Chapter Text

“…And seeing as we’re sponsoring and helping to organise this event, I take it there will be ample opportunities for us to present our own work…?” Byakuya checked with the man who’d practically been begging for his help on the phone.

“Yes… We’ll make sure you get an early spot in the talks, and you can present as many posters as you want…”

…And he’d be able to make sure one of his other companies got to have the best booth in the commercial partner’s areas… “Very well, we’ll draw up the necessary contracts, and once they’re signed we’ll take over the registration system and venue hire…”

“Thank you! It’s good to have your company on board this year!” The man gushed down the phone, “I’m sure this year’s IAIADS will be the best one yet!”

“Yes, of course…” Byakuya agreed, hanging up on him and sending a message to the admin team to drafting a contract…

IAIADS, a rather unpronounceable acronym for the International Artificially Intelligent Android Development Symposium. An excuse for anyone working in the field of android development to get together, show off their current designs and perhaps consider working together to share technologies and create even more advance technologies…

Not the kind of conference Byakuya had ever envisioned himself going within ten miles of, let alone seeing as a useful marketing opportunity. But that had been before he’d lost a bet to the manageress of a small set of Togami-owned casinos and suddenly found himself investing in her pet project of developing humanoid androids based on real people… mostly consisting of the motley group Taeko had recruited to do the actual development.

But, as he was apparently now in the business of android development, to the point where they had several almost comical-looking human facsimiles wandering around the building, it was about time he started to establish himself as a big name in it. And it didn’t get much bigger than organising an international-level conference. All he had to do was make sure he put on an impressive show for the attendants, which was something he had plenty of experience of, from various trade shows and commercial exhibitions that his family had run over the years.

That was, unless the sort of people who attending research conventions had different priorities than those who attending the events he’d organised purely to sell his products. There was no guarantee that just making sure there was plenty of high-quality food, drink and complementary products for the attendants would actually impress them.

And there were other, more mundane details to consider, such as how exactly they were supposed to ensure that the main organisers kept their word and allowed everyone from the company who registered at the conference to present a poster detailing their research, and didn’t ‘accidentally’ skip any of them when it came to judging who was good enough to do so. Perhaps if there was some way for them to adjust the registration system and make their applications be automatically approved as soon as they were submitted… He’d have to speak with the company’s main programmer to find out if that was possible.

And while he was at it, Chihiro must have attended research conventions as part of his own work. Perhaps he could make his was to the communal breakroom and ask him and the other scientists what they looked for in conventions…

Conveniently, Chihiro was already in the room when he arrived, eating what appeared to be re-heated takeaway food by himself.

“Chihiro, just the man I was hoping to see.”

“Oh! Hello, Mr. Byakuya, sir!” The programmer stammered, “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Just Byakuya will be fine…” As odd as it was to be letting mere commoners refer to him so casually, it had already been established that surnames were reserved for their android counterparts before Taeko had convinced him to join in this particular venture, “And we’re going to be hosting IAIADS 2025, so I wanted to ask about your experiences of any research-based conferences or symposiums you’ve attended.”

“Oh… well, I’ve been to a few over the years…” He considered it, “So you want me to focus on the AI-based ones?”

“No… just tell me which one you thought was the best, overall.”

“Oh… CompCon 2019 was pretty good!” That was good. He’d managed to think of an answer quickly. Now for the follow-up question…

“Why?”

“…Why…? Umm…” The programmer hesitated, “Well… I can’t quite remember exactly why it stuck out to me…”

“Well… was it a particularly good presenter? Or a networking opportunity you didn’t get elsewhere…” Byakuya tried to jog his memory…

“I... I’m sorry. It was so long ago that I just remember that I thought it was good at the time…” He admitted, “If you want, I can look up who was speaking and see if that jogs my memory?”

“Yes, please do.” Byakuya told him, which he seemed to think was an immediate order and scurried off out of the break room, just before a large group of the other researchers came in, accompanied by the larger of the two security guards.

“Oh! Hi Byakuya!” Makoto, the company’s social psychologist addressed him, always having been far too comfortable with the use of his first name for Byakuya’s liking. “I didn’t know you ate you lunch down here! We could start coming down here earlier and eating with you!”

“I’m not here to have lunch, Makoto. I just want to hear your experiences about something…” The boy seemed actually disappointed at his response, although several of his fellow researchers looked relieved. “We’re going to be hosting IAIADS 2025, so I want to know what’s the best conference or symposium you’ve ever been to, and why?”

“Oh, that’s probably the conference I got to go to during my pHd!” Makoto answered, “It was in Sicilly, so we got to go swimming outside after the talks and see Mount Etna!”

“Holy crap you have all the luck!” Leon, the upper body engineer, exclaimed. “Best conference I ever got to go to the Robotics and Automation one a few years back…”

“You mean the one where they had all that pizza and beer going around?” Mondo, the lower body engineer asked him, “I mean, that was cool, but I still say that one where they gave us ice cream was better…”

“You think that’s good!? One of my old roommates went to one where they had donuts as an afternoon snack!” Aoi, the one charged with designing waterproofed exteriors, enthused. “With three different sauces to dip them in!”

