Terry and Margaret in Soulfire
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"Eh, what can I say, sometimes I have a soft spot for mad scientists that completely ignores their level of good vs. evil."

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"Most mad scientists are more like mad inventors anyway."

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"Fools! You shall be but another data point in my large-scale controlled trial of EVIL!"

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"Mu-hahahahaha! At least he had a sensible motivation; so many villain motives are just silly."

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"Yeah, as villain reasons go, that's an awfully good one. I'm not sure I buy that the guy running the portal was that reckless? One technician reported one nominal error, probably after dozens of pre-checks. But the movie wanted us to see 'reckless, focused on proving the tech', so..."

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"Empirically, he was wrong to go ahead. But on the other hand you can't blame him for the intervention of movie logic."

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"Yeah... I wonder if there's anything applicable from the tech ideas in that movie. 'Laser swords' probably not. Magnetic bearings... Also probably not, there'd be so many issues. Maybe the purse-chemlab, a portable way of mixing useful things from feedstock, but it'd probably have to be a few specific things to be practical. The minibots are a control nightmare. Baymax himself, automated health advice, is the best idea of the lot I think."

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"Definitely, though I think even he'd work better as a box full of scanning gear and an app than a balloon with a face, adorable though that face was."

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"Robot and app. Being able to come to you and being friendly helps with, like, kids and old people."

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"Yeah. And the design is great for that. Very reassuring-looking, at least if what you want out of your medic at the time is 'friendly and caring' rather than 'formidably competent'."

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"Surgeon Baxter will wear a suit."

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...Teddy laughs out loud at that. "A suit? Why not scrubs?" Bugsy just shrugs.

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"Come on, everyone knows the maximally reassuring medical outfit is a lab coat, regardless of whether you have any good reason to be wearing one."

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The robotics club's official adult calls out, "Alright, everyone, we're done for today. Last call for claiming the leftovers, and then everyone out."

"I'll see you guys tomorrow?"

"Yeah, bye," Bugsy says.

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And she heads home for more engineering. The movie was a nice break, especially since she apparently doesn't want to get in the habit of things being too routine. She wonders if that has anything to do with how much the genie seems to love routine.

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The genie is sulking today. It doesn't have body language, but it's even gruffer than usual, and it blows trash around the basement and slams a door.

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Margaret's mom calls down, "Are you making a robot down there, or a ruckus?"

"Sorry mom, just shut the closet a bit too fast!" She turns to the genie and keeps talking, much more quietly.

"Don't slam the door please, it's loud and startling and could make someone else come down and disturb us. . . . is everything okay?"

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"Fine. I won't do that again."

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"Thank you. And if there's something you want or need, you can tell me and there's at least some chance I'll do it, though I may not be able to. It's more likely to help than not, anyway."

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"I don't need anything. I had to use some of my power today."

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"Oh. Anyway, this assembly attaches to the casing like so, which is why I had to put the motor all the way over here, it wouldn't fit in the casing otherwise . . ."

After a few more minutes of exposition: 

"Why did you have to use some of your power? . . . I won't pry if you don't want to tell me." 

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"Look at the bottom of the case for the third leg. Corrosion. I noticed that. I looked around. Then I killed three lurkers, a biter, and a goblin. They were going to delay the robot."

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"Wow. Thank you." She cleans the corrosion off the robot leg. (Why are monsters spawning in her basement, are they more likely to spawn near genies, she should check the research notes later and see if this is likely to be a one-off.)

"The robot will be done soon. A couple more weeks, probably."

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"I will kill any additional monsters as soon as they appear now that I know to look for them."

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