CoR Book Club

Before opening hours, the atmosphere at the Den was several degrees quieter than its typically loud, alcohol-fueled evenings. With the doors closed to the public, and most of the pack having better things to do than spend all day lounging around, the bar's comings and goings made for a comfortable backdrop to quiet reading. Or so Snow's sister told him, anyway -- as far as he was concerned, home, or better yet a quiet spot in a park or outside the city limits would be better, but Anna apparently preferred a bit of background noise and the occasional interruptions of the members of the pack who stopped by the place on business.

That was why he wasn't surprised to see here there when he walked in as the morning sun was just shy of reaching its zenith. She was tucked into one of the corner booths, surrounded by a small pile of textbooks and notepads, scribbling away at something he was sure he'd have a hard time understanding. He'd been meant to be spending the day shadowing Xandre to learn more tricks of the trade, but he'd been called away to do something apparently important enough that he hadn't wanted a prospect tagging along for it, and so he'd found himself at a loose end.

"Hey," he murmured as he slid into the booth next to his twin, casting a cursory glance over her writings to confirm that, as he'd suspected, it might as well have been written in Arteghian for all he understood of it.

"Hey Addy," Anna replied absently, without looking up, though she flashed a small smile vaguely in his direction. "No grunt work left for you today?"

Snow shrugged. "Xandre had something else to do. Figured I'd just come back here and wait to see if anyone needs anything. What're you working on?"

Anna pulled a face. "History. You wouldn't believe... well, no, you probably would believe. The stuff in these textbooks is so biased! Not even just the way they talk about therianthropes, but the whole history of Lutetia being settled? They gloss over so much awful stuff that happened just to make the settlers seem less reprehensible. I hate that I have to learn their version of it all just to be able to pass their stupid exams."

Snow nodded sympathetically. His sister was studying in preparation for taking highschool exams later in the year. Their mom had never saw fit to enroll them in a public school, and their home schooling had been... selective, to say the least. But Anna was determined to catch up, and if anyone could do it, he was sure she could. She might never have taken to the kinds of lessons their mom preferred -- fighting, hunting and survival -- in the way he had, but she was already apparently on track to take the exams earlier than most people her age, almost entirely from self-study. He was pretty sure that was more impressive, considering they had an innate physical advantage for the other things.

"Never mind my complaining, though," Anna sighed, set her pen down and shoved her notebook away decisively. "I need a break, anyway. How's your... prospecting been going?"

"It's been fine," Snow shrugged. "Most of the stuff they're grilling into the new guys, mom already grilled into me. Worst part of it is dealing with the others being morons."

"Hmm," Anna looked at him with a smirk and a little twinkle in her eye. "Not all of them, though, right? If my sources are accurate -- and I'm quite sure they are -- you've apparently made a friend, and you didn't tell me? This is a momentus occasion! You're talking to someone voluntarily!"

Snow rolled his eyes aggressively. He wasn't that bad. Sure, he preferred his own company most of the time... and had effectively nothing in common with most people their age... and never really had the motive or opportunity to even seek other kids out anyway, but he wasn't...

... okay, maybe he was that antisocial. But he was still going to be annoyed about her pointing it out. "Are you really going to make a big deal out of it?" he grumbled. "I've just been helping him with some prospect stuff, and he's been paying me back by letting me try some of his video games."

"You make it sound like a transaction," Anna snickered. "That's just a deconstructed explanation of making a friend!" She smiled and held her hands up placatingly when he scowled at her. "Okay, okay, sorry-- I promise I won't tease. I'm genuinely glad! I was worried you were gonna scare all the other prospects off with your resting bitch face. I'm happy to be wrong, for once."

Snow gave her a dry look. This was her not teasing? After a moment, though, he sighed and shook his head. He didn't really have any reason aside from instinct to be defensive over it. "Sure, fine. Yeah. I guess we're friends. He's smart, but a bit weedy... most of the others don't see the value in that, so he's had it kind of tough. I didn't want him to leave."

"That's sweet of you," Anna smiled. "I bet he appreciates it! Those blockheads just don't know any better. Any idiot can throw a punch, but the pack would be in deep shit without people like Salem and Ziessel keeping things running."

"Exactly," Snow nodded firmly. The pack was the sum of its parts, and not every problem could be solved by hitting it. Everyone had their strengths, and their place -- that was just one of the lessons he'd already had drilled into him that some of the newcomers clearly hadn't caught up on yet.

"But..." Anna leaned over to nudge him. "Don't make it back into a 'for the pack' thing. You clearly do like his company, since you've been disappearing to play games with him so often. You're allowed to hang out with someone just because it's fun, y'know!"

"I- obviously I know that," he muttered. "And yeah, I do. I'm ... really bad at most video games, it turns out, but... they're surprisingly fun."

"They've gotta be popular for a reason, right?" Anna snorted a laugh. "Mom's just a technophobe 'cause she lived in an ice hut for seventy years, she's not right about everything. You've gotta get out from her way of doing things more often, Addy. Live a little! Rebel!"

Snow rolled his eyes, pulling a book out from his bag and settling back in his seat. He might not have been the bookworm his sister was, but in the absence of digital entertainment, he'd still taken to novels as a way to pass the time in quiet moments. "Yeah, yeah... don't you have studying to do?"

"Uhg, that's cruel." Anna huffed, but pulled her notebook back over and leaned onto the table. "Fine, be that way. But if you're not going to gossip about your new friend, then you have to help me with flashcards at home tonight to make up for it."

"Fine by me," Snow murmured, flicking his book open and starting to read. After all, they both knew he probably would have ended up doing that anyway.

Having moved several boxes now, with and without Snow mind, Dev had learned pretty much that the Den was pretty quiet a few hours before it opened. He also learned, thanks to Snow letting him in on the know, that they'd let just about any of the prospects and members in before the main bar did. As much as he hated leaving the apartment on days he wasn't supposed to be doing prospect work, he had determined he needed more room to work on a.. personal project of his own.

There also happened to be good wifi signals there he'd been able to gain access to.

Loaded with a bag of his gadgets he poked his head in through the back door that he'd always gone through to unload the trucks. It was someone else's turn to unload them today, so the back was open. He quietly tipped toed in, closing the door behind him. Then, in the style of the old cartoons with a pink panther, he moved through the back of the Den until he made it to the front.

He didn't go through the final door though, hearing voices on the other side and freezing where he stood. He swore his heart was beating a million miles a minute. Why was he freaking out? Why was he hiding? Not a clue! But it felt like this was a place that, even though he knew he was allowed, he wasn't supposed to be here.

It wasn't exactly like he was the stealthiest person though, having bumped practically everything with the overly large, over stuffed backpack of his.

Snow hadn't thought much of hearing the sounds of faint shuffling and clattering in the bar's back -- people came and went from the bar all the time, and someone was probably unloading something right now. It only gave him pause to think when he heard them approaching the door to the bar itself, and then... stop?

After a few moments , he glanced up at the door, perplexed. Whoever it was, their movements had sounded tentative -- too uncertain to be any of the pack regulars, but even though they'd clearly sounded like they were trying to move quietly, it hadn't been with enough purpose for him to assume they were an intruder. Or if they were, they were... an extremely incompetent one.

"Uh..." He hesitated, exchanging a glance with an equally bemused Anna before speaking up. "You going to come in, or..?"

Slowly the door creaked as it pushed open, Dev peeking around the corner tentatively. His eyes narrowed at Snow. "Xandre's not here, is he? Or any of the enforcers, really..?" He looked around, still seeming a bit jumpy. "It feels wrong to be here and not be moving you know what, and I don't want to be caught and made to move them so I gotta know. Especi-" He stopped mid sentence and eyed Anna after finally realizing there was someone other than Snow was here. Of course, Snow hadn't been talking to himself.

He looked between the pair, putting two to two together in silence. Then, slowly, he moved further into the main area of the Den. Sidling up comically beside Snow, he leaned over and whispered at him. "Dude, you should have warned me you had a sister." He hissed.

He then gave an awkward little wave to Anna. "Hi. I'm Devon. Most call me Dev." He pointed to the book. "I read too." He he could, he would have facepalmed himself then. "Uh, er.. Anyway! I needed more room than my lousy apartment had, so I figured I could bum here for a bit." He said, slowly sliding his rather full backpack off his shoulders.

Snow was pleasantly surprised to see it was Dev emerge from behind the door -- he hadn't expected to see him today, and couldn't recall ever having seen him at the Den before when he hadn't been assigned something specific to do. As his muttered greeting made clear, Dev was conscious of this too.

He an arched an eyebrow at him, glancing between him and Anna with a perplexed frown. "Warned you..?" he repeated, confused. "Why would you need warning..?"

"I would imagine for the same reason most boys prefer to be warned before they walk into the same room as a girl," Anna interjected with a smirk. "So they can pretend to be cool." Snow rolled his eyes at her as she turned to flash Dev a playful smile. "I'm just teasing, don't worry. Hi Dev! It's good to meet you. I'm Anna, and funnily enough, we were actually just talking about you!

