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At two o'clock on Tuesdays, there's a room they go to and work with things they probably shouldn't. It's technically study hall period, but it's also the activities block and the school didn't care (realize, more like) that they were in the second to last room in the basement. It was a really awful room in comparison to the rest of the campus but there were pieces of equipment they re-purposed. The best part is the basement is so far off the grid for anyone on campus to pay any attention to - she's sure not even maintenance comes down here - and the rest of their classmates are too self-absorbed to pay her any attention.
The first time she walks into the room, she nearly jumps three feet in the air when she sees him. Billy, hunched over a desk, with a toaster that looks like it's been vivisected, screwdrivers scattered around him. She hadn't been in this part of the campus but she never really needed to, the bleachers being her preferred haunt on this hell-hole of a school.
She doesn't feel quite comfortable at home what with her parents weirdness and hangups, and she should probably be nicer to them or at school, feeling like she knows that they know. It's an awkward layer that goes through every interaction she has with everyone that it's best to put her headphones on and go through her day. Even the others don't feel like they're her friends, more like acquaintances. She could be less standoffish, but she didn't have to put up with it and so she wandered around the town and the school. It was a lot easier to be by herself than make an effort.
The day began cold and got worse, the drizzle they thought that ended during lunch had turned into a downpour ruined her usual spot by the bleachers. She didn't feel like spending time in the library where Kim, Zack and Jason were doing that weird thing where they had a mind synergy going on. It was bad enough that the rain had gotten worse but those three not having practice after school meant they had too much energy to spare and not enough of a distractions. She thinks she saw them sprint out of the library to go around the track, like a bunch of hyperactive weirdos.
She tried not to spend more time inside the school than she had to, but she was also bored and had nothing better to do, that took her down the stairs around the back. She was thinking hookups would have met her, instead of one really big room with a door. The thought that a serial killer could be hiding out there crosses her mind, but she chalks that up to the podcast she decided to listen to instead of her usual metal (it was unfortunately not a wash like she thought it'd be).
So when she pulls the heavy door and walks into a brightly lit room with Billy standing over the toaster, screwdrivers in hand and a whirring noise beside him, she does what every normal girl would do and immediately shouts her arrival, feet braced to give her a flying kick start. It clicks that it's Billy and she clutches her bag around her.
"Jesus Billy, warn a girl will you?"
"Hi Trini," he says, going back to the toaster. "Can you close the door so you don't let cold air in?" She lets the door slam behind her as she walks in, checking behind her just in case someone else followed her.
"Hey, what're you doing in here?" she asks, walking to the other side of the desk. The fluorescent lighting in this room is brighter than the rest of the school
"Building a robot," he says.
"Neat," she says. "We've already got one at base though, unless you're thinking of stripping him for metal. Though I always figured Zack would've done that. He seems most likely to commit assault against our robot like if I had to take a guess."
"I'd never do that to Alpha," he responds, though he has the ghost of a smile on his face.
"Can I help?"
"Do you know how to build a robot?"
"I know how to google and read instructions?"
"That's good enough," he says and points to scrap scattered around the toaster as he vivisects it. Which is how they end up building a robot in the basement of Angel Grove high instead of doing something productive.
It's a routine that they fall into thanks to the pacific northwestern downpour that refuses to let up. Mostly it done because the quarry gets slippery because of surrounding mud and none of them would prefer to die earlier than they have to, given that there's putties around the city and by the docks. It feels odd, like they're waiting for something they can't name. Either way Jason or Kim gives advance notice if they're postponing training to a day where they're less likely to fall down a mudslide.
Study hall period is rarely enforced so long as they stay on campus until the school day was officially over. Billy's the darling of all the teachers that they don't look at him twice when he goes to focus on his own thing. She goes by mostly ignored, quietly leaving study hall like a ghost with her bag in tow and smaller headphones on instead of the giant ones in her bag.
It's almost too easy to get down to the basement with their pile of junk but that's Angel Grove for you. She walks into the room, the heavy thud of the door a welcome sound. She drops her bag into the corner and begins to strip electrical wires for decoration, focuses on assembling the motherboard they've got that they've re purposed from some old laptop. It was one of the rare useful gems in their basement, a recent laptop that sat there collecting dust. The scrap stored away moves around them into piles to be used, the skeletal body of the robot the center.
Billy will ask for her to give whatever she's finished dismantling to form the legs and hands, as the toaster makes up the body along with the frankenstein job they did with the motherboard.
They don't talk much, not about their life or problems - like when Zack corners her, and tries to get her to talk about her feelings during their lunch period. It's sweet if misguided and she knows that the concern the others feel is because they think it's more doable than their own problems they have yet to deal with. The truth is, she likes being by herself and not having to answer anyone's questions. To be invisible because the alternative is feeling like she's constantly being judged.
They talk about the robot and science, things that are infinitely more safer than speaking out loud how her own issues. She's kept everything tightly wound inside when she moved, it feels odd to speak to someone and not feel like they're judging her.
"Do you like being a ranger?" she asks.
"I like you guys," he responds. She's finishing her nth piece of wire stripping to place near the motherboard. She stops, watching as Billy keeps working without noticing her pause.
"Not to be rude, but why?"
"You see this robot we're building out of a lot of other pieces? It wouldn't work if we didn't put in the time to make it work, we'd just have a bunch of scrap together. We're the robot." She laughs a little, Billy surprising himself into looking up. She shakes her head, not laughing out of maliciousness.
"So I guess you don't believe we were like fated or something?" He pauses, and scratches at his chin thoughtfully.
"I think we were put together for a reason." She nods in agreement.
"Let me see that robot, I think we screwed up somewhere with the motherboard that the response time is messed up," she gestures for him to bring it up.
"Uh, I assembled this, I think I'd know if I messed up," he moves towards her, holding the robot protectively. She smirks and points to the table for him to put it down.
It takes them three weeks, two more disassembled computers and a newly purchased motherboard so that the robot doesn't immediately catch fire after they make it movements for five minutes. The spring showers have let up that their usual routine returns. The thing in front of them is a hideous Frankenstein creation, old battery laptop serving for the neck to hold onto two eyes and the legs being made of remote controlled toy car to get rid of the problems of having to make commands for the legs. It looks like a demented Wall-E if she thinks about it.
"This is nightmare inducing," she claps her hands together. Billy grins when their robot zooms around them, the hands waving behind it like the inflatable dancers they have at car dealerships.
"I know."
"I love it."
"I know," he grins as he it circles their legs. "We're calling it an Alpha-II as homage to Alpha."
"I love it," she repeats again and picks up her bag. He picks up Alpha-II as she opens the big door and they make their way down to the rock quarry.
"You know we're probably the geniuses of our group," she begins as Billy fiddles with a knob behind Alpha-II. "Do you think we can mess with the stadium board to show Jason's name instead of the score?"
He passes her the robot and goes to the driver's seat as he responds. "Can I do that? Yes. Should we? No." She shrugs.
"It'd be kind of cool," she says, opening the door and getting in, settling Alpha-II in her lap.
"It would, wouldn't it," he stares off into the distance as the click of her seat-belt brings him back. "Fine we'll do it. But we can't tell anyone or even mess with the board until the night that the homecoming game happens."
She grins a little in response as she holds her hand up, "Scout's honor I won't go off script. I hope Alpha likes this," she says when he pulls out of the student parking lot. The two of them burst out into giggles as soon as they hit the stoplight, taking care not to destroy Alpha-II.