“Hmm… I was always more partial to the soups and baked mackerel the college I used to work at would provide for conferences…” Sakura admitted.

“Really? I wouldn’t want to eat soup or fish at a conference! I’d be worried about it getting on my clothes…” Sayaka, head of vocal simulation, frowned at the thought.

“Neither did many of the guests… which lead to a lot of leftovers for the staff.” Sakura smiled, “That was a very enjoyable job.”

“That’s pretty cool, but it’s nothing compared to the year I’m talking about!” Leon stopped them all, “Imagine a place that’s been setup and decked out for about two hundred people… but it snows so hard that only forty of them show up! I’m talking, like two speakers for the whole day, and five times the amount of beer and pizza we’d usually get…!”

“Holy shit, that sounds awesome!” Mondo laughed…

…Hah! And here he’d been worried that researchers would have some different set of standards to normal businessmen! If anything, this bunch was easier to please than anyone he’d ever come across before!

“WHAT!? Are you serious!? Why would you want to go to a conference with no speakers!?” …Or so he thought, until the educational psychologist, Kiyotaka, yelled in horror at his 'best friend'. “And why are you all talking about the food and locations!? Do none of you care about the educational opportunities these events provide!? A good conference is about more than just the catering budget!”

“So, what would you say was the best conference you’ve been to, Kiyotaka?” Byakuya asked him, before remembering the man requesting a week away from the office some time ago… “That international one you attended two years ago?”

“Urgh… no.” Kiyotaka scowled, “That was the worst conference I’ve ever been to!”

“Really? I thought you said some of the most of the high-ranking researchers in your field were going to attend…”

“Oh, they did!” Kiyotaka agreed, “But from an organisational standpoint, it was a complete shambles!”

Well, that wasn’t all that informative. Obviously Byakuya wasn’t intending to do a poor job of organisation…

“Hmm... Are you talking about the one where they didn’t give out any free pens…?” Sayaka suddenly asked him.

“Yes!” Kiyotaka nodded curtly.

“The hell? You’re seriously ragging on them ‘cause they didn’t add to your damn pen collection?” Leon asked him.

“No, it was a problem because we were in a remote hotel that was miles away from the nearest store!” Kiyotaka said, defensively. “No one had any means of taking notes!”

“So!? Why do you care!? Don’t you carry a million pens anyway!?”

“I carry three. Three pens.” Kiyotaka scowled at Leon, gesturing to the three pens sticking out of his break pocket, “Nowhere near enough for me to be able to lend them to out to everyone who asked! Not that it stopped me from having highly-influential researchers coming over to my poster, only to borrow my last pen to make notes for a minute and then leave without so much as glancing at my work!”

“Still sounds way fucking pettier than me enjoying a full day of post-grad pizza-partying…” Leon commented.

“Regardless, I’ve yet to organise a conference that didn’t have adequate stationary!” Byakuya said, to put a stop to the bickering. “Which was your favourite conference, and why?”

“Err… I… don’t really have a particular favourite…” Kiyotaka admitted, “Usually, it’s dependant on who’s speaking, but I don’t go to conferences unless there’s a reasonable number of speakers on the list that I’m interested in, so they’re all much the same…”

“Well, duh! That’s why we were judging our favourites based on the food!” Aoi sighed, “As long as they don’t try to cram in too many speakers during the day and make everyone rush their talks, it’s usually fine!”

…So, in other words, scientists were still just as human as the attendants at every other conference he’d every had organised, even if they didn’t think they were… “So beyond what I’d usually do for an event like this, my only concern should be to make sure the speakers are well-renowned…” They all nodded at him, “Thank you all for your input.”

Well, that was that issue sorted. Now he just needed to speak to Chihiro about the registration website, which meant following him off to the pokey little office the programmer usually holed himself up in in order to work…

“Oh! Byakuya! Umm… I haven’t quite finished going through the event list yet…” Chihiro jumped guiltily as Byakuya let himself into his office, “If you give me another half-hour, I should be able to tell you what was good about CompCon…”

Hmm… if the rest of the scientists here were any indication… “Let me guess. They had particularly good food, and you didn’t want to admit you were swayed by something so petty.”

“Uhhhmm… Well, not… exactly…” Chihiro cringed, “It wasn’t the food, that was mostly just sandwiches.”

“Then what was it?” Surely they didn’t employ two people who were obsessed with pens!

“…One of the sponsor companies had free USB sticks on their table.” He admitted, “And they held up to sixty-four gigabytes!”

“…We have two entire boxes of those in the storeroom.” Byakuya pointed out, “And we’re planning to start giving out the next size up once they’re gone.”

“This was six years ago! Sixty-four Gigs was a bigger deal back then!” Chihiro insisted, “And they had these cool stress balls, and I didn’t have to buy post-it notes for a year afterwards, and the rep liked me enough to give me a free mug…”

“…So you’d recommend having a variety of complimentary promotional items.” Byakuya summarised.

