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[It is a fine spring day, and Tarvek has chosen to attempt "back yard suburban living," a concept that has no parallels in his immediate experience. Thus, accompanied by two whirling red-headed children in googly horn-rim glasses that match his -- the elder technically too old at about 14 to be his son, not that Mayfield is paying that much attention -- he has come out to "mow the lawn."]
Ow. !@#$% idiot Mayfield! Can't you at least let me figure out how to work this storm-begotten machine, if you're going to insist I maintain this property? Perry, do you know how a "lawnmower" works?
[The boy cheerfully states that he does, and begs to be permitted to perform this manly chore -- ideally for money to "go to the soda shop later." Tarvek, looking a bit wan from trying to use his spark to figure out the lawnmower, agrees, and pulls cash from his pocket, before retreating to sit on top of the empty dog-house with the younger child -- a girl of about 5 -- on his lap. As the boy mows the lawn with disgusting merriment and good-will, Tarvek sings to the girl. He's got a better than average baritone that may, possibly, drop to bass by the time he's 40. He's singing a very, very racy song from the light opera, "The Courtesan and the Clockwork Cuckoo." Fortunately for the proprieties he's singing it in the Europan version of Viennese German. Therefore as he sings and makes dramatic and silly faces, the little drone child smiles, and claps, and giggles, and is generally almost painfully winsome.]
[The rather pitiful thing is that Tarvek clearly is half in love with this. He's a DADDY. With fine young son and a little girl! And a he can make her laugh, and tickle her, and it's all clean and unsullied by complicated Sturmvoraus crap. Before you criticize, consider that he's a man who passionately believes himself to owe debts of honor to machines... and knows very well that he's a construct, too. Between that and the real joy of being worshiped by a pair of well-programmed dronelets, he's in a comfort zone he never knew existed. The boy is a born sucker for the suburban myth...it slides right under his cynicism and stabs him in the heart.]
[You are a neighbor, a stranger walking down the street hearing a baritone bellowing a merry song in German over a lawnmower, an adventurer passing overhead. You can see Tarvek, his drone daughter, his fine drone son -- even from the street. What do you do?]
Ow. !@#$% idiot Mayfield! Can't you at least let me figure out how to work this storm-begotten machine, if you're going to insist I maintain this property? Perry, do you know how a "lawnmower" works?
[The boy cheerfully states that he does, and begs to be permitted to perform this manly chore -- ideally for money to "go to the soda shop later." Tarvek, looking a bit wan from trying to use his spark to figure out the lawnmower, agrees, and pulls cash from his pocket, before retreating to sit on top of the empty dog-house with the younger child -- a girl of about 5 -- on his lap. As the boy mows the lawn with disgusting merriment and good-will, Tarvek sings to the girl. He's got a better than average baritone that may, possibly, drop to bass by the time he's 40. He's singing a very, very racy song from the light opera, "The Courtesan and the Clockwork Cuckoo." Fortunately for the proprieties he's singing it in the Europan version of Viennese German. Therefore as he sings and makes dramatic and silly faces, the little drone child smiles, and claps, and giggles, and is generally almost painfully winsome.]
[The rather pitiful thing is that Tarvek clearly is half in love with this. He's a DADDY. With fine young son and a little girl! And a he can make her laugh, and tickle her, and it's all clean and unsullied by complicated Sturmvoraus crap. Before you criticize, consider that he's a man who passionately believes himself to owe debts of honor to machines... and knows very well that he's a construct, too. Between that and the real joy of being worshiped by a pair of well-programmed dronelets, he's in a comfort zone he never knew existed. The boy is a born sucker for the suburban myth...it slides right under his cynicism and stabs him in the heart.]
[You are a neighbor, a stranger walking down the street hearing a baritone bellowing a merry song in German over a lawnmower, an adventurer passing overhead. You can see Tarvek, his drone daughter, his fine drone son -- even from the street. What do you do?]
