Training Sequence -First Lesson

A quick check at his chrono to confirm he is not late for his training appointment with Feint. Skids smiles a bit, this should be an interesting session. The mech steps inside the room and starts to prepare the boxes, line them up and brings a box of spare parts near the boxes. The Autobot grabs a chair and waits for his student to show up.
Feint is right on time, coming into the room quickly and giving Skids a respectful bow. You can take the aerodrone out of the disposable caste, but you can't take the disposable caste otu of the aerodrone. "I'm ready when you are si--Skids!" Caught that 'sir' before it went too far.
Skids claps his hands excitedly "Hello Feint. Glad to see you and ready for work I see. Excellent!" He motions to the items around the room "Today we will work on checking how small you an go in terms of range and what happens when you do. I recall you saying you could see 'everything'. Through me, through walls and such. Can you tune it down? Can you for exemple not see through the wall behind me?"
"I've never tried before," she confesses. "I'll see if I can. It might not be something I can turn off." She's actually stopped wearing the complete visor over her face; it's an indicator that she feels much safer and able to relax. "After I try this - would you like to see things as I see them? I can show you through your sensors, they're very open."
Skids nods "Without turning it 'off' I was wondering if you could say shunt power from the sensors to another component in order to artificially tone down your senses." He looks a bit surprised at the suggestion "Is it safe?"
Feint nods yes. "It would be like wearing a pair of goggles. It was safe for Blurr, but perhaps that is because his sensors are more pronounced than other frames. He has to be able to react quickly and see at extreme distances. I don't believe it would hurt you. The only way I was able to hurt anyone was to trick them into hurting themselves." She looks to the wall behind Skids. "So you want me to try to reduce my range of sight? ... Hmm! Perhaps if I show you what I'm seeing, you'll be able to know for certain if it works!"
Skids smiles a bit more sure "Ok then, let's see what you can see." The mech angles himself to look towards the wall and takes scope of the room in order to not be too disoriented when his perception suddenly changes.
Reaching out with her sensors, Feint's field envelops Skids imperceptably, and begins a type of data-sharing between her processor and his sensor field. The effect is like putting on a pair of night-vision goggles: Suddenly EVERYTHING is visible to Skids!
Like gazing through the world with x-ray vision, the walls, ceiling and floors are transparent. Energy is visible flowing through individuals and power conduits as shimmering lines in prismatic pastel colors. Down the hallway and in other areas other Cybertronians are going about their business, training or listening to lectures; their internals are completely translucent, and the color and pulse of their sparks are visible like tiny suns in their bodies. Wireless transmissions and EMF fields flow like colored rippling fog clouds through the horizon, their surfaces shifting with fractal and crystaline patterns in tune with data moving through them.
"This is my world," Feint explains to Skids. "This is how I see everything."
Skids winces a bit at all the data. "It is a bit overwhelming. It is alot to take in." Skids slowly turns around in wonder at seeing everything "This is so weird and awesome at the same time. How can you...process all this. It is making me dizzy trying to keep up with everything."
"Oh, I'm sorry!" she apologizes, backing out of Skid's sensors gently so as to return him to a normal view of the world. "I actually have separate processing modules for everyone of my sensor hubs," she says. "I guess you could call them ganglia, or sub-brain modules? I just... well it's always been like this since I was ignited. For awhile I assumed everyone simply saw the same things I did."
Skids shakes the effects off and resets his optics twice to make sure. "It's allright it's allright. We were just making a test. It is fascinating and...and I am just trying to think of all the applications. With such a talent you could work in almost any field. Medicine, mining like you stared, criminal investigation, EOD hehe You could literally be anything you want." He mumbles something about Functionists though.
Feint remembers how things looked to Skids - how things look to others. With great effort and concentration, she tells her sensors to filter out the penetrative nature of her field, