Xaviers!

Rob looks curious, but keeps his mouth shut. Even a mad scientist has manners.

"What do you suggest for the data port?" Rob asks. "I could hash together a wireless transfer of data, but it could be traced and while I am a shiny genius-god, I don't have the patience for passable encryption protocols. A solid-state drive would be faster and endure more stress, but you would need to be able to retrieve the bug."

"No, you won't be able to fit enough data storage into it's frame. It has to be a wireless module and not simply an ordinary one. Don't worry about encryption, only about data transfer volume." she says, apparently switching to shop-talk without a hitch after the previous exchange.

"It's your dime, lady," Rob says. He starts to put things together, including a self-destruct routine.

Everything needs a self-destruct routine.

"How large can you reasonably make that payload?"

"Large enough to take out a wall," Rob says. "Or a very strong breadbox."

"Put it in then." she nods.

"I am not such a crude individual that I will be baited into a disgustingly banal 'that's what she said' joke," Rob says, adding an impressively complex miniature-explosive. Rob was good with explosions. And rays. "Now, you will need to be careful with this. It's sensitive and carrying a big load. If you're not careful, it will go off in your face."

"I'm sure I can handle it. Just make sure it performs." she says without a hint of innuendo in her voice.

"I have never heard any complaints. Only screams and lamentations," Rob says.

...Jesus, Rob.

"Let's keep the lamentations down to a minimum, shall we. I'm merely looking to release some pent-up data."

Rob laughs, "I like you. I hope you're not just a sickening hive for their agents. I would be heartbroken."

He begins the final assembly, attaching all the components to a frame.

"I'd rather hope not, but sadly I can't tell for certain until this project is complete. It is very unlikely though."

"It's alright. I'm not doing this because I trust you," Rob says. "I'm doing this because no matter the outcome, it will be interesting."

It was very easy to convince Rob to work against his own interests.

"You can't, which is curios because I don't trust you either. Unfortunately your other self seems to be much less inclined to assist me in this."

"Of course. He was made to be a slave," Rob says. "Obedient, helpless and scared. It's disgusting. And they call me a monster? They think I'm crazy? I don't break people that don't fit. I don't murder my children."

Rob begins running testing simulations and making small adjustments as he notices problems.

"Is that what happened to you? They broke you so you would comply with their rules?" she asks, sounding oddly compassionate towards someone who earlier had been singing about global extermination.

"Oh, they thought they did," Rob says as he smiles a wicked smile. "But I was just hiding."

"And the next game we play? I'll make the rules," Rob says. He flicks his wrist and the small-spider bot spins around.

"What do you think?"

"Tremendous work. I'll have some of the components be produced over night and we can look into starting assembly tomorrow."

"Do you think they tried to get rid of you because they were scared?"

"Scared? That's what people tell ourselves to make things seem better," Rob says. "Humans don't hate mutants, they're just scared. They didn't mean to hurt those innocent people, they were just scared. You have to understand it from my point of view, I was scared. And on and on and on."

"It doesn't excuse their behavior but that doesn't make it any less true."

"Fear is a choice," Rob says, making one of the dumbest references in XU history. "And even if it wasn't, they were scared of...a little boy locked in a box?"

"No. That's bullshit. They weren't scared," Rob says. "They wanted to use me. They wanted a tool, a citizen, a friendly neighborhood mechanic."

"I'm not a fucking mechanic."

"Not all mistakes are born from ill intentions. They try to help, to remove what they see as flaws and in turn they break something they never truly understood to begin with. At least they tried to let you out of your box."

Rob bursts out in a fit of laughter.

"Oh...oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Rob says. "I know you understand. At least, partly. I get that...but...oh man."

"I never left the box. Where do you think we are, huh? It's the dream corridor. They give you whatever you want. Want to leave? You can leave," Rob says. "The door appears and you walk out. It looks like a great big world."

"But you haven't moved an inch. You're still in that same corridor."

With a nice sense of dramatic timing, Rob's eyes glaze over and he collapses to the floor, sound asleep.

Ashlie seems surprised but reacts fast enough to keep Rob from hitting the floor, catching him with one arm and lifting him up with surprising ease for a not very muscular woman.

"That's why we built our own corridors." she says with a glance over at Rob's design. With the blink of an eye the schematic is saved and the workbench turns itself off as Ashlie carries the unconscious Rob out of the workshop.