six_word_stories | (no subject)

[Bumps Iggy with his cane as he makes his own way down the sidewalk.]

Oh... sorry.

Literally why he hated coming to the city, but sometimes it was necessary, though his reflexive: "Yo, watch where you're going." Got bitten back halfway through when he realized just what it was he'd been bumped with, flashing a small, wry smile, "No harm done.

[Bandit listens to the whistling, wondering if it is meant for him. People often whistle to get dogs to come to them. He approaches, his mechanical suit making all sorts of metallic noises. Bandit's voice itself sounds both robotic and canine as it comes from around knee height.]

Man call 4 Bandit?

Iggy was almost instantly on alert, because dogs had that effect on him, though the fact that the smell was definitely dog and not wolf helped keep him from bolting.

It took him a moment to answer all the same, trying to sort out exactly what this thing was that smelled like dog and metal at the same time, and the fact that it was talking to him didn't help matters, "I, uh, no?" And then, brow creased, "What is it that made you think I did?"

Whistles. Dog com when called.

That was the logic of a dog that could talk. He'd been trained by the military to respond to all sorts of signals. Even long before then, right at the corners of his mind where his memory got fuzzy, he remembered living in a house where people taught him to come when they called him.

That... well that actually made a lot of sense, so Iggy couldn't really argue.

What he said was: "Oh, right. I didn't see you there." That was true, and ignoring the fact that he didn't see anything, anywhere, "I was whistling so I know where things are, like sonar."

It was a talking, apparently cyborg dog, he figured it would understand how that worked.

?So-nar?

Bandit cocked his head to one side, walking around Iggy in a circle, as though looking for tangible evidence of the word. Being a dog, he tended to take things at a very literal value, so things that he couldn't see or smell were harder to grasp. When he goes all the way around him and can't find anything, he ends up back in front of the man, looking up at him.

What is so-nar?

Well, okay, so much for that idea.

"It's like echolocation? How bats and dolphins navigate? Using the way the sound bounces to be able to tell where things are." He gestured vaguely towards his face with one hand, already starting to shift from foot to foot a little, uneasy at holding still for so long, "Eyes don't work, have to make due."

Sorry, Iggy. He might have had a little creative brain surgery here and there to help him use the suit more effectively and be able to talk, but he's still just a dog, with all the intelligence of one. But he's trying very hard to be good, which in this case means trying to grasp subjects his little doggie mind finds difficult.

U blind?

Iggy will find the sound of the dog coming closer. He props himself up on the nearest object, which happens to be a lamppost, supporting his weight so that he can look at Iggy's face closer. He's harmless, really, but he knows in the suit he weighs far more than a normal human being.

Hear sounds? Better than others? Better than Bandit?

Talking, robo-suit dog is still better than most dogs he's met. At least this one isn't trying to eat him.

"Yep." He answered the first question, "Ninety-nine percent, and a bit. I can see if it's something dark on a really light background." High-contrast e-readers had been a lifesaver on more than one occasion.

He actually had to think about the next set of questions, "And yeah, I can hear better than most people, don't know how well you hear, so don't know if I can hear better than you or not."

Bandit seems satisfies with the answer and gets back down on all fours. The lamppost now has a small dent in it. He says rather brightly.

Bandit hear gud. Bandit gud dog!

Well, he tries to be, anyway. Kind of hard when the military won't stop chasing him, and they gave him equipment that means he can easily kill people even when he's trying to be a good dog.

"Yeah?" The difference in tone had him interested, curious if nothing else, "You want to help me with something?" He could definitely relate to the 'constantly being chased' factor anyway, even though it had been years since the last time he'd smelled hide or hair of an Eraser or any of their ilk.

Bandit's tail wags within the confines of his suit, which produces an odd, muted Thump! Thump! He's decided this man fits into the category of "good people", the kinds that feed the strange dog, or who protect other people like policemen. They were better than "bad people", which made up the soldiers and scientists that relentlessly pursued One, Two, and Three after they escaped from the facility.

Yes! Bandit help!

And that, well, that got an actual smile, and Iggy nodded once, "Okay. I'm running a couple errands, which usually takes a while, since it's kind of hard for me to tell where I'm going." Especially in the city, where echoes occasionally contradicted each other, and the amount of noise sometimes turned everything in his surroundings to static.

