Yes, no, maybe, I don't know, can you repeat the question?

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Calvin wasn't exactly sure what was going on with the poll on the message board (although he and Hobbes had a spirited debate about whether Hobbes could write himself in as a contestant) but its appearance reminded him that he had his own survey to conduct.

Accordingly, about half an hour later he was knocking on the door of the Toon Town Hall, wearing a backpack (with Hobbes' head poking out of the opening) and holding a clipboard.

Comments

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

There was some clanking coming from inside, and what sounded suspiciously like a curse (or three), before the door was finally opened to reveal the Master. He was wearing thick canvas gloves that were covered in some kind of oil and grime (which magically had not appeared on his white shirt at all), and holding a tool that looked like a cross between a blowtorch and a can opener. A pair of goggles rested across his eyes, but they were soon pushed up on his head once he realized that he was going to have quite a lot of blinking to do.

He stared at the child and his clipboard for a few seconds. Then, in his most irritated tone (the one that pitched his voice higher), he snapped out the word, "Yes?"

[irrepressible-c.livejournal.com]

"Hi!" said Calvin, gazing interestedly at the blowtorch/can opener. "I'm conducting a survey for the Disneyland News regarding my upcoming attempt to take over the park. First, for demographic purposes," (and because Kira had told him to be sure to ask embarrassing personal questions) "would you say that you pick your nose 'occasionally,' 'sometimes,' 'frequently,' or 'incessantly'?"

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

The Master had every intention of answering this child's questions with a lot of cynicism and that special brand of joy-killing that made the kiddies run home crying about their now-shattered belief in Glinda the Good Witch. There was just one problem - it was a child who was plotting to take over his current environment, starting first with a door-to-door demographic survey?

Something was eerily familiar.

He tilted his head at the boy, taking more time to consider him. Ignoring the question –which is really very funny to boot–, he felt the need to point out, "You know, telling everyone that you're planning on taking over the park is not necessarily the best way of going about it."

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"How do you know that isn't all part of my plan?" asked Calvin reasonably. "I mean, maybe it hinges on all the adults in the park being prepared for exactly the wrong contingency? Or maybe when you're opening your door to me, bajillions of nanorobots under my control are rushing into the atmosphere of your home?"

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

The Master tries very –very very very– hard not to smile. He nods somberly. "I stand corrected. Well, except on the part of the nanorobots. I'd be pretty damn sure if they were about, so I'll have to call you a liar on that one."

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"I'm not a liar!" said Calvin indignantly.

Hobbes snorted.

"That was a hypothetical example, which doesn't count as lying! Assuming it was in fact false, I mean, and I don't see how you'd know if nanorobots were coming in, unless you have some kind of device for monitoring their potential presence!" He paused a second, then added, "Do you? Because that would be really cool."

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The Master shrugged noncommittally. "That, and I'm an alien with a fairly unique understanding of nanotechnology." He turned the tool over in his hands, waiting for the reaction to that one. Somehow he didn't think it was going to be a problem....

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"Well, that's a somewhat unsettling coincidence," commented Hobbes.

Calvin ignored his friend and asked, excited, "Really? Your disguise is excellent, and your voice isn't metallic at all!*" And then a thought occurred, and he looked a little bit shifty. "You haven't, uh, heard anything about leaves and the Supreme Earth Potentate, have you?"


* ((See Heeryor lunboks. Hoffa gut tay askool. (http://progressiveboink.com/archive/calvinhobbes.htm), 3/4ths of the way down the page.))

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The Master twisted his lips and looked up as high as he could, like he was attempting to turn his eyes inside his skull and have a look that way. "Mm, nope. Can't say I've heard of a Supreme Earth Anything, in fact." Seemed likely that the boy read a lot of comics or watched too much tele. Or maybe his imagination was just that brilliant. "Do all robots have metallic voices where you come from?"

((Haha. Cute robotic aliens. ^_^))

[irrepressible-c.livejournal.com]

Try 'all of the above.' "Oh, no, not all of them, just this one shapeshifter alien I met once who assumed my form and repeated everything I said. But Galaxoid and Nebular didn't."