"Uhg, don't say that," Snow shook his head and scowled. "She'd just asked me who you were, that's all."

"That's talking about him, isn't it? Anyway, yes, of course! Sit with us! Jacques is in the back, but otherwise it's just us two right now. And I'm just slowly having my soul siphoned away by highschool history, so I'd rather be distracted by almost literally anything else." Anna pulled a face and sighed dramatically, before switching back to smiling across at Dev. "What is it you need the space for, anyway?"

Heat rose to Dev's ears in embarrassment of being called out and suddenly wondered if his grand plan was actually so great. Perhaps it was better to just deal with the limited space at his apartment. He gave Anna an awkward smile. "Good to meet you too, ha ha." He elbowed Snow in the ribs slightly. It probably didn't do much. Dude was a stone compared to Dev's weak flesh suit.

"I never really got into history that much, honestly. Though the history of technology should be something I should be fascinated by, it's more like nightmare fuel. If I was born just ten to twenty years further than I was, we'd have no where the advances we had that I currently use. They didn't even have cellphones. Some people had mobile phones that they had to plug in their cars to work, but otherwise.." He shrugged.

He placed his bag on the table with a soft 'thunk'. "I needed room, I needed multiple laptops going at the same time and I only have so much desk and floor space in my apartment." He opened it up and started pulling out three laptops, several power cords and extension cords, and some weird robotic looking things.

"I'm working on coding them, but I have to code them and then test them all together. They work as a team, you see.." He held up one to Snow.

It was the size of a softball and almost currently looked like one. It's exoskeleton didn't have the plating that would cover the insides though. All three looked very similar, and looked as if they were curled up upon themselves. "I'm not having much luck though. They'll probably always remain prototypes."

"Well, our mom apparently came from a town where the only computers are a couple of dusty old ones in the library, so count yourself lucky you were born in the right place, too," Anna replied with a smirk. She watched with interest as he produced all his equipment, going from curious, to impressed, back to curious. "Well that is... a lot of gear."

"What even are they?" Snow asked, squinting at the ball of wires and metal. The strange devices didn't even resemble anything he'd seen before, so he wasn't sure if he was just out of touch and it should have been obvious, or if they were actually as indecipherable as they seemed. A quick glance at Anna told him she was as perplexed as he was, which hopefully meant it was reasonable to not know what they were. She was a little more 'in the loop' when it came to technology than he was.

Dev was busy setting up his space, spreading most out between two tables. "Hunks of junk right now." He stated, powering up the second laptop as the first one came online. He plugged a small usb cable to it and then connected it to the first PC, then sat it on the table. As soon as he logged into the first laptop, he booted into a program that seemed to make the metallic creature move slightly. A blue light blinked where it's 'eyes' would be. Dev typed away and after a moment, it unrolled itself and stood on four legs. "If I can get it to work properly, I can use them as a mobile jamming drones. They will be fully functional on their own. If you enter coordinates you want to jam, they'll make their way over to that area on their own."

The second and third drone were turned on in much a similar way. "They also sorta function as eyes. I have cameras on each of them that sends signals back to the master laptop. But the signal is very unreliable depending on your relation to the drone cause well.. You're jamming the signal."

He shrugged. "The problem though is, sometimes the third jammer drone will not signal to the other two that it is in position to start the jam signal. They're also very picky about distances."

Snow watched the little drone scuttle about the table with rapt interest. Even discounting his mom's aversion to technology, this was above and beyond anything the pack typically dealt with. "You can control them from the computer?" he murmured. "That's cool. If you could fix the camera signal issue they'd make good scouts. Especially for something dangerous you don't want to risk sending someone into alone."

"They're... kind of cute?" Anna mused, carefully picking the little bot up and holding it up to her face. "In a weird way, sure, but... I can see it. Give them a little shell and some paint, and they'd be adorable."

Snow arched an eyebrow. "I don't think that's the point of them."

"Just because it's not the point doesn't mean I'm wrong," Anna replied with a grin. "Style is important too, or the Pack wouldn't all wear their fancy jackets so proudly!"

"That's... more about making a statement than looking good," Snow laughed under his breath. "People wouldn't take us seriously if we were 'cute'."

"Well, sure, but if it was all function then we'd just use some recognisable colour and big bold letters, not elaborate wolf designs," Anna countered. "It's a brand. Admittedly, I'm not sure these little guys could be made to look quite so imposing... and that would probably defeat the point of them being hard to spot... so maybe you have a point." She huffed. "But it would be cute."

