A bout of Insomnia

[Jakob]

Nicholas Hanced looked around the small area. He sneered. If this "N. Somnia" did exist, they had hidden themselves well. He had been searching for this person for a few hours now, and was on the edge of his patience, to be perfectly frank. He had built himself a fire as he waited for his scouts and their general, Dodongo, to appear.

The scouts were his fastest bots, built for speedy recon, and would return shortly to tell him of their findings. He rubbed his bald head. He would no doubt need an aspirin when this was over.

He had heard some rumors around the Mad Scientist grapevine, and had retrieved some information about some reclusive scientist going by the name of N. Somnia. Well, he didn't need anymore competition, so he had hurried to the rumored location to find him or her. He scowled...He didn't like to be kept waiting....

[Blue]

Hiding in her lab as always, Sonya Nira Somnia was searching under her sofa for a screw and muttering under her breath about how she needed to go pillaging again soon if she was actually chasing after a screw instead of taking out another one and saving the search for later. With a sigh, she backed out from under the sofa, hitting her head on it with a dull thud and cringing as she finally stood back up. Her sunglasses were crooked on her head and slipping out of her hair and her blind right eye looked ghastly now that her hair was out of her face. Somnia sighed and plopped onto the couch, glancing at the little screw in her hand as she pulled her sunglasses over her face and her hair back over her eye. "All this trouble for you, yet you'll probably just go into yet another failure," she said with a melancholic tone.

Somnia stood and strolled over to the large metal desk that acted as her primary workplace and set the screw down carefully so it wouldn't go rolling off like before. "'You work well with your hands,' they said. 'You have an excellent grasp on circuitry, physics, and chemistry,' they said. Yeah, I bet they didn't think I'd be doing this for the rest of my life, did they? Not even I imagined just living in my own future grave and wasting time until my death, though." With another sigh, her forehead hit the desk in despair. Under her breath, she murmured, "I need to find either a pet or a guy. This solo act is getting to be way too monotonous."

Figuring that now was as good a time as any, Somnia snatched her white vest from the corner of her desk and pulled it on as she headed through the doorway that led to the main entrance to her lab, being sure to grab two smoke bombs and three tranquilizer syringes on the way. The wooden door was always propped open so that the brick staircase leading to the surface could be seen, but the double wooden doors that opened to the world above sea level were always closed. She was graceful in going up the stairs and only opened one of the heavy doors as she ascended to the surface. "Fruit first, then river water, and we'll wrap things up with gathering some spare parts and supplies," she listed to herself out loud, trying to remember if she needed anything special while she was out or not. What she couldn't get from nature she had to steal from other scientists, so it was rare for her to go out of her way to get anything that wasn't completely necessary for her immediate plans. Her lengthy skirt and vest caught a slight breeze and showed her black tube top and leggings, which both hugged her thin form.

[Jakob]

Too bad for Somnia, she was being watched. A black-tinted lens focused on the woman and ran an ID check in it's hard-drive. Finding the match needed, the little robot, balancing somehow on a single wheel, zoomed off for it's Master, leaving nothing but the faint sound of a powerful, but fuel-efficient engine and a dust cloud in it's wake.

N. Hanced sighed and drummed his sharp metal fingers against his knee, when suddenly, 10 robots, identical to the one spying on Somnia, surrounded him.

"Well? Did you find anything?" 9 heads shook negatively, but the last nodded. "Well? Give me a direction, you bucket of wires, so that I may observe for myself!" The robot nodded again as Hanced stepped onto it's back. Instantly, the robot was off, while the other 9 began to communicate to themselves about trivial matters, wondering if their next upgrade would allow them to speak like their general.

[Blue]

Somnia grabbed a thin fallen branch that was near her door and glanced at the closest trees to see which ones were suitable. Lifting the branch, she started knocking fruit down one by one, catching each one as it fell and setting it on the ground gently. As she heard a quiet whirring approach, her grip on the branch tightened. She turned her head so that her good eye could see what was coming and one of her hands slipped into the inner pocket of her vest, pulling out a smoke bomb between her pinky and ring finger and a tranquilizer between her index and middle finger. It may only be paranoia, but Somnia was ready for an attack if one was to come. All the same, she was a little annoyed that she couldn't even leave her lab to get some food without someone intruding on her.

