Catnip bobbed her head in time with the music streaming from the lifeless wreck of a robot that Dee had been rather upset to lose. The speakers inside still worked and so did the little device Dee explained to her was a thing called "bluetooth." This "bluetooth" was, to Catnip, a wonder. It allowed Dee to send music to the dead robot and take control of live ones. She'd seen him do it before, time and time again, but she'd never asked about it until now. She'd always figured it was some kind of remote control.
"It's different than that." Dee explained, not really sure of how it was different, "Sort of." There followed a long silence until finally Dee set down the limb armature he had been working on and asked "What do you need Nip?" Like a switch, Catnip took out the graph paper notebook and flipped it open to the page she wanted. On it she had drawn something that looked like an urn with a window on it's front. Dee nodded slowly and feigned understanding, then shifted the motion of his head into another axis entirely. "Yeah, I don't know what that is Catnip."
"It's a metal melty thing. A furnace!" She explained, "For the super alloy Hector is going to get for me. We need it to finish this ro-butt. If we try to shape the super alloy, it won't work. We gotta melt it and reshape it, but normal heat will just ruin it. Hector is going to find some plates and some graphene!"
"Ok, cool, but what's the graphene for?" Dee asked, turning the book over so he could get a better look. "I suppose it could be used for heat retention or something?"
"No no, it goes in the body. I'm going to shape the graphene into the shapes we want and then cast the alloy over it."
"Oh."
"Oh?"
"Okay, I guess that works. We should be working to solve the power problems first though Nip, seriously. I'm thinking some kind of atomic cell, but then heat retention becomes an issue and we don't need Medeina getting radioactive around here..." He said, turning back to the limb. Catnip tugged his sleeve and stopped him though, rummaging through her bag and producing a small object no larger than a soda can.
"I got that solved silly, we'll use this. It's called a 'wind cell.' The howling tower in Pricetown used a larger version to keep itself moving without power. This thing will spin forever and ever and ever and ever. It'll keep Medeina cool too!" Dee took the cell and turned it over. It even looked like a soda can without a label. With a bit of instruction from Catnip, and a little of the mechanic arranging his hands, he had the cell suspended between two fingers. Before long, it started to turn on it's own.
"Woah. So uh, how fast will this thing spin?" He asked. The cell started to turn over faster and his fingers began to grow warm from the friction.
"As fast as you let it." Catnip said, slapping the cell out of his hands and letting it rebound off his work table and fly with it's gathered momentum across the room to strike the robot playing the music. In response, the song changed like a kicked jukebox.
"Well shoot, that'll work." Dee said, the pieces sliding into place in his plan. He thought that perhaps he should just leave the mechanical aspects on all this to Catnip and just stick to what he knew.
"Oh no fighting, hopefully. Like I said, I'll need to get a lay of the land first. Actually meet this Hoyt guy maybe. I can tell you this though..." She said, lowering her voice and motioning the two closer and off to the side of the hall, "If it all goes well and the terrain allows it, the only action you'll see is some theft and maybe some smashed up radio equipment. Are either of you any good with cattle? Nevermind, those details can wait."
Her voice rose, and it was clear she was getting excited. It wasn't mood swings, nothing so severe, but these newcomers could see that something was very different about how the womans enthusiasm seemed to shift up and down from determination to breakneck excitement. Jennifer herself only slightly felt the change from calm and collected to uncomfortably energetic. She'd feel it in a moment though. In a little bit, when she was through with her proposition and separated from the newcomers for the time being, Jennifer would catch herself shoveling down a plate of salty fries while the chef and others watched in mixed fascination and something akin to horror. At that moment though, Jenny was in control and Cheena was only just beginning to think about salted sticks of savory deliciousness.
"Just, stick around. Once I've got all the details I will reach out to you. In the meantime though, if you really aren't down for an examination then I'd say give the introductions to the staff here a miss. I don't know about that Efram guy, but Mr. Dervish will insist. He won't force you, but he will pressure you. Dr. Maskens won't care, but the robot..." Jenny glanced up at the camera again, thankful that their weren't any listening devices (that she knew of) in the center, "If she finds out, she'll just harass you or spy on you until you give her what she wants. She isn't evil. Just... enthusiastic? It'll be fine."
Jenny had intended to stick with these people and speak with them more, they had skills that would be useful and she did seem to be getting along with them, but just then she caught a whiff of something. Something greasy and fried, a smell Cheena had already homed in on. "Do you guys smell fries?"