“Umm… pretty much.” Chihiro nodded, “N-not that I never pay attention to the talks! It’s just most of the time I enjoy the them regardless of whose speaking…”

“Noted.”  Not that he wouldn’t be asking around for good recommendation, regardless. “But speaking of who will be presenting, We’ve been given permission to hosts as many posters as we want. Is there any way to make it so the registration system automatically assigns our researchers a poster slot? Preferably ones next to each other…”

“Hmm… that shouldn’t be hard. I can probably program it to pick up on the company email address and assign them poster number one-onwards…” Chihiro considered it, “The only problem would be if one of the non-scientists with a company email decided to sign up…”

“Who would want to do that, unnecessarily?” Byakuya asked, “I suspect I’ll have enough trouble making some of the actual researchers apply!”

“That’s true…” The programmer nodded, “And I can make sure the emails about the registration site only go to the research team. I just figured I’d warn you that there’s a risk of it happening if someone comes across the site by accident.”

“That’s fine. Just do it.” After all, no common employee was ever going to voluntarily sign up for a task that had nothing to do with their job, and what were the chances of any of the androids finding out about it…?

Chapter Text

'Title: Initial programing versus social development: How far does the android fall from the tree?

Abstract: Using propriety brain-copying techniques, a group of five sentient android AIs were created and raised by their human personality-donors, taking care to assess and account for their mental and emotional development over the course of two years. This sub-study aimed to compare the resultant android behaviour with that of their human counterparts, to determine if androids were capable of personal growth and development, independent of their initial programming.’

Hmm… well, Makoto couldn’t see anything wrong with the abstract on his poster, but that didn’t mean it was safe to copy it into the registration form right away…

“You’re not supposed to sit so close to the computer screen, Makoto! It’s not good for your eyes, or your back!”

“Ah! Sorry, Kiyotaka!” Makoto adjusted his posture so he wasn’t hunched forward anymore, “I was just checking the grammar on this…”

“I’m Ishimaru, not Kiyotaka.” Makoto turned around at what was apparently the android’s declaration, not that of his fellow psychologist. “Though I have just had a new voice-box installed…”

Wow… Sayaka sure did a good job on that one! Although anything other than the old screechy voice-box that Ishimaru had been capable of overloading with his loud shouting would have been an improvement. “Ah! Sorry, Ishimaru! Your voice sounds very human now!”

“Yes! Though I must admit, I didn’t like the change at first.” Ishimaru admitted, “But Kyoudai said he likes it, so I decided to stick with it for a while, and now I’m starting to get used to it!”

Makoto would have to thank Oowada for that… Not to mention Chihiro, for giving Ishimaru the new emotional programming that made the android capable of caring what his boyfriend thought of his voice…

“That’s good! I’m sure you’ll come to love it soon enough!” Makoto assured him. “But, while you’re here, would you mind doing me a favour and check if I’ve made any mistakes in this paragraph?”

“Of course I can do that for you!” Ishimaru nodded, leaning over to check the small part of the poster Makoto had zoomed in on… “Hmm… well, the grammar’s all correct. But it’s not particularly abstract! It just seems like a standard description of your work!”

“But… that’s the point of an abstract…?”

“Is it? I thought ‘abstract’ referred to describing ideas that don’t have a physical basis in reality, like love?” Ishimaru could furrow his brow pretty realistically now… “That’s why you were showing me pieces of art now I’ve had my emotions upgraded, wasn’t it? Because I should have been able to understand them all now…”

“Ah… I’m not expecting you to understand every piece of art. I’m just trying to work out which ones you can relate to now!” Makoto tried to assure him that he didn’t have any reason to be as embarrassed as he was about ‘failing’ to understand some of the weirder pieces he’d shown him. “And that’s one meaning of abstract, but it can also mean a short summary of something, like a book or research paper… or the poster I’m making, in this case!”

“You’re making a poster?” Ishimaru peered curiously at his computer screen, “But isn’t it Hifumi and Yasuhiro’s job to advertise things?”

“It is, but this isn’t an advertisement, it’s to show my work to people at the conference we’re hosting in a few months…” He scrolled out the view on the computer, so Ishimaru could see the various figures he’d put in there.

“Really? Kiyotaka hasn’t mentioned anything about posters for that.”

“Oh… that’s probably because Kiyotaka’s doing the talk for summarising all our work, instead.” Makoto admitted, “Posters are for newer scientists, with less work to talk about…”

“So anyone can make one and show it?” Ishimaru asked.

“Uhh… not anyone. People have to submit their title and abstract on the conference website first, which is what I’m doing now…” Makoto explained, showing him the half-filled form on the conference website. “Then the organisers pick whose good enough to take part!”

“But… you already made your whole poster!” Ishimaru pointed out, “What if you don’t get picked? Won’t you have wasted a lot of time?”

 “Err… yeah, usually that would be the case. But I know all of us working here will get to show a poster, at least…”

“Ah! Because you’re all such good scientists!” Ishimaru nodded enthusiastically.

“Uhh… yeah!” Makoto lied. He didn’t want to disappoint the guy by telling him it was actually because Byakuya was footing a large chunk of the bill for this particular conference, and had made sure he got to advertise as much of his companies work as possible in return...

