mind. It actually felt a little like trying to talk to Nina at her worst.

Of course, that probably didn't mean anything.

"I like your wings," Nina tells Nailah. "Did you grow them yourself?"

[Nailah Weaver]

"Uh... Yeah, I suppose? Not really on purpose though."