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"What did Galaxoid and Nebular do?" he asked, shaking his head in a fascinated manner –shapeshifter sounds very nearly like that holographic interface you and the other made in your fifth year at the–. He leaned against the door, all thoughts of slamming it in the boy's face forgotten.

((And then I switched the word 'alien' for 'robot' in the last post. >.< Because that's how far gone my brain happens to be tonight. XD))

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"Well, see, at the time, I was working on this school project that was due the next day where we were supposed to collect 50 different kinds of leaves and then mount and label them with their scientific names - can you imagine anything more stultifyingly boring? And my Mom had just refused to take me to the arboreteum just because it was nearly sunset. So then this spacecraft landed, and these aliens asked to talk to the Supreme Earth Potentate, because they were looking into purchasing the Earth as a fixer-upper - apparently we're well-located - so I...uh...you're not going to tell my parents about this, are you? Or Susan?"

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He listened intently –making a mental note to save the word 'stultifyingly', as it was hitting his giggle circuit better than anything had in the past few days (as far as he could tell, what with Time being)–, agreeing in all the appropriate places.

Then there's a snort at the comment of using the Earth as a fixer-upper, and then he muttered, "Well, you are," to well-located point, before watching the boy halt with a question. Oh, that was achingly familiar, for many more reasons than one, in fact. –How many times did you say, "They don't have to know," to him? To each other?–

He shook his head 'no' saying, "Cross both hearts," which he did, "never die," which he nearly didn't, "stick this cortex fusion graphter in my eye," and he spun the blowtorch/can opener between his fingers - not an easy feat in gloves like that.

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Curiosity about several points in that statement visibly warred for a second with Calvin's delight in having a receptive audience, before vanity won out and he decided he could always ask in a second.

"Well, it's not like I was expecting there to be consequences. And anyway, humans do a pretty lousy job taking care of our planet, so I...sort of might have given them the impression that I was the supreme ruler of Earth, and that leaves, properly labeled, were an acceptable form of currency.

"I mean," aggrieved, "wouldn't you think that 50 examples of alien foliage deserved an A-plus? But instead, the teacher said that I'd clearly just cut 50 maple leaves into weird shapes and colored them with Magic Markers, and that furthermore my labels were illegible. Well, I suppose I should've told the aliens to use our alphabet, but if the species were from another planet how could she even expect them to have Latin names.

"Anyway, I got a D-minus, and then a few months later Galaxoid and Nebular showed up again to complain about the planet having a faulty axis! They hadn't known about winter, see, and the snow was piling up on their hats and freezing their innards."

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He couldn't help but laugh at the boy explaining how he'd sort of claimed to be ruler of the Earth, but he did remember himself enough to say, "Perfectly reasonable, really, since no one else was volunteering for the job. I'd have done the same." Granted, with a lot more bloodshed and the clever use of disguises, but basically the same.

He made an unimpressed face at the sound of the teacher, clearly just another box thinker with nothing better to do than waste the intellect of her pupils on workbooks and eraser clapping. Why no, he hadn't had a problem with a standard curriculum before, why would anyone think that?

As for the aliens coming back - "Well, unfortunate though it may be that they were incapable of regulating their internal body temperatures, that's not exactly your fault, is it?"

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"Well, I didn't think so, and I told them it was non-refundable. 'Let the buyer beware,' you know? But then they started talking about destroying the planet, so Hobbes went and got our Christmas stockings and cut holes for their faces - they didn't have any arms, see - and let the aliens have them to keep warm." An afterthought: "Oh," pulling Hobbes out of his backpack, "this is Hobbes. He's a tiger. And a sucker, at times."

"What, you wanted the Earth to be destroyed? It's not like they were going to just target strategic areas like your school building."

"Well I don't see why you couldn't at least have used Mom and Dad's stockings!"

