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Minty was down in the laundry room Saturday night, humming as she put away clothes, when she heard a noise. She whipped around to see another student in the doorway.
"Minty Minute?" He asked, and she jumped at the sight of him.
He had two robotic arms and two robotic legs. As far as Minty could tell, the only human bit about him was his face, but only half. One side of his face was the same gray metal as the rest of him. He had a glowing red eye to match, and his brown hair obscuring it. His human side stretched across the bottom half of his face where his lips were, but even his speech sounded a bit like a machine, if one could talk. His one real eye was an unnatural blue, and Minty suspected he was robotic under than stretch of skin as well. His clothes were just a plain, green, university T-shirt under a Portal jacket, jeans, and normal tennis shoes. She didn't know what she was expecting.
"You've got a brother, right? Ravs?"
"Yeah..." Minty regarded the cyborg carefully, resting her laundry basket against her hip, and quirking an inquisitive eyebrow. "Who are you?"
He opened his mouth, all large smile and bright eyes, but was cut off by a voice yelling down the hallway. "Bebop! Get up here! I've just found the greatest thing..."
"Oh, sorry, gotta go!" He darted out of the room, yelling to his friend, Ridge, about their discovery.
Minty hurried up to her dorm to put her laundry away. When she arrived, Zoey wasn't there. That wasn't a surprise, considering she spent all her time in her girlfriend's room, so she decided to visit her tour guides.
"Is Zoey off with her bloody girlfriend again?" Lomadia exclaimed as she answered the door, Nano watching from her bed. "She's always off with her! D'you ever think Kaeyi gets mad?"
"Probably," Nano replied as Minty was invited in. She sat on Lomadia's desk chair. "They did room together last year. Maybe it's abandonment issues."
Lomadia thought about Nano's response before giving a "hmm," and turning to Minty. "So, what's going on?"
"Is there a robot here?" Minty asked.
"What?" Nano asked.
"I was down in the laundry room when this guy comes up behind me. He had on regular clothes and all, but he had robot limbs? And his right eye was all robotic, too."
"Actually..." Lomadia inclined her head.
"Doesn't Ridge have a roommate this year?" Nano asked Lomadia before her eyes flew wide and she spun around to Minty. "Did he like Portal? Do you know?" She asked quickly.
"He had on a Portal jacket."
"That's Bebop!" Nano exclaimed. "He's in my journalism courses!" Lomadia was nodding her head in recognition.
"So he's a robot?" Minty asked, jutting into the other two's conversation.
"Yeah, some cyborg thing." Nano replied. "When he gets really excited, his voice goes all glitchy. It's pretty amusing."
At that moment, there was a knock on the door. Lomadia, fearing it was Nilesy ready to drone on about Gigapause or Homestuck or whatever he loved, hid in the bathroom. Nano got up and answered it with a "Nilesy, I swear to god--" as she did so. Her words were cut short when she saw Bebop the third year standing on the other side. He strolled right on in and made himself comfortable.
"Minty!" He said cheerfully, his voice slipping into some sort of happy accent. "I never really introduced myself. I'm Bebop Vox!" He stuck out a metal hand for the blonde to shake.
"Right," Minty replied, shaking his hand. "How did you know my name, exactly?"
"I've got little scanners and things hooked up to me." He replied in the same cheery manner. "Plus a bunch of other things in my arms, but those got taken out because they counted as weapons." He paused to look around the room before turning to Nano. "So, Ms. Sounds, this is your room?"
"It's Nano..." The purple girl said.
There were posters hanging on the walls of older, popular movies, and other decorations. Clothes were scattered about, and a stack of DVDs lay next to one of their laptops.
"You said you have weapons?" Minty asked wearily.
"Well, I had things that counted as weapons. That's all just a bunch of BS, though. I wouldn't hurt anyone." He said it with a roll of his eyes, and Nano was starting to believe that rooming with Ridge had altered his AI or something.
"Well, it's great that you stopped by, but you should be getting along, now." Lomadia came striding out of the bathroom, after she had made certain it wasn't her witch friend that had arrived to correct the statements he had texted her about the night before. "We've got work to do, and such. I'm sure you do, too."
"I do have that one thing with Ridge and Verbal..." He muttered. "Alright! Alright! I'll go! I just wanted to properly introduce myself to Minty, here." Minty looked quite uncomfortable as she stared the cyborg down. "I'll be off!" He said, and left.
"What was that about?" Lomadia huffed, brushing the witch hat off her bed and sitting down.
"Minty, mate," Nano piped. "You might wanna watch out, Bebop and his friends aren't the most... trustworthy."
"Got it." Minty responded, but couldn't help but wonder what Bebop was really about.