By now, she could only see a silhouette, so Somnia called out to it, "I get it! I'm not the only one on the island! Now state your name and business!" Her voice was confident and strong even if she wasn't exactly a capable fighter compared to most of the people she knew of.

[Jakob]

"Fine, if you insist." Said Hanced, as he hopped off of the back of the robot he was riding on. He walked up to Somnia and bowed respectfully. "Greetings, N. Somnia. I am Nicholas Hanced." He smirked as his eyes flitted to her hand. "And you can let go of whatever's in that pocket of yours. I come in peace. I simply wanted to see if you were interested in a...partnership, of sorts." He shrugged indifferently.

On the inside though, he was somewhat disconcerned. The woman had appeared from seemingly nowhere, and if she decided to decline and attack him, he had no idea what she had at her disposal. He was out, exposed, and unknowledgeable about his potential opponent.

[Blue]

Narrowing her eyes slightly in disbelief, Somnia released her smoke bomb and tranquilizer in her pocket. She wanted to show that she meant no harm unless she was attacked, so she went into a more relaxed position, putting the end of the branch in her hand against the ground and gracefully placing her sunglasses on top of her head like normal with her onyx hair still hanging over her blind eye. "A partnership...for what purpose exactly? I don't know how you even know my identity, but you probably already know that I don't exactly get out much. I also know nothing about you and can only assume you said your real name because there's very few reasons why you wouldn't. What use could I be to you, and what use would you be to me?" she asked with a nonchalant expression.

Almost needless to say, Somnia was highly skeptical. If this man knew her name when she knew she had never met him, it meant that he had either already gotten information on her and something piqued his interest enough to make him come all the way out to hunt her down or he couldn't find anything on her and was gathering the information on her now. "Mr. Hanced, I don't exactly associate with people anymore. I haven't for years. If you want me to change that for this alliance, you have to give me good reason."

[Jakob]

Hanced shrugged, expecting this. "Well, first let me say that I found your identity through hacking through the Cortex's database. It wasn't easy, since the last records of you stealing from them are years old." He leaned against a nearby rock. "What I can get for you is free supplies. Anything you may need that you can't get on your own, I will provide." He smirked as he reached into his pocket. "As for what's in it for me...Help, destroying the N. Team, to be precise. Through this." He then pulled small square of blue paper out of his pocket and tossed it to her.

"That's a blueprint for my ultimate weapon. It's stuck in the mid 50 percent of efficiency, and I need it up to at least 90. All I require is your critical eye, and your helpful notes. And in return..." Hanced snapped his fingers. "You may also request anything of me, and it shall be delivered post haste by my obedient squadron of robots." The instant he snapped his fingers, his scouts appeared.

If N. Somnia were to examine the blueprints, she would find that the machine labeled within bore an uncanny resemblance to Neo Cortex's Evolv-O-Ray, but seemingly modified...As if it were meant to enhance and strengthen metal and inorganic material instead of biological.

[Blue]

Somnia smirked with pride at the fact that the last records of her thievery were years old. She heard him out and caught the blueprints with a swift motion of her hand. "I can assure you, the reason Cortex's database only has records from years ago of me stealing from the castle is because, quite simply, I improved my techniques. I don't get caught or leave evidence anymore. However, they're like a one-stop shopping spree over at Cortex's place if you know how to get around correctly." She glanced nonchalantly at the folded paper in her hand as if considering looking at it, but she shoved it in her pocket instead. "I need some help bringing the food in. I'd like to speak a bit more, too, so could you?" she asked, cutting a side glance towards Hanced before she tossed the branch in her hand aside and started picking up the fruit on the ground that she'd already knocked out of the trees. The heavy wooden door she'd opened to come out of her lab was still laying open, resting against the dirt.

In her mind, Somnia was already considering the possibilities of just pretending to help Hanced for a while and getting as much technological equipment as she could while she was working with him. It would be very easy for her to do this. She'd already practiced it on people before, too. The real question was whether or not he'd catch her and what he'd do if he did. It's not like she had much to lose or even people to mourn over her if something happened to her. She had absolutely no one that she cared all that much for, so it wouldn't do any good for him to go after someone else to get back at her. Really, it seemed like a new potential scheme with how simple and rewarding it was looking at the moment. All through Somnia's plotting, she'd picked up most of the fruit, leaving only four on the ground, and was starting to head down the brick stairs to her lab.