“I see! Thank you for explaining this all to me!” Ishimaru smiled, then sat down at one of the other computers and started taping away happily while Makoto copied and pasted the abstract across, finished submitting the form and shut down the computer…

“Ah… Makoto! Before you leave, could you do me a favour and check my abstract?”

“Uuuhhh…” Makoto turned and check Ishimaru’s computer screen, which was in the middle of filling out the same form he’d just submitted…

‘Title: Do Androids have identical interests to their human counterparts?

Abstract: I surveyed eight human and android pairs about their hobbies and interests and found that while there are some androids that have identical interests to their personality donors, 37.5% enjoy different hobbies.’

Oh boy. It was good he wanted to get involved, and that he wanted to show off the little science project Kiyotaka had had the androids do as part of their education, but that was the sort of thing you’d see in middle school! Not to mention Makoto had a much more in-depth analysis of the transferal of interests and hobbies in his own poster… And was Byakuya even planning to let any of the androids be shown at the conference?

But… on the other hand, Ishimaru looked really pleased with himself… and it wasn’t like Byakuya couldn’t just reject his submission when it came time for picking the poster presenters…

“That all looks great, Ishimaru!”

“Marvellous! Well, in that case I can submit my form!” Ishimaru smiled, “Thanks again, Makoto!”

“No problem, Ishimaru!” Makoto left him to it and headed off to the break room for a well-deserved drink…

Chapter Text

''Dear…’ What the heck was she supposed to refer to them all as? Technically they were poster presenters, but ‘Dear Poster Presenters’ sounded weird! ‘Attendees’ made them sound like cattle, ‘Delegates’ was nicer but made them all sound like they were way more important than they were…

Urrgghh! If only she hadn’t agreed to this so easily! Sure ‘email everyone presenting a poster and tell them to send her a slide for the flash talks’ had sounded nice and easy when Byakuya Togami had called her by her first name and asked her to do it! But now he’d left and it came to actually drafting the email and she was staring at a blank screen wondering…

“What is a poster flash talk, even!?”

“It a series of rapid talks where each poster presenter is given one minute to introduce their research, ideally in a way that piques the listener’s interest and encourages them to go ask further questions at their poster during one of the breaks in the conference.” Kirigiri, or rather Kyoko as she kept insisting on being called because ‘Kirigiri is the android’, rattled off smoothly, as if Toko had actually been asking that and not just muttering irritably to herself.

“Well, if it’s a research thing, why don’t they get someone like Ishimaru to do it?” Toko complained, “I mean, how am I supposed to know how to talk to these science nerds? I’m a romance writer!”

“You mean Kiyotaka? Ishimaru’s the android…” Urghh… This place was weird! It was bad enough that everyone had a freaky-looking robot clone of themselves, but why had they names them all after themselves!? “But I have an email which might help…”

‘Kyoko                Fwd: IAIADS 2023 Poster presentations’

IAIADS? Oh right, that was the name of this conference, right? Intelligent Android… something, something Development…

Well, whatever, this was the email whoever had been lumbered with this stupid job two years ago had sent out! This was perfect, she could totally just copy and paste this, make a few changes and then send it out herself to this year’s batch!

Let’s see…

‘Dear Colleagues,

I can confirm that your abstracts have been selected for the poster presentations at this year’s International Artificially Intelligent Android Development Symposium on Tuesday the 22nd…’

Well, there was her first change… but it was mostly ‘here’s your information, here’s what I need from you, here’s a few tips’ and even an attached example of a flash slide that she was totally going to steal…

‘I will need your 1 minute flash talk slides by 5pm on Monday the 21^st at the very latest! If you have any questions regarding this or any other aspect of the event, please let me know! For other enquiries, please contact the main organiser, Kevin Rivard, at [email protected]

I look forward to seeing you at the event!

Regards,

Kiyotaka Ishimaru.’

Wait… so he had done this before? But for someone at a different company? Guess this time they thought it was trivial enough that they might as well waste Toko’s time on it instead of his! After all, it wasn’t like sending an email out and then downloading a bunch of PowerPoint slides and copying them into one presentation was hard, was it? And the rest of this email chain was just different people sending him stuff…

‘Hayato              Hi, my slide is attached. Do I need to send it to anyone else…

Emily                    Poster slide attached.

Kiyotaka              Just a reminder, I will need your one minute slide by Mond…’

Oh yeah, she’d probably need to remember send out a few reminders for people…

Makoto                Sorry! Here’s my slide, let me know if there’s any problems…

Kinga                   Thank you for organising. Here is the slide for poster numb…

Kylan                    Here is my poster slide

Kylan                    Please ignore my previous email! I noticed an error, so I’m s…

Kiyotaka              Just one final reminder that I will need your slides for this pr…

And then there was a huge rush of people either sending him slides or giving him excuses…

Hannah               I’m presenting on the Wednesday. Can I give you my slide at…

Marco                  Here is my slide for poster 16.

Kiyotaka              Marco, there seems to be a problem with the picture in your…

Angelo                 Here is my slide!