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Yes, aliens did have that pesky little habit of trying to destroy the planet, he supposed. Well, Earth anyway. Even he couldn't quite make sense of that for the kid.

The Master's eyebrows shot up to his hairline at the mention of a stuffed tiger named 'Hobbes'. And then had to keep quiet as he wondered whether or not the name had been chosen in reference to the Hobbes that came to his own mind. Oh my. And it talked to the boy.

Brilliant.

"He has a point," the Master said, addressing the stuffed animal as though that were an entirely normal pastime. "It's not as though his parents would have missed their stockings, since adults tend to get boring Christmas presents anyway."

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Hobbes was getting used to grownups who addressed him directly, at this point. "It's not like we didn't get all the presents anyway," he said. "Even down to the orange that would've been in the toe of the stocking."

"I didn't get a quarter of the things that were on my Christmas list!" protested Calvin.

"Do you seriously think Santa was planning on stuffing your stocking with a grenade launcher?"

"He might have been! How do I know what goes through that twisted old elf's mind? Maybe he was offended by the lack of a stocking and put the grenade launcher back in the sack! We'll never know, and just because all you asked for was canned tuna..."

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The Master tipped his head from side to side, considering. "Well, if you have the right materials, you could just make a grenade launcher on your own. Or make something more suited to your purposes; what exactly were you planning on using the launcher for? Or against, I should say?"

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"Oh, a few different targets. My babysitter. The school. You know."

"Could I make my own? What kind of materials do you need for that? I've tried checking the library for schematics, but they don't seem to have many how-to books on constructing heavy weaponry." Calvin looked discouraged. "Not that there's much point around here, since everything just goes back to the way it was. Although seeing things smash or blow up never really gets old..."

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"Admirable," he said, with no hint of humor –though there was a lot, Rassilon was there a–.

"Well, to make a grenade all you really need is sheet metal, black powder, some broken glass and nail fragments, and then something to make a wick. To make the launcher, you usually want to mount it on a rifle, easiest way to do it. Of course, when I want to blow things up...." he pulled something silver and gold out of his pocket and pressed a button, causing it to lengthen (with a little 'unsheathing' sound that he had added in himself for dramatic purposes).

He pointed to the nearest foliage and fired. There was a nice gaping hole in it a moment later. "I do that."

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Calvin's reaction was all that could possibly be asked for in terms of enthusiasm: his eyes widened to saucer-width as the gold and silver thingamabob was used, stared for a moment, and then began bouncing up and down with appreciation. "That's awesome! How'd you do that? What is that? Can I try?"

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He handed the shiny metal object over to the smart boy. "It's a laser screwdriver, actually. Has hundreds of uses, or maybe thousands, I can never quite remember.... Unfortunately, the controls are isomorphic - meaning they're directly linked to me - so no one else can use it. Troublesome thing to do, but if I don't, people steal it all the time and wreck havoc on my own plans, and there's absolutely no fun in that." And it would take a long time to alter the controls for general use, really. Otherwise he would have gladly let the child try his hand at it.

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The laser screwdriver was turned around and peered reverently, and despite being warned he wouldn't be able to use it he still attempted to fiddle with the controls. Because really, how could you not?

"What else can it do? I mean, not a full list," he corrected hastily (you never knew with aliens, he might try to recite all several hundred/thousand uses, and there was no way Calvin's attention span was that long), "but the top three coolest or more useful things? And where'd you get it?"

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The boy was very perceptive about aliens. While the Master wouldn't have gone through the whole list, it still would have been quite a long one before he remembered to stop. Three was a nice, small number.

"Made it," he said in a 'blah' tone of voice, meant to give off an impression of oh-it's-no-big-deal-I-do-that-sort-of-thing-all-the-time (which would have been eyeroll worthy were it not true). "It heats liquids in seconds, if you're looking for useful. Very nice when you walk away from the table a minute and the cocoa's gone cold. The laser beam can cut through nearly all types of metal easy as warm butter on the right setting. And it allows me to age people, backwards or forwards at will. Particularly useful when you want your enemies indisposed."