Survival Of The Fittest

Alessio hurried through the hallway, the steps loud enough for the people inside the room to hear them.

He got late to go the robotics club. He had to feed his cats and had to distract them, but instead they distracted him so he came late. He did not expect to come that late to school again after having a free period. He probably was 20 minutes too late.

Opening the door to the club, he exclaimed an apology.

"Sorry!"

He hoped that the people there wouldn't be annoyed by him for coming that late. He also hoped that he had not missed much. Robotics was fun and it'd disappointing if he missed anything. Though honestly, he deserved it if he did, after all he came late.

((Raina Rose continued from Reaching You))

"You're late, Al."

Not that they'd actually been doing much besides getting things set up for the latest project so far, but Raina still felt compelled to point it out. Al was such a ditz sometimes. She had to wonder if maybe he wasn't a little bit intimidated by being in a club with so many girls; he wasn't exactly the most confident guy around when it came to that sort of thing.

Regardless, he was here now and that meant an extra helping hand. "You want to come help me sort these circuits and junk? Some of them got pretty tangled in storage." She wasn't that adept at the putting-things-together part of robotics, actually, the programming bit was more her speed. She needed the practice. Al could at least put those Rubix Cube hands to good use helping her untangle wires until everyone got around to what they were actually here for, though.

Lily looked up briefly from the bundle of wires, which she was currently trying to untangle.

"Better late than never."

Admittedly, the lateness was not something Lily approved of, but he'd apologised the moment he came into the room so it wasn't as if he was being rude about it. Better to let it go.

She looked back down at the wires, frowning. "Do we not have a method of keeping these untangled?" She wasn't sure who'd packed these away, or if it'd been anyone here, but it seemed like they shouldn't have gotten this mixed up. Of course, wires and anything that could be tangled tended to break the laws of physics in order to arrange itself in the most annoying way possible.

Raina wanted him to help her, so he could just say a clear "Sure!" Hopefully, after he had helped them, they'd forget that he came late.

Sorting was something that Al did not mind. He walked to Raina and the messy wires, immediately trying to deconfuse the wires. It was rather easy for him and something he was used to outside of the club. Untangling wires.

The other parts of robotics on the other hand was something Al had to get into every new lesson he came in. He forgets this stuff after leaving the room, but recalls it again and again each time he reentered this room. At home, robotics was not something he thought much about. Or well, he used to do that often when he first joined the club, but now, unfortunately not anymore.

Lily had asked whether they had a method of avoiding the tangling. "Uh-", he started and stopped. Alessio had no clue and therefore just kept quiet. There were other people in the room who'd know that.

Raina shrugged in response to Lily's question. The ability of wires to tangle themselves up no matter what you did was an enigma to both man and beast. "We have one of those wheels for Christmas lights at home, but they still only work sometimes. Might be worth it to try with these, though, see if it saves time."

Though to really save time, they'd have to get everyone on the same page in the first place and make sure that Al was never late, and the second thing definitely wasn't happening. Raina liked the guy, but she had no idea where his mind was half the time.

"But anyway, everybody remembers where we left off at the last meeting, right?"

"Given that untangling these has taken the last twenty minutes, I think a method that works sometimes is better than one that doesn't work at all."

Lily nodded in response to Raina's question, as she finished untangling the wires she'd been working on. She let out a small sigh of relief before putting the untangled wire aside. It might have just been an untangled wire, but they had to start somewhere.

It'd be wonderful if Raina brought a wheel to the club. This would help them to save time for sure. Even if Al thought untangling wires to be weirdly fun and satisfying...but that wasn't something Al voiced out loud. Lily couldn't have explained the facts better, so Al had to smile and nod at her statement. Truth.

"I remember", Al mumbled in response to Raina's question. He was mentally preparing himself to shift from "untangling wire" to "robotics" mode.

They eventually got around to what they were supposed to be doing and it was a pretty good time. Raina managed to not be too salty about Alessio being late, for the most part.

((Raina Rose continued in Two Breaths Walking))

And then some robotics happened, and all was good.

((Lillian 'Lily' Caldwell continued in Repoussoir.))

Yay, robots!

((Alessio Rigano, continued elsewhere))