Thomas               I need my PI to look over my slide, can I send it you tomorro…

Rosa                     I’ve shared a file with you on Google Drive. To access it click…

Yuto                     I’ve attached my slide as both a powerpoint and pdf file. I ho…

Angelo                 I realised there’s a problem with my slide, here’s the correct v…

Kiyotaka              One slide. ONE. FUDGING. SLIDE! That’s all I asked! You didn’t…

Wait… WHAT!? What was with the sudden change in tone? Maybe she should actually look at that one in detail…

Oh… well, it had been sent at 6pm on Monday the 21st, which was the day BEFORE the first day of the conference! Well, that had been pretty stupid of him! Everyone knew people didn’t actually get things done on time! But this didn’t even seem like something he’d write, even if the ‘swearing’ was like something a six-year old would come out with…

‘One slide. ONE. FUDGING. SLIDE! That’s ALL I asked! You didn’t even need to make any new images for it! You could have just copied the one in your poster’s introduction, slapped your names, poster number and ONE QUESTION you were trying to answer and you’ve have been done! Was that really so goshdarn much to ask for!? It would have taken you ten fudging minutes! And if you’d just got it done straight away when I asked I wouldn’t have had to waste my time and everyone else’s sending out sugary reminders for you bunch of dumbbutts to maybe try acting like adults! Or maybe take the time to come up with a sugary excuse as to WHY you couldn’t take the time to manage that!

And for those of you asking ‘can’t I just give it to you on the day?’ the answer is: Probably NOT! Because half of you can’t make a slide that actually works on someone else’s computer! Not to mention that apparently giving you a darn EXAMPLE POWERPOINT SLIDE didn’t make it clear that I need a fudging POWERPOINT slide that is, common sense would dictate if you idiots HAD any, THE SAME SIZE AS MY EXAMPLE! I already TOLD you people I need to put them all into the same presentation, why the HECK would you think something with a different aspect ratio to my example or a slide with a background theme that overwrites the background on EVERY SLIDE and smegs  up the whole presentation or a flipping PDF would be of any use! I shouldn’t need to keep converting your PDFs into Powerpoint files, finding they’ve got a sugary background graphic and that I need to take a screen shot of it so I can then crop THAT and paste it into the presentation so it doesn’t mess up the whole thing and THEN get ANOTHER email from you FUDGEWITS saying ’Whoops! I made a mistake, here it is again!’

Not to mention I have OTHER responsibilities that I’ll be taking care of tomorrow that mean I won’t have the TIME to be sitting around  with my thumb up my tailpipe near a computer waiting for you lazy jackamules to waltz in and give me the result of the TEN MINUTE TASK that I asked you for THREE WEEKS AGO!

Get the slide to me by 10pm or you can fudge off out of the symposium altogether!

Kiyondo.’

WOW! Okay... So maybe this wasn’t as simple as she’d thought. She’d better remember to say what size the slide was and that it should be both powerpoint and PDF if possible. And of course make sure the deadline was several days before the actual conference, but she’d have probably done that anyway! Plus, as far as she knew she wasn’t going to be doing other stuff on the day so she probably could be there to let them transfer files on the day…

Still, it was kind of surprising he was still working here after sending out something like that on a company email address, even if their company hadn’t been hosting the AAIAIADS or whatever that year…

‘Leon                    Guys!? Kiyotaka just sent this to all the poster presenter at that…

Chihiro                 His email must be compromised. Is he at his desk?

Makoto               He is. Also I think he’s only sent it to the people who didn’t send…

Leon                     Urg! God, he’s being such a dumbass about this shit!

Kiyotaka              Excuse me!? You got a problem with me, come say it to my FACE!

Asahina              You included him in an email insulting him? Now who’s dumb!?

Chihiro               Guys! Stop using Reply All! Half the poster presenters can see al…

Thomas                Here is my poster slide.

Leon                     I WOULD if I could get past all the stupid random crap you’ve st…

Chihiro               First off: STOP USING REPLY ALL! Secondly: They DO need to go…

Mondo                Taka!? That’s not what I meant when I said to be assertive! And…

Kiyotaka              You have no fudging idea what sort of effort goes into organisin…’

Hmm… maybe she’d just read all of everything from now on. This was getting juicy!

‘Leon

I WOULD come say it to your face if I could get past all the stupid random crap you’ve started hoarding in your office! You know you’re helping out at a symposium, not a garage sale, right? Why in hell’s name have you got:

-One tube of every type of glue known to man

-Every single charger or computer wire that’s ever existed

-String, sellotape, blue-tack, scissors, notepads, envelopes and every other bit of stationary the stores HAD!

-Plug adaptors, like no ones gonna have thought to bring those when they’re travelling abroad?

-ALL THE FUCKING PENS

-900 velcro sticky dots for THIRTY posters

-AND A FUCKING HAIRDRYER!?

You don’t need all this stupid crap and you don’t need to worry about putting everyone’s slides into one presentation when they could just copy them all up onto the computer and open them when they start their talk like the proper presenters do!

Chihiro

First off: STOP USING REPLY ALL!

 Secondly: They DO need to go into a single presentation! If you make them all start them up individually it adds an extra minute onto each talk and the whole thing takes twice as long!