"Sure..." Snow chuckled again. "So..." he glanced back at Dev. "What sort of things are they meant to 'jam'? Like... other computers?"

Dev nodded. "If I can't get the jamming to work, they'd definitely be used as small scouts." He clicked a few buttons and suddenly Snow would see himself on the computer screen from the perspective of the middle drone. The quality wasn't the best, but when you just wanted eyes in the area.. It would work in a pinch.

He listened to the twins debate but beamed when Anna suggested a shell. "Actually, that's the plan. They're incredibly slow on foot. I plan on adding a gyro and a round shell to them that they can ball up and roll to their destinations. Once there, they'll unfold. Kinda like an armadillo." He picked up one and gently forced it to fold and unfold to demonstrate. "The shells, I'm hoping to find a way to paint them in a way to camouflage them to other cameras but I'm not skilled in that." He shrugged. "So they'll probably just be plain matte silver when I'm done."

Dev looked over at Snow. "Basically, yeah. And phones. Anything that requires a signal to go in and out of an area that isn't hardwired. Would be great if we need to have an area blacked out so that alarms or backup calls can't go out." He said. "But it is a catch 22. We'd essentially be making ourselves unable to communicate outside the zone. It is definitely something that would go in with a full plan."

"Hm. Useful," Snow mused, nodding. "We would know to adapt in advance. Any target wouldn't. For the right job, we would be in and out quickly enough that it wouldn't matter if we were jammed as well."

He understood too little of how things like mobile signal and computer connections worked to know how impressive a feat the drones actually were, but regardless of that, they seemed very useful tools to have. Situational, perhaps, but the best tools always were.

"You made these alone?" he asked, giving Dev an appraising look. "That's impressive. I... assume, at least. I've never seen anything like them, but I'm not exactly well informed."

Anna hummed appreciatively. "It's all kind of like magic to me too, but I'm pretty sure there's not a lot of people going around casually making robots in their bedrooms, so I think we're safe to be impressed."

Snow nodded again, before looking back at Dev questioningly. "How long have you been working on them?"

Dev beamed. It was honestly the first bit of praise he'd gotten since joining the Bloodstones. Yeah of course his parents would tell him how impressive something he made or did was, but it was his parents. That had been their job, right? Some how, it felt as if he'd won some prize, especially given it came from someone as impressive as Snow.

"Yeah, I don't really have anyone else who's usually interested in this sorta stuff. So I end up working on these things alone all the time.. Occasionally dad would come and help me weld things.." He shrugged. "I will admit, I started off with some parts of other bots I've pulled apart, like the mainboard. But whatever else you see here is basically stuff I've tinkered together."

He started typing on the computer he was standing in front of, coding as easily as it was to talk. Probably more so than it was to talk, as he hadn't had a lot of practice at that except to troll some newb on the other end of CoD.

"Uh.. These? Few hours every night for about a week. I usually get done with whatever they want me to do here and grab a pizza on the way home. Then I just.. Get at it until I conk out for the night." He explained.

"Just a week?" Snow's eyebrows rose. He was no engineer or programmer, but that seemed like a very small amount of time to have built even semi-functional robots. "I... want to say that seems fast, even if I don't know for sure. You must be very talented."

Anna grinned. "That must be the first compliment I've heard you give any of your fellow new recruits so far, Addy."

Snow shrugged at her. "Most of the rest are just mediocre at doing things the pack can already do. Dev is good at something none of us are. It's not hard to see which is more valuable."

"Fair enough," she hummed. "It is very cool. I'm sure once you have them ready for demonstration, the right people will also be suitably impressed. Baron's smart enough to recognise results."

"If there's anything I can help with, then let me know." Snow added. "I don't know any technical stuff, but if you need an extra pair of hands..." he shrugged. "I'd be interested to see the process, at least."

The boy grinned at Snow. "I will teach you all the technical stuff, my padiwan. You will join me on the dark side of the force-" He then paused. "... You never watched Space Magicians, have you. You wouldn't get that reference..." He looked to Anna. "... You're into books, please tell me you've at least seen the comics..?"

Dev rubbed the back of his head. "To be completely fair, these only took a week because I pulled some old bots apart and I recycled code from an old project of mine." He admitted.

"If someone needed a specific bot to do things that makes me start from scratch? The planning board would take me weeks to design and plot out. Then actually getting parts and building the thing's barebones to start making and testing code would take a bit longer. I'd say from start to finish, a brand new concept could take well over a month to get to someone if I went at it alone."