[Jakob]

Hanced smirked and grabbed the remainder of the fruit in his arms as he followed, before tapping his wrist. A tiny, small beep echoed before he entered the base. His robots were now on high alert, aware of his location, and would blast this place to bits if he were to send out the Red Alert.

"So...What exactly is your specialty, Miss Somnia? I've met botany experts, pathogen experts, and then there's the N. Team, which opens up a whole new can of worms..." He smirked as he thought for a moment. He was taking a big risk, but he had hedged all of his bets, and odds were quite with him.

[Blue]

"It's hard to say. I mostly work on different things to keep myself safe. Woman out on her own with all sorts of crazies running around and all...rude neighbor constantly making his presence known...as they say, necessity is the mother of invention. I have some inventions that work, but most don't. The thing about stealing parts is that they don't always fit together with each other. Makes it hard to get a good working invention, though I have managed to pull together a few things as far as electronics and mechanical works go. Lately, I've been focusing mainly on working for a better sleep gas, stun gas, a few non-lethal poisons, some trackers, smoke bombs, and different tranquilizing serums. My old educators said that I was good with creating things and had a great knowledge of chemistry. They had higher hopes for me than this, but what can ya do? It's the story of everyone's life," Somnia answered, shrugging and setting the fruit down on a small wooden table near a door in the wall that led to a meager pantry that was hardly ever stocked.

After a moment of hesitation, Somnia sighed and took the blueprint out of her pocket, tossing it over to the metal desk in the center of the room that acted as her primary work site in the humble lab. There were a few doors that led to extra closets and one to a small bathroom, but the lab doubled as her living space, even if it didn't quite look like it. Aside from several desks cluttered with random materials, the only furniture was a sofa that served almost no purpose most of the time and a few stools at a few of the desks. "My home down here is very easy to keep off the radar. It must seem mighty small to you. I do hope that you resist judging me based on this, though. It was all I could afford when I first moved here, and it's the best place I could hope for to be properly isolated from most of civilization," she said with a melancholic tone as she looked around the lab, being sure to keep Hanced to her left side. She didn't trust leaving him in her blind spot with her right eye messed up. "I'm changing the subject, though. What I truly want to know is why you're dragging me into this. Why have you come all this way and searched for someone who has been...well, a ghost? Are you trying to build up a human army? I'm sure that if you already have so many robot minions with you right now and if you're saying that I can use them at any time to get me things so long as I'm working with you...well, you must have quite an abundance. Is it safe to predict that it's an army? If you're offering to get me anything I want, then you must have resources, so that wouldn't stand in your way. Am I correct?" She glanced at him and continued, "You'd have to program them to know what to do for you, though. It's so much easier to get people who already have knowledge in them to help you with your plans. However, you only knew my name from a database. You actually had to ask my specialty. For all you know, I could've been lying with every word until now, but you can trust that I haven't because I have no reason to. The point is, though, that you know nothing of me. You have no reason to think I'd be of any particular use for you. All this leads me to wonder...what is the true reason you came? There has to be an ulterior motive."

[Jakob]

"I have no real reason to be dishonest with you, Ms. Somnia. You are, strictly speaking, my last resort." Hanced crossed his arms with a huff. "I've hit a wall in this project, and I've had many experts in many fields helping me. Yet it consistently fails to produce the intended result. You are the last even remotely friendly scientist within a 300 mile radius."

He chuckled. "As for my robots, their AI is limited, far too limited to be of any use to one with a real wish to rule the world. They are also far too fragile. The best metals I can afford...Torn to shreds by a boy with lightning powers and a bag of chips on his shoulder." Hanced looked almost wistful for a moment, before shaking his head and coming back to Earth. "Quite frankly, Miss, you are my last chance at getting this particular project to work."

[Blue]

Somnia smirked as if she knew something Hanced didn't know...and...well, she was fairly sure she did. "You don't know my neighbors. I don't know if you'd consider them friendly or not. They're about as sociable as I am. Still, I know of others. We silently torment each other enough for me to know of them. Sir, look harder. I'll help you on this project, mostly because your offer works well for me, but I do hope you consider bribing the others around here or I'll be afraid that my paranoia isn't groundless," she retorted in a matter-of-fact tone, staring apathetically at Hanced with her left eye while her right remained covered by her hair.