"I need an art supply shop, a corner grocery, and a deli. If you can find those, I can follow you easier than trying to follow the echoes myself."

Bandit takes a moment in processing what's being asked of him. It's like a game of smell and find for him, for dogs process things more as being play than work most of the time.

?What art smell like?

He knows what a grocery is. That's where dog food is found. A deli too, he's familiar with, because that's the heavenly-smelling place that has every kind of meat inside of it. But an art shop is something Bandit has never heard of before.

His brow furrowed at that, having to think it over, finally coming around to: "Paper, mostly, different kinds of it, but paint too, and solvents a little, not too much, and graphite, a lot of graphite under it all. That's what they smell like to me, they'll probably smell a lot stronger to you, you might even be able to smell things like modeling clay and maybe dried flowers, for some reason most of the people who work in art stores smell like dried flowers."

It was one of those things he'd never really questioned, as it helped him identify that he was in the right place.

Bandit takes the words in, understanding a few of what is being described to him. He'll do his best to find what's being asked of him.

He sniffs around for a moment, nose running back and forth along the ground, as he tries to discover a scent trail. The city is a big place for a dog, full of interesting smells, all of them layered one of top of the other. He picks up something that smells promising. With a final snort, he looks up at Iggy.

Follow Bandit. Go to gro-shree now.

He nodded then, "I'm on you, just go slow and I'll be able to keep up." Because walking in the dog's wake would at least mean that he didn't have to worry too much about tripping over anything.

Walking into things that were above Bandit's head-height but not his own was another story, mostly he was counting on that not being an issue on a fairly busy sidewalk like this one.

Bandit gets a wide berth as he walks down the street. Most people stare at the dog in the suit as he passes by. Some talk in low tones to each other, wondering if he's an alien, or he's a robot, maybe some promo for an upcoming movie. At least no one has thought yet to call the police. Bandit doesn't care. He's got a job to do and good dogs complete their jobs for good humans.

A few blocks down, Bandit leads Iggy to a grocery store. He sits down, panting a little, happy at having completed his task.

Bandit stay here.

He's uneasy being inside buildings for too long. It's too easy to end up with people hunting him and trying to confine him to a small space. Since he escaped the lab, he's stuck to the outside as much as possible.

Honestly that wide berth worked just fine for Iggy, made him even easier to follow.

When they arrived he smiled, knuckling gently at the dog's snout, "Thanks, buddy. I'll be right back, short trip." Most of the time overhead aisle signs were high contrast enough that he could read them, and if they weren't, it was usually simple enough to run his fingers along shelf tags to feel the difference in colors and work out what was on them that way, without having to handle everything on the shelf.

True to his word, he emerged again within ten minutes, along with his bag of groceries, snacks, mostly, as that was what he needed the most of, "One down, two to go."

The Labrador mix feels proud of himself for doing a job well done. His tongue reaches out, licking at Iggy's knuckles. It's been a long time since anyone besides Doctor Rosemary showed him a little bit of praise or kindness. Dogs thrive off even the smallest scraps tossed their way.

Bandit amuses himself as he waits with the normal things dogs do: sniffing out new scent trails, eating something he shouldn't, and trying to get people to pet him. He's least successful in this third venture. Tsk. People just can't seem to see the sweet dog beneath the robotic exterior.

When Iggy reappears, he's off once again. We find art now.

This time, it takes him a while to find the art store. Bandit is unfamiliar with the smells, so he has to backtrack once or twice until he finds the right trail. Dried flowers and paint mix together with a smell that he can't put a name to, forming a trail he can very nearly see as he follows it down the sidewalk. He goes right into the street, blithely crossing as a car comes to a screeching halt a few feet away, honking its horn at the happily oblivious dog.

Some people, Iggy not among them, had a collapsible cane for times like this. As it was, the honk -and the realization as to what it meant- had Iggy startling, turning all the way around twice before managing to pick up the dog's trail again.

Mostly he was amazed that he hadn't dropped the bag of groceries in his panic, and hadn't popped wing, which was something he'd had to train himself out of a long time ago. What he said when he caught up again was: "Dude, crosswalk next time, or just, wait until there's a gap in the traffic, okay?"