He went back to typing up code, pulling up the second bot's computer to replicate what he had on the first one.

After he did so for the third bot, he bit his lip and pressed enter to execute.

The three drones whirred to life and balled up, falling to the floor and rolled to their designated spots in a triangle. Once there they unfurled and crawled to make minor adjustments and their 'eye' would start blinking blue to signal they were waiting for the other two. Two of them flashed green twice signaling they had caught the input from each other, but the third never stopped flashing blue.

Dev sighed. "And this is where my cool streak ends. I can't seem to get that third bot to signal to the other two. I'm beginning to think it's not the code, though. It might very well be a bad component. It is always that drone."

He recalled the drones, who came rolling back to the group. He stooped to pick them up and tossed them back on the table, feeling a bit defeated. "

Anna laughed and nodded at Dev's reference. "I know the series you mean -- I've not read it, but I've seen it advertised around the bookstore before."

She leaned onto the table, reaching over to idly prod at the defective bot. "Isn't that a good thing, though?" she asked towards the end of his explanation. "If you can consistently isolate the problem to something specific to the one drone, then you're closer to knowing what the issue is than if it was more random. Is there some way you can write in some kind of feedback log to the code, so you can see what the failure point is? If you know that, you should be able to figure out what the faulty component is, right?"

"If you need parts, we can probably get them for you," Snow added, not entirely following Anna's suggestion, but able to at least grasp what the gist of the problem was regardless. "We'd just have to pitch it to Salem, since he manages expenses like that."

The boy tilted his head, shifting from side to side as he mulled things over, his lips pursed in a murmur. "Maaaybe," he said, more to himself than to anyone listening. "I might be able to…" His voice trailed off as he weighed his options. "But then again, that..." He trailed off again, his thoughts dancing back and forth like the sway of his head.

After a moment, he sighed and looked over at Snow. "Parts would be nice. Even if it’s just scrap from things that got trashed. But to be honest…” He gave a half-smile. “Salem scares the hell out of me. Gives that whole ‘get off my lawn’ vibe, you know?"

Dev turned back to his laptop, typing slowly, his fingers moving almost hesitantly as he still considered Anna’s suggestions. “I might be able to get it to stop completely at the point of failure, force it to need further interaction to keep going,” he typed, “and if I can get it to log each failure exactly when it happens, it could help narrow down the issues.”

His fingers paused. “But there are still some flaws in that plan,” he muttered with a sigh, shrugging.

“Regardless, it’s gonna take more time and thought.” With that, he closed the laptop, its faint hum fading to silence as he sat back.

"Salem's not that scary," Snow replied with a shrug. "As long as you don't waste his time. But I'll talk to him for you, if you want. You'd just need to tell me what you need."

"It looks promising, though!" Anna added with a grin. "If you can get it to work, I bet it'll earn you some serious kudos with the guys in charge. Addy's right that we don't really have any other tech-heads around-- I think Salem and Sel know their way around a computer, but robots? That's definitely new. How'd you end up learning to do this stuff, anyway? They don't teach this kinda thing in school, 'least last I checked."

The kid was quiet for a moment, weighing whether he wanted to say it out loud. Finally, he exhaled.

"I... Well. My dad got me into drones," he admitted, his voice carrying that careful edge of someone sharing more than they usually did. "It was his way of trying to get me interested in stepping outside. Both my parents tried, really—sports, clubs, hobbies—anything to get me out of my room. But I never wanted to. Not since I was a little kid."

He hesitated, then pushed forward.

"Eventually, they just homeschooled me. As long as I kept my grades up, I had unlimited access to whatever parts Dad could pull from the scrap pile at work… and the internet at my fingertips." A small, almost wistful shrug.

"I got bored, so I started doing more. Taking the parts he gave me, building things—useful things. Tools to make their lives easier. I know it wasn’t always easy having a kid like me." He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes flickering downward.

"Guess that was part of my decision to finally leave. To join this pack. Figured maybe it was time I stopped making their lives harder… and started figuring out my own."

Anna's brows knit together sympathetically. "Aw, I'm sure they didn't see it that way," she offered gently, smiling to him. "It sounds like they were doing their best to push you to prosper, in their own way. Still, I'm glad you decided to join us in the end!"

Snow nodded his agreement. "It might be different for us, because we grew up here, but..." he shrugged. "I've seen a lot of people find their place with the pack. You will too, I'm certain."