Strolling over to her work desk, Somnia unfolded the blueprints and glanced over them nonchalantly. It looked easy enough to work with. Besides that, she could recognize the design as being similar to one of Cortex's inventions that she'd passed by and taken a good glance at before. "I guess the problems would be a more technical thing if mindless assembly isn't needed. I suppose I can help out to the best of my ability. I don't promise much, but it should get your machine at least into the sixties or seventies. A new perspective may be what you need for a breakthrough." Her voice was quiet and a little hesitant as if she were thinking out loud. She looked away from the blueprints and cracked her knuckles with a sigh. Her voice was clear and concise once more as she looked directly to Hanced and continued, "You'd be best off with all the help this island can offer. You'd be amazed at precisely how many of us shut-ins enjoy our seclusion here. The hard part will be finding us. As it is, I'm not sure you'd have found me if I'd decided to just hold off on my errands until later. The others seem to have money from what I've seen, so they have the resources needed so that they don't have to leave their labs and play scavenger. I wish you luck on locating them. Even I don't know where most of my neighbors live."

[Jakob]

"I don't have that much money, Miss Somnia, but I know other ways of persuasion." Hanced smirked in a somewhat psychotic manner. As Somnia continued to speak of his project, he put a hand to his chin. "A fresh perspective...Hmmmm...Well, I see your point. I will leave you to your own projects at the moment. I will leave a single robot on the outside of your cave as I search for your...neighbors. Make a list of the things you need, and he will bring it to me."

He began leaving the cave, but stopped suddenly. "Oh, and don't think about sabotage. My troops may not be smart, but they are relentless." And with that, he was gone. Up topside, he was immediately surrounded by his scouts. "Continue searching. There are more people on this island, and every single one of them will be on my payroll by the end of the week. Do I make myself clear?" The robots nodded. "Good. One of you stay here. My latest benefactor will give you a list of materials."

[Blue]

Sonya was just going along with what Hanced was saying up until he left. As soon as he was out the main entrance doors that were at ground level, she made a face to mock his appearance and mimicked his words in an imperialistic yet ridiculous and silly tone. "Don't think about sabotage. My troops are relentless." She rolled her eyes and let her face fall back into its normal blank expression and shape, then mumbled in a snarky tone, "Yeah, I dare them to come. What else can they take from me? The peanut butter in my pantry? The fruit off the trees? The water from the river? My failed experiments? My underground shack of a lab? Face it, I've got nothing to lose but my life, and I hardly even value that by now. Your threats are null and void, baldy."

Nonetheless, Somnia glanced over her work table and a smirk came. Well, if he was so intent on paying her by getting her what she asked for that he was leaving a form of deposit, there was no reason not to use it. She chuckled under her breath as she left her lab and ascended her brick stairs with ease, then had a straight face as she came to ground level and looked at the robot that had been left behind. "Hey, you. I was going to have to go pillaging today, so obviously I'm running low on materials. I'm going to need some arsenic, poison hemlock, sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, 100 square feet of titanium, 20 pounds of lead, a microscope with the same strength as that used by government biochemists, liquid nitrogen, industrial strength nuts, bolts, screws, and nails, and finally, a new nail gun because my old one caught fire and it's not worth even trying to use for anything other than scraps anymore. I don't expect to get all of this at once or anything, but that's my list. Please try to get as much of that stuff for me as you can. I have a lot of ideas and nothing but time, so the lack of materials is the only thing holding me back." Indeed, Somnia did have nothing but time. She honestly did have a use for everything she listed off, too. The thing was, though, that she was also testing her limits with this expansive list.

[Jakob]

"List...accepted...Estimated time until delivery, 22 days." The robot said slowly before it's eyes lit up. "Primary Objective complete. Return to Master for orders." And with that, the little thing zoomed off on it's tiny wheel.

Hanced scowled. This place was like a maze. If what Somnia said was true, then the underground area of this accursed place must've be almost a mile wide. He snarled a punched a rock, his metallic hands cracking it easily. This was beginning to wear on his nerves...If he lost his temper, he might have to draw out anyone else by force...