(That amount of stuff does seem a little OTT though…)

Mondo

Taka!? That’s not what I meant when I said to be assertive! And why are ya calling yourself ‘Kiyondo’!?

Kiyotaka

You have no fudging idea what sort of effort goes into organising an event like this, do you!? This meeting is attended by people who have been working in this field for decades and, unlike YOUR lazy rear-end, are actually WORTH SUGAR! You might think the mountain of stuff is funny NOW, but you’ll look like the dumbbutt you ARE when the plenary speaker brings his talk on a laptop Apple discontinued before USBs existed and his wife turns up at the registration desk expecting you to have a fudging hairdryer because she’d booked into the crummiest hotel known to man! I’ve been involved in conferences for YEARS and there’s not one item in my office that I haven’t been asked for at one!

And as Chihiro already pointed out, I’m TRYING to make the flash talks go as quickly as possible so they actually stay on time and jerkwads like YOU don’t decide to whizz off halfway through because you’ve heard the free booze being opened! Although I don’t know why the fudge I’m wasting hours of my time trying to help you ungrateful turds get an audience for your research when you can’t be bothered to spend TEN GOSHDARN MINUTES preparing ONE FUDGING SLIDE!

Kiyondo.’

Yasuhiro

No, Dude, it’s the Plenary speaker who’ll want the hairdryer! The dude from the company sponsoring the event will need the weird cable! Also you’ll need the glue and some sellotape because one old guy is gonna break his glasses in two!

Byakuya

Everyone into my office, NOW!

Kazuichi

Here’s my slide please don’t kill me?

Sahil

If we don’t get our slide in, do we get a refund for the Symposium?

Sayaka

Hi There!

My name is Sayaka Maizono, and I will be taking over the organisation of the poster presentations due to my colleague Kiyotaka falling ill!

All of us here would also like to apologise for both the previous emails signed as ‘Kiyondo’ and the unprofessional nature of our replies to them!

I can also assure you that ‘Kiyondo’ had no authorisation to throw anyone out of the Symposium! If you are not interested in presenting a flash talk, you do not need to provide us with a slide. If you do still want to, I will be available at the registration desk for you to give me your file, so long as it is before the 4pm coffee break…’

Okay, this was boring now… it was just Mai… Sayaka covering everyone’s asses and then a bunch of ‘oh alright, here’s my slide’ type comments right down to the bottom of the email chain…

Kiyotaka

Dear Colleagues

I hope that presenting your poster at the IAIADS 2023 was a useful experience for you all.

I feel it is necessary to apologise for my behaviour on the evening before the conference. I, of course, am fully aware that such behaviour was completely unnecessary, and to this day I am not sure what my thought processes were at that time.

My therapist believes I have some issues with repressed anger, along with anxiety over organising and interacting with others, and it led to me attempting to emulate the angrier side of someone who I believe to be more capable of those things! Of course, that is no excuse for my poor behaviour and I will strive to never allow such an outburst to happen again! However, I wished to explain what happened so those of you I have the pleasure of working with in the future can understand that I do not always behave in such a manner!

I am deeply sorry if my behaviour caused your experience of this wonderful annual event to be a poor one.

Best Regards,

Kiyotaka Ishimaru.’

Huh… so he had a mental breakdown and started acting like a lunatic while speaking on behalf of both this conference and the company!? “I’m surprised he still has a job here…”

“Well, he’s getting to be quite a respected scientist in his own right.” Kiri…Kyoko assumed Toko had been speaking to her again, “He’s also the one who often drafts everyone else’s research papers, which helps the company’s standing. In the long run him scaring fifteen PhD students who didn’t even have the initiative to make one PowerPoint slide on time isn’t too troubling…”

Maybe not… but knowing that guy he’d probably still be embarrassed about it forever… Then again, who wouldn’t be if a lunatic got access to your emails and started sending out crazy nonsense!?

Well, no point thinking about it! It’s not like she could help him out! She’d best just go back to her original plan of copying his first email, making a few changes and then sending it out to everyone.

Then she logged out of her email account. Just in case.

“…You’re very cautious about your computer, aren’t you?”

What the hell!? Had she been spying on her!? Just because they shared the same office didn’t mean she wanted her staring at everything she did! But if she said that she’d look suspiscious!

“W-well, aren’t we supposed to be!? B-byakuya says the company’s knowledge is its most valuable asset, after all!”

“Of course… But most people don’t bother, or they use autocomplete for the password and render it pointless anyway.” K…yoko shrugged, “I do wonder how you know when you’ve got new emails if you’re not logged into your account though.”

“I just log in every so often. It’s not that hard!” Although sometimes she’d sneakily start writing romance stories and forget to check for the rest of the day…

She made sure not to do that today though. After all, Byakuya had specifically chosen her to handle these poster presentations! So she’d better make sure she did it properly!

…And she even had some replies as soon as she next logged in…

‘Leon                   Here’s my slide!

Ishimaru             I have received your request and assure you I shall complete it as soon as poss…

Wait… Ishimaru? He was doing a poster, like he was some lowly student or something? So much for being a big name in his own right! And had he changed the way his email name presented? So much for ‘Ishimaru being the android’!

