HEADWORK (pocket)

[KRANZBERG]

"Dude, the guy that made you was a flippin' idiot." How could a teenager be so confident as to call a man that created a fully-functioning cyborg an idiot? Not only was she surviving, but she even had technological features available only to extremely powerful computers that integrated nearly perfectly into her biological functions. So, where did the audacity come from?

Well, it was because he was Dallas O'Sullivan. If he had made Penelope, he would have done it perfectly. Instead, he was stuck dealing with the aftermath of some weirdo scientist's mistakes. He had to have been a weirdo. Seriously, who finds some dead chick with half a body or something and decides to turn her into a cyborg? Freak. Not that Dallas regretted it. He got a pretty cool friend test subject or something out of it.

"Wow, okay. Could you hold still or something?" No big deal. Dallas just basically had his hands in half of Penelope's brain or something. But no, feel free to move about. Dunce. "I'm getting weird signals or something from your helmet." Dallas wiped the sweat from his brow. The lab wasn't the coolest place, and he was already stripped down to a wife beater, shorts, and headband to keep the sloppy hair out of his face. When you added the fact that he was hard at work on a cyborg's mechanical headpiece, he was working up a sweat. Meanwhile, Penelope just got to sit there.

Ugh. But he could pick up what the helmet was putting down. He recognized it. With a sigh, he decided to engage. "Alright, Penpen. Are you, like, sad or something?" Wasn't she always?

[GOOGLE]

Penelope frowned and fidgeted at Dallas' comment. She knew that she was supposed to stay still, it was her brain and everything that he was working on, however the whole process had always seemed a bit uncomfortable. There was only two people in the whole world who didn't shy away from touching her mechanical head, and Dallas was one of them. "Well I don't know about idiot, but he had a tremor, and his eyesight wasn't so good. I-I mean, It's not his fault." Well then whose fault was it? Hers perhaps? Yeah, let's go with that one, "I'm sorry." She apologized, for her late creator's mistakes. However, her attempts to defend him were only making things worse for wear.

"Oh, sorry." She apologized again and stopped moving. It was quiet for a few more moments, Penelope occupied herself with planning her weekly meals, what research she should conduct, among other things. Eventually her thoughts lead back to other, not-so-mundane things. Things like terrorist reports, crime, and violence. Everything she was supposed to support in her villainy, but the idea of it still made her sad. When you coupled her morals with her strange appearance it was no wonder she didn't quite make friends. "What?" Penelope responded in monotone, "No of course not. I was just thinking..." Oh good lord she could not lie to save her life, "That um, this lab could use some proper organization, that's all."

She forced a smile, but her brows knit together in worry, "Have I done something wrong?" He had already put up with so much of her other crap that she would hate to cause him anymore grief. Maybe she was doing just that by lying, not that it was any good any how. Dallas would be able to see through her in an instant. "I'm sorry." She said, again, before adding with a nervous laugh, "I'll try to cheer up."

[KRANZBERG]

Dallas grumbled something incoherently. Honestly, every time Penelope apologized for something that wasn't her fault (so often), he wanted to chuck a wrench at her head. But he couldn't do that, because it was delicate. Or something. That was where all the stuff was. "Not even just the technical junk. Like, what's up with this design?" Dallas gingerly fingered the appendages sticking off of her head. "I mean, these things that are totally integral to your brain are these obnoxious metal horns. At least make them something more sleek." Dallas craned his neck around them, as if looking for a "remove" button. "I could totally change them myself, too. But you'd probably, like, die and shit." No big deal, though.

"Wow, what a giant crock of shit." Even if Dallas wasn't elbow-deep in cyborg brain already (hyperbole), allowing to see more subtle details of Penelope's brain's goings-on, it would have been completely obvious that she was lying through her likely-adamantium teeth.

"How about this." Dallas picked up his stool to move from the back of Penelope's head to a position sitting face-to-face. "Next time you apologize for something you didn't do, I'll do that shocky thing I accidentally did to you that one time." Seriously, every time she opened her mouth. It was like nails on a chalkboard to him. "I'm sorry." He said the words in a high-pitched voice, anticipating that they'd be saying the same thing at once. If not, well. He'd still be mocking her pretty efficiently. That's always good.

[GOOGLE]

"I don't know..." She admitted meekly, she'd had no part in the design, she had been technically under-the-knife at the time. Although she couldn't deny that life would be a great deal easier if her head wasn't such a bizarre shape. If she wanted to go out into the general public, she would need to always wear an over-sized hoodie with the hood up. She would totally allow Dallas to have his way with her--technologically speaking--up until he said she would probably die or something. Dallas wasn't the kind of person that instilled confidence in others, well not on a regular basis, she thought he was brilliant either way. "Well i don't like the sound of that..." She said quietly, while trying to sit very still. "But I think you could do it." Her quavery voice did not instill confidence, either.

Her big blue eye blinked at the curse word he uttered, as though her body rejected hearing it. It didn't matter how severe the curse was, or even if it was directed at her, but she just didn't like hearing them at all. She couldn't bring herself to ask Dallas not to cuss in her presence though, that would involve having a backbone. She was surprised when he ceased his work and moved around to face her, all she could manage was a confused frown. She listened attentively to his words and instinctively opened her mouth to apologize, however his mimicking was more than enough.

