Oblivious to
everything going on around her, SC- she'd worn this name before once, maybe, once upon a time- took her time finding her way to a karaoke booth. She was having an incredible time looking at everything and taking in the ambience. The bright neons, the blacklight- all of it was sheer eye candy. But the animatronics-
those were the best part. The whirring robotics and pumping servos, the candy-colored shells that shone in the neon glimmer. The character, the stylized designs- and that smell, that ozone and engine oil smell they put out! Well. Some of them. Others, maybe you didn't want to smell so closely, but the ones she was looking at seemed... fine. Safe. Not... not weird in any way, shape, or form.
But her favorite thing about them, though, was the way they blinked. There was something so fascinating about the way they moved, somehow both fluid and stilted at the same time, and she found herself appreciating them more and more. Reptiles moved that way when they were warming up- but nothing blinked like a robot. The way the hard plastic eyelids curved down over synthetic eyeballs was just endlessly fascinating. The little motors had to be so fine and so carefully calibrated to create something that straddled the line between an imitation of an organic process and something completely different. Nobody would ever confuse one of these animatronics for being alive, but that was kind of the point, wasn't it? The way they moved and functioned was so inhuman, and yet so familiar.
SC was at home in the uncanny valley, basically. While it might freak others out, it would be hard for her to actually be disturbed by a robot. At least when they had their casings on. Endoskeletons were... well, a little more scary, sometimes, but that was mostly because when you saw that machinery it was easier to think about getting your hand caught in it.
As she walked through the Pizzaplex, a slice of pepperoni oozing cheese in her hand, she thoughtfully looked at each of the animatronics. So much work, so much character, so much life in each one! She loved the amount of care that went into the Pizzaplex. It was an incredibly strange thing on paper- but in person, it was a ton of fun.
And so would karaoke be, too, probably. She'd never done it before. She wasn't actually all that much of a singer; her vocal range was pretty limited and her voice cracked like mad when she tried to hit high notes. But she was nothing if not a good sport! She flipped through the song list, a flicker of bafflement poking at the edges of her thoughts. How did she know the names of these songs? Had she ever actually heard them before, or was it a memory given to her by the space she was in? The song list seemed endless, and there were quite a few that she'd be pretty happy to perform. "Walk the Dinosaur," "Karma Chameleon," "Big Lizard In My Backyard," the list of potentials went on. Still, there
was an obvious choice, and she took her sweet time looking for it.
Anyone who knew her well... or not well... or just met her five minutes ago and had made the mistake about asking her what kind of movies she liked might figure that somebody like SC only had one karaoke song. You know the one. It's the the one that started with drums like footsteps and a ponderous guitar riff that sounded like destruction. One might think that she would want to sing about a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound and spitting high tension wires getting pulled down. And you'd be right, because that, in this world, was her
favorite song. She even knew the Japanese lyrics and what they meant. It was basically straight from the movie, after all, from the news broadcast across from the Ginza theater, the one where the... unfortunate thing happened to the news crew. And from the emergency broadcast that played as people fled. Make no mistake, no matter what universe, what realm you put her in, SC's main characteristics never, ever changed. She was fascinated by strange things and she loved giant lizards. (And small lizards. And snakes, tortoises, et cetera.) She was in every world a creature of habit.
But somehow,
somehow the karaoke machine did
not have "Godzilla." But that... well, that was actually ok, because there were other things she liked. Like robots. And while the Blue Oyster Cult selection was... weirdly low, did they also not have "Don't Fear The Reaper?" Weird! That was a classic!
Anyways, they had
plenty of Styx, and that's what she was going to sing. The sparkly synth started the song, and then the electric drums kicked in, and she... completely mangled the Japanese introduction to "Mr. Roboto." She knew exactly Just absolutely could not get the words out, because she didn't know what they were and the screen put them in katakana. The first line, "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto," was fine, but then the rest of it? Not a chance in hell anybody was going to understand that. Still, she soldiered on.
"I've got a secret I've been hiding under my skin!
My heart is human, my blood is boiling, my brain IBM!
So if you see me acting strangely, don't be surprised,
I'm just a man who needed someone, and somewhere to hide!"
Sure, she was a little off-tempo, but she was mostly on-key. It wasn't the
worst cover of a Styx song anybody had ever heard, but it definitely wasn't the best. And at least the booths were soundproof so nobody heard her... right? Though it would have been nice if the animatronics had, since the song would probably definitely resonate with at least a few of them. Her song over, she popped back out of the booth to see some kind of altercation happening. Or maybe just a discussion. Or maybe flirting! She genuinely never knew with these things. People were confusing. Robots weren't. Maybe that's why she liked them. "I need control, we all need control," she hummed under her breath as she watched people coming in and out. That was a thing, it seemed, for the long-haired fella and the woman he was talking with. They wanted both wanted control over the situation. But who had it? Was it something they shared? These thoughts quickly left her head as an alligator-shaped animatronic walked by, giving her something else to fixate on.
Time Tells Tales wrinkled her nose slightly at the noise and the lights as she listened to the arcade owner give his pitch for the karaoke contest. She wasn't generally the type to sing in public but perhaps from the 'safety' of her own private booth she'd open up a little. She did enjoy singing, but just to herself.