Oh well, who cared. She just had to make sure she saved Kuwata’s slide to a sensible place and then when she’d got them all she combine them into one file and then Byakuya would be so impressed with her that he’d…

Chapter Text

“Hey, Ishi! I’m back from my tune up!” Oowada headed into the computer room he’d spotted his boyfriend in, “You almost done on the computer so we can hang out?”

“Ah! Kyoudai! I am finished in here…” He answered, looking upset about it all the same, “But, I need to go and ask Makoto for help with something, so it’ll have to wait a while…”

“Why’d you need his help? Couldn’t I help!?” And why the hell was he so angry that Ishi apparently hadn’t even thought to ask him!?

“Well… it’s about the science poster!” Hah… He should have figured. Ishi had been excitedly chattering and drawing ever since Makoto had explained that whole thing to him… “Miss Toko sent us some instructions, but I don’t think I’ll be able to complete them without help, and as Makoto is also making a poster, I thought he’d be sure to know what to do, and how to do it…”

“Well, I guess that makes sense…” Oowada had to admit, even though he hated doing it, “But who’s to say I couldn’t help you figure it out on your own, and show Makoto how clever you are!”

“Ah… Well… If you think I’ll be able to work it out, then let’s try it!” Ishi smiled, “According to her email, I need to send Miss Toko a slide for a minute-long flash talk… But I doubt I could build a slide that lasts for a whole minute, and even if I could, I don’t know what it means by ‘flash talk’.”

“Well… flashing’s when you show someone your naked body.” Oowada remembered Mondo explaining it to him one time.

“Oh! So I just have to take my clothing off and talk for a minute? Well, that’s easy enough!” Ishi smiled for just a moment, “But I still have the problem of how to make a slide and get it to the office…”

“Yeah… if it’s gotta take a whole minute to go down it, that’s gonna be one hell of a big slide…” Oowada admitted.

“Hmm… although, on second glance, it says the talk has to be no longer than a minute…” Ishi checked his computer. “But it doesn’t say it can’t be less than that!”

“So, in that case, you just need any old slide, right?” Oowada pointed out, “Heck, I can probably build ya one and take it to Toko’s office for ya! That counts as sending it to her, right!”

“Hmm… yes, it would…” Ishi frowned, “But… this seems like a rather odd activity to be doing for science. I’m wondering if there’s some other meaning to it that I’m not aware of…”

“Aww, c’mon! If it could mean something else, you’d know about it! You know all sorts of shit!” Oowada assured him, “Now how’s about you come along with me to the workroom and help me pick out some nice wood to make this slide from…?”

“Well… when you put it like that…” Ishi smiled again as he considered it, “Alright, let’s go!”

Hah! Yes! Ishi was gonna hang out with him! Take that, Makoto!

Well, it taken him about half a week of measuring, sawing and sanding down wood, but he’d managed to make a slide simple slide that took about ten seconds to get up and down, and Ishi had been so interested in the process that he’d stayed to watch Mondo, instead of going back and hanging out with Makoto again! Now all he had to do was drop it off in Toko’s office and he and Ishi could go back to hanging out properly, without him having anything to do with the shrimp little human…

But damn, lugging this thing through the hallways was awkward! This whole thing seemed like a huge bunch of bullcrap, if he had to be honest. After all, what the hell did getting naked and playing on a slide have to do with Ishi being a scientist!? But it didn’t matter. He’d told Ishi he’d do it, and so here he was, dragging this big pile of wood he’d put together over to the general office…

Good thing he’d been built for strength…

“Yo, delivery for Toko!” He knocked on the door, once he finally got to it.

It was opened soon enough by the brown-haired human women with glasses, who took one look at him and the slide before glaring in disgust. “What the hell is this supposed to be!?”

“It’s the thing you asked Ishi…maru for last week!” He remembered to add the last part after a moment.

“…Did you go crazy again? I haven’t even spoken to Ishimaru this month!”

“Well, he told me you’d emailed him saying he had to give you one so he could do his naked talk thing!”

“What!? A-as if I’d want to see him naked! S-someone probably hacked into my emails, or s-something…”

“Hold on a minute, Toko…” Another voice came from inside the room, and that woman with the pale hair and purple clothes came to the door, and took one look at the slide he’d built before cracking into a grin, “Ah, I thought as much. It seems there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding…”

“How is him giving me playground equipment so his friend can get naked a ‘misunderstanding’!?”

“Because you asked him to provide a slide for a flash talk.”

“That’s…! Urgh…” The brunette stared between them both in dismay, “That’s not what I MEANT! That email was asking for a computer file!”

What!? They just wanted some computer thing!? So he’d spent all that time working on the wrong thing!? “Well, why didn’t you just say that instead of calling it a slide!?”

“Because anyone who’s actually qualified to present at the conference would know what I meant by that!” She snapped, “Why the hell are we even letting one of the robots present anyway!?”