"Okay, I see your point." She sighed and stared at her hands in her lap, "I just feel like I'm such a burden all the time. I mean look here." She made a distressed face and pointed to her exposed circuits, her actions nearly causing her to topple backwards gracelessly, before she corrected herself, "You could be doing homework right now, and instead your fixing me." She pouted, her single eye staring at him imploringly, but it registered in her mind that she must just be annoying him further with all her useless babble. "Maybe I could do your homework for you." She suggested, tapping her finger against her chin in a scheming fashion. Look, the bad kids were already influencing her.

[KRANZBERG]

Dallas chuckled darkly. It was nice that she had confidence in her skills. Probably endearing. Or something. "No, I'm saying you'd pretty much die." Dallas was a great inventor, but he was no surgeon. Machines were easy. He could take his time, so long as nothing fell apart. But with Penelope, he couldn't leave her doped or open for too long or anything. She was part human, after all. She could really die. There wasn't a battery to replace, either.

Dallas lightly punched Penelope in the shoulder. "Don't be such a dope." That might have been douchebag for, 'aw, don't be silly'. Sure, she looked sort of pathetic when she was making a spectacle of herself. But that didn't mean that she was just some pile of scrap metal. "Do you really think that a place like this would take you in if you were useless?" This wasn't the Xavier Institute. Every hotshot teen with no place to go didn't get in to Young Masters. They wouldn't take anyone that wasn't particularly useful to him.

"Uh, yeah. I could be doing my homework. Exactly." That was sort of the point. Who in their right mind would rather be doing mundane homework than inventing and tinkering? Or, rather, whatever their favorite pastime was? "Um, if you really feel like a douchebag or something, I'm not gonna stop you." Dallas was not Penelope. If someone was offering to do his homework, he wasn't going to claim he was a bother. He was going to accept that offer and have his homework done for free. What a deal.

[GOOGLE]

"Well, if you say so." It would always be whatever he said so, but she was quietly stubborn about Dallas being able to do anything. Ignorance is bliss, and she almost found herself grinning about the whole discussion. Besides, like, it was nice for someone to be--sort of--worried about her dying. Her creator had been pretty indifferent to their whole situation, just viewing her as a piece of furniture. Which was totally stupid, since he created her and knew she was capable of human emotion. "Hey!" She grabbed her shoulder as though to shield it from any other playful punches he might throw her way, but it didn't hurt. However, it was in poor taste to punch a lady, she would have to send him an email about that... and sent. Sometimes being a supercomputer made things easy.

"W-Well I...guess not." She admitted thoughtfully, "But I think some of the other kids hate me...actually, I know." Now was about the time she needed an adult to tell her it was okay that she didn't fit in and that eventually things would get better. Too bad she was actually older than Dallas himself, now she just felt sad about her push-over self. However, after Dallas decided it would be okay for her to do his homework, she became very animated, because if there was one thing Penelope enjoyed doing, it was work. "I-I get really good marks, so you don't have to worry about that. I mean I'm a computer, well, you know that already. You trust me, right?" Well she practically got one-hundred percent on everything. Not that it was really fair considering her capabilities.

She'd been so distracted that she almost forgot her head was all open and shit, "Oh," She blurted out suddenly, "So, um, was my mood affecting this?" She motioned to her robotic brain again, knowing he would rather finish his tinkering instead of reassure her self-esteem.

[KRANZBERG]

"Well--" Hearing his phone making a loud ping, Dallas cut himself off and reached into his pocket. Apparently, he'd received an e-mail. The phone was sleak, all black, featuring a touch screen and all the other fancy doo-dads that one looks for in a phone. Then, of course, so much more. It was of his own design, after all. If Penelope really didn't think that he was going to receive that e-mail immediately, she was out of her gourd.

He narrowed his eyes at the offensive text, glaring quizzically. He shifted his gaze back to Penelope after reading it fully, only to similarly punch her in the other shoulder. Not only was it an annoying e-mail, but didn't it set feminism back a decade or something? Whatever. That wasn't his prerogative.

"So what? Why do you care? Plenty of people hate me." Dallas wasn't even sure if he wanted to be well-liked by the Young Masters. Most of them were assholes, anyway. He wouldn't completely deny including himself in that group, but hey. He wasn't looking to make a ton of friends -- not even Penelope. That had sort of just happened. It probably wasn't exactly the "be yourself!!" speech that she'd been looking for. It was more like a, "who gives a fuck" speech.

"Yeah. Cool. Great." Dallas didn't really care. She could have gotten straight F's, all the way across the board. If his homework was getting done, it'd be fine. The Young Masters wouldn't get rid of him either way. He was too useful. He'd already begun returning to his seat behind her so that he could go back to working. "Not, like, adversely or anything. Stuff just changes back here depending on your moods. It's because I'm so bombass at knowing how machines work." Intuitive aptitude came in handy like that. He leaned back in his chair to ponder exactly what that meant. "If I made a really sweet machine-interpreter type-deal, I could probably, like, read your mind and shit." Or at least the mechanical half. Not that he was terribly interested. It was probably always just pessimistic put-downs toward herself. That'd be a downer.

[GOOGLE]

"Hey!" She blurted out glumly with a pout, it appeared her attempt to sway him to a more gentlemanly fashion had failed. She had even tried to speak to him in a way that he was more comfortable. Dallas wasn't what Penelope would call eloquently loquacious, but then again neither was she. She stuck out her bottom lip, but decided not to send him another email. Apparently it was just asking for abuse. She wanted to turn around in her chair and look at him in the eye when they talked--because she knew it was polite to have eye-contact and everything--but she knew she'd probably just screw up whatever it was he was doing. But her tone of voice was entirely sincere when she spoke, "I like you! I think you're very...unique." She couldn't really say nice since he would just laugh, but she these delusions that he was, anyways. "I-In a good way, you know?"

"And I don't really care...I guess." She mumbled awkwardly, her hands fiddling in her lap as she thought about it. It might have been okay for Dallas, who was a self-proclaimed lone wolf it would seem, but Penelope sought for human interaction. After being cooped up with a crazy, old, kook of a man for years, living in a school with a variety of different people was a significant change for her. "Oh really?" She said, mildly intrigued. She feared technopaths because she didn't really want some stranger reading her mind, but she supposed it would be okay if Dallas was doing it for ~*~science~*~ or something. "That would be an interesting invention."

In a fit of curiosity she totally forgot about her current situation (even though she had just reminded herself to sit still) and turned to look at him. She felt his wrist bump one of her 'horns' and then everything went dark. "Oops." Her voice was hushed, but surprisingly calm, "I can't see...out of my good eye, that is." She felt it necessary to clarify, to head off any possible cyclops jokes Dallas felt like putting out there. "I'm so sorry. I think I accidentally messed up my occipital lobe." Thank you missus obvious, he would know that already. "Can you fix it?" Stupid question, Penelope. Stupid question.

[KRANZBERG]

"Aw, isn't that sweet?" Dallas continued working nonchalantly. Not that he didn't appreciate the sentiment, and not to be dismissive of Penelope's feelings and all, but he really didn't wanna turn this little talk into a Lifetime movie.

"Penelope, let me give you some advice." Oh, this should be good. Despite the fact that he'd put on his paternal-advice voice (or something like that), he hadn't halted his tinkering in the back of her head. "I already like you, and that's all that matters." Because Dallas was the best. Being liked by him was like finding a unicorn or something. He really did like her, too. Not just as a technological subject, but also as a cool person. Even if she was such a Debbie downer. "So even though you're obviously a big liar and totally care, you don't really need to." So long as they had each other. D'aaaaaw.

Dallas snorted incredulously. For a girl that basically was an invention, she seemed to know so little about them. That is, without consulting the internet within her head. "Actually, that'd be a super-creepy and totally useless invention." Even if it was neat for, like, a second, there was absolutely no point in creating an invention if it didn't serve any real purpose. How many people in the world were interested in reading the mind of some gloomy teenage cyborg?

If she hadn't already effectively knocked herself out, Dallas may have done it herself. What a dunce she was! The only thing he'd really told her to do was to hold still (and subject herself to physically and personally evasive biomechanical procedures from someone with no medical experience). "Okay, you need an overhaul." How sensitive were those stupid things, anyway? "Turn back around, and hold still." He was going to have to add "hold still" commands to her processor or something. Jesus Christ.

[GOOGLE]

If he had been anyone else she probably would have mentioned that he was being a little conceited and that it was in poor taste. She would have done so as politely and gently as possible, but she would have done so anyways. Because after all, manners mean everything--even for a villain. But this was Dallas, and Penelope had a sort of unconditional acceptance and appreciation for everything and anything he did. So, of course, she was too giddy for words when he said that he actually liked her. She always thought that he only kept her around because she was cool to work on and useful at times. Of course she had always tried to be nice and everything anyways, but she had never thought that he would actually consider her a pal (even though everyone else at Young Masters was a douchebag). After a few, brief moments of shy happiness, she finally managed, "Oh, well, thank you." Too bad he wasn't facing her, because she was actually smiling for once.

Her good spirits were short-lived, as always, because in her own clumsy actions she had completely taken out her sight. "Okay!" She said, her tone apologetic enough to hint at the unsaid 'sorry' she'd promised not to say. Her hands were laced together and still in her lap and she didn't move her head at all. Even when there was a loud crashing sound within her brain (seriously, it was like ten times louder to her) she didn't flinch or move. She even tried to hold her breath, until she found out that it was totally stupid and made her feel dizzy anyways. Eventually her sight came back and she almost jumped up out of her seat with a clap, but the reminded herself that she was still holding still. "I-I can see again. Just so you know." It would be okay for her to let him know, right? She was still staying absolutely frozen--minus her mouth.

She remained silent for another few minutes, but holding still was kind of a hard thing to do with no conversation to distract her. All she could think about now was the fact that someone was fiddling around with her head, which as necessary as she knew it was, it was still disconcerting. "Uh, are you almost finished?" She ventured the inquiry slowly, maintaining the frozen posture as best she could.