Bandit doesn't even realize what has happened until Iggy talks to him. His ears droop a little when he understands what happened. He wasn't always this cavalier when it came to traffic, but since being put into a suit that gave him the capacities of a small tank, he'd lost some of the natural fear that dogs possessed about cars.

His natural optimism isn't dimmed at all by Iggy's words. If anything, it grows. Dogs are naturally cheerful creatures, even one in a robotic suit.

O.K. Bandit do better.

Iggy, for his part, would have to work on not focusing so much on the sound of the dog that he didn't pay attention to other sounds, which would also help avoid running into traffic in the future. Probably.

He couldn't help but smile, just a little, knuckling the dog's head lightly again, "Okay. That's all I can ask." And a careful ruffle of Bandit's ears, "I'm guessing you smelled what we're looking for, though, right?"

Yes. We go now.

Dogs love any sort of physical contact. Bandit is no exception. He goes off down the street, most people giving the alien-looking dog a wide berth. He stops right in front of an art store, sitting down with a metallic Plunk!

Art here.

He relaxed a little when he learned that the dog was right, "Okay, good. I'll be right back."

The art store trip was even shorter than the grocery store trip had been, but that was because it was generally easier to ask for what he needed in an art supply store, as most people working there actually knew what he was talking about.

He emerged again, tucking the bag of supplies into the top of the grocery bag, "Okay, deli, let's get some lunch."

Deli!!! Lunch is gud!!

Bandit said the words with more than just a little enthusiasm. Lunch meant meat, and meat as everyone knew, was one of the seven wonders of the world. He hadn't gotten much meat in the lab. It was all very bland food and vitamins to keep his systems from rejecting the suit. Now that he was out, he was going to eat all the meat he wanted to.

He smiled at that, because while he didn't quite know the reasons for that enthusiastic response, they were ones he could relate to all the same, and as far as he was concerned, there was nothing better than a hot pastrami sandwich to top off a day of collecting supplies.

But he asked, even as he followed, "Which do you like better, roast beef or pastrami?"

Bandit put his nose to the ground, following the scents to where all the meat was being kept. This was the easiest job by far, for Bandit merely needed to use his instincts, very little thinking required. At the question, Bandit gave a big, doggie smile.

Beef. Lots and lots.

He takes Iggy right to nearest deli, plenty of cured meats hanging in the windows.

Here. Meat place deli.

"All the beeves, gotcha." He replied, smile going a little crooked, "Sit tight, I'll be right back, then we'll see if we can't find someplace to sit and eat."

They had, apparently, just beaten the lunch rush, which was just fine with Iggy, as it meant he was in and out fairly quickly, and didn't much have to worry about a crowd making things difficult.

He emerged again before long, the bag with the sandwiches in one hand, "Hope you like wheat bread, they wouldn't sell me a sandwich with no bread on it."

Bread gud for dogs. Bandit says this with an almost sly tone to his robotic voice. He knows very well he's not supposed to eat bread, but he's all dog. He's certainly not going to turn down chunks of bread surrounded by all that good meat.

Com. We sit. Bandit leads Iggy over to a nearby bench. His tail is thumping around again inside his suit, producing a muted sort of thumping sound as he anticipates being able to get some meat.

Iggy knew that bread wasn't necessarily good for dogs, but that a little bit wouldn't hurt, the same as the two slices of cheese on the sandwich weren't exactly nutritionally sound, but wouldn't do Bandit any real harm, especially as he seemed sturdier than most dogs.

Sitting down after only a moment to suss out just where the bench actually was, he wedged the bag with his purchases between his feet. He pulled the bag with the sandwiches out of the top, running his fingers over the wrappers, setting one in his lap and unwrapping the other, setting it on the bench beside him where Bandit could get it, with a warning of: "Don't eat the paper."

Bandit dives into the sandwich with the gusto only a dog can have. Food is the stuff of life for dogs and they generally think with their stomachs. He tries to enjoy rather than woofing it all down at once, but he still finishes quite a bit of time before Iggy does.

He sits there and licks all the way around his chops and nose, getting all the bits stuck to his furry face that he missed the first time around. Bandit happy dog!