“Androids…” The other woman corrected, which made her roll her eyes. “And he has a company email address, albeit one that can only accept internal mail, and the registration system was set to automatically give anyone from our company a poster slot… Though I do wonder how he managed to find out about this in the first place…”

“Makoto told him about it.” Oowada told her, not particularly caring if that got the guy into trouble for telling Ishi something it seemed like he wasn’t supposed to…

“Hmm… in that case, I think Ishimaru would be best off asking him to help him make a slide, and explain to him what we mean by a ‘flash talk’…”

So, exactly what Ishi had been planning to do in the first place… dammit! “…Alright then. Guess I’ll go get rid of this crap then…”

“Good!” Toko started closing the door in his face, “…Stupid ro… androids wasting my time when I’m busy…”

…Wow, he could see why Mondo hated having to get anything from this place…

But what the hell was he supposed to do with this thing!? And how was he gonna admit to Ishi that he’d ended up making him waste time by waiting for him to finish building it? Dammit, why hadn’t he just let him ask fricken Makoto about this in the first place, like he’d been about to before he’d turned up and got stupidly pissed off about Ishi not having time to hang out with him…?

Well, he’d have to start by dragging this thing back down to the workshop and… hope it could be salvaged into something useful, at least? Urgh, explaining this to the humans was gonna suck…

“Kyoudai! Kyoudai, wait!” Aww, fuck! It wasn’t gonna suck anywhere near as much as having to explain it to Ishi, who was making his way up the corridor now, along with Makoto and Chihiro, who were both staring at the stupid slide in amazement at what an idiot he was…

“Oh… hey, Ishi…”

“Hello! Err… About the slide…” Ishi’s eyes scanned the floor just in front of his feet, “You’ve not… spoken to Toko yet, have you…?”

“…Yeah, I just did…” Oowada admitted, “She, ah… kinda said we’ve misunderstood…”

“Argh! I’m so sorry! I only just found out what I was supposed to be doing!” Ishi shouted before he could finish, “And I’ve made you waste so much of your time…”

“Eh? Why are you sorry!? I was the one who stopped you from going to ask Makoto for help in the first place!”

“But, I still should have had the sense to check with him before we started!” Ishi insisted, “But… you telling me I’m clever made me feel so happy that it overrode all my doubts and convinced me this was the right course of action…”

Really!? He’d made Ishi that happy…? That was kinda awesome, honestly… “Well… no harm done! It’s not like I had anything urgent to do!” Oowada told him, ruffling the short strands of black acrylic on top of his head, “And you’ve still got time to ask Makoto for help with the computer thing, right?”

“Ah… no. it doesn’t matter now. I’m not going to be showing my poster anymore.” Ishi stated, sadly.

“But… you’ve been looking forward to that for weeks! What if I helped, would ya have enough time if I…?”

“It’s not the amount of time! It’s… I’ve just found out I shouldn’t have been selected in the first place… I was never supposed to apply…”

The hell!? Who had gone and told him that…!?

Oh… right! That must be why Makoto and Chihiro had followed him up here…!

“Ah… We didn’t mean you weren’t supposed to apply!” Chihiro piped up before Oowada glared at him, “Just that we weren’t expecting you to, so I’ve got to double-check with Byakuya that it’s alright for you to actually go there! Seeing as you’re novel technology and he might want you to be kept secret a little while longer…”

“Yeah! And either way, I can still help you put together a PowerPoint slide!” Makoto joined in, “Even if Byakuya can’t let you attend, it’ll still be useful for you to learn how to do it!”

“…No, it’s alright. I’ve already wasted enough people’s time with this…” Ishi shook his head at them all. “And my project was just a stupider version of Makoto’s poster, anyway…”

“Hey! That’s not true! That project idea you had was fucking awesome!” Oowada told him.

“It… it was?” Ishi looked up from the floor.

“Well, yeah! I mean, Kiyotaka gave you top marks for it, didn’t he!?” Oowada reminded him, “Don’t you wanna show off how well you did?”

“Well… I did…” Ishi admitted, sounding cautiously optimistic about the whole thing.

“So, quit dissing yourself and let Makoto give you his advice!” Oowada told him, “Hell, you’re smart enough it’ll probably only take half the time it would for anyone else!”

“Ah… well… If that’s the case…” Ishi smiled again, “Alright, I’ll accept your offer, Makoto! Let’s go to the computer room right away!”

“Uhh… alright, Ishimaru!” Makoto barely had a chance to respond before Ishi dragged him back up the hallway… Lucky jerk, being able to help out Ishi and spend time with him…

“...Thanks for cheering him up, Oowada…” Chihiro suddenly spoke up.

“Ain’t like it was hard. He just said all you’ve gotta do is call him clever…”

“Umm… no. That’s not how it is…” Chihiro argued, “Makoto tried telling him people would at the convention would be impressed by how clever he was, but it didn’t work.”

“Then why’d it work when I said it!?”

“Well… probably because Ishimaru likes you...” Chihiro grinned.

“…Oh.” Fuck, that was… he didn’t know how he felt about that, but it was a good feeling, whatever it was. Knowing he’d always be able to cheer up Ishi when no one else could, not even someone like Makoto…

Huh… suddenly, he didn’t mind so much that Ishi was gonna be hanging out with the guy for a while…