milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Ray pushes open the front door and steps inside from New York City. "Okay, I give up," he says as he heads for the Bar. "Gimme something to make the formless nameless sense of dread go away."

The Bar gives him soft-serve ice cream with enough sprinkles on it to choke a pony. There are marshmallows.

He does not ask what brand as he takes his crime against dairy and goes to find a seat.

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She is geek enough to take in the readings first, then headtable. Blushing is noticable around the edges.

"Not again. I suppose it's vaguely comforting to know the cause of the singing . . . is there a cure?"

"We haven't determined one yet," Ray says. "The demon in question's never been successfully fought off. He mostly leaves places when he's bored. I was talking to Andrew Wells- that's whose world it's from. He thinks we might be able to do something with machine-mounted proton packs, because the demon makes people burst into song and dance if they get too close, but he can't really affect machines. I was going to rewire Francis with a pack tomorrow morning. He's about big enough."

Agatha finally raises her head again and narrows her eyes.

"My clanks will lend their aid. Would it affect his control if they could speak?"

Some of the more advanced designs might stay home, to be safe.

"Andrew seems to think it's more a matter of their intelligence than speech. We'd be better off with remote controlled devices with minimal intelligence- it's just that Francis isn't smart enough to dance."

"Hm. That makes it tricky . . . my smaller clanks certainly don't have the legs to dance, but I doubt they could carry a weapon large enough to be effective -- I only have a few of them with me."

Silly Agatha. The self-replicating ones just keep your grandclanks hidden.

Ray gives this some thought, drumming his fingers on the table.

"Oh, I just know I'm going to regret this," he mutters at last. "How's your miniaturization-fu, Agatha? I mean- if I gave you the plans for something and explained how it worked, would you have a talent for making it function at a smaller size?"

"It depends on how small you need it to be. The main problem I've found with trying to make a smaller clank function the same as a large clank is in finding the same parts on scale. . . but with Bar's help . . ."

Geekout.

Ray nods. "I don't know how much further I can miniaturize the proton packs. They're already the miniaturization of a device that normally takes up two or three rooms in a university basement in my world. If we could render them smaller without losing the amount of shielding and structural integrity I built into them, that'd make it a heck of a lot easier to deploy the robotic solution. Of course we'd somehow have to do all this and test it in time, but still."

Agatha orders coffee from a passing waitrat.

"I'm in. I've been getting a full night's sleep since I arrived here, I should be getting back into my normal routine before it's time to return. It depends on the design, but if everything is kept in proportion. . . "

"All right. I'll get you the basic plans tomorrow- I don't have my holocomputer with me. We can start working from there while I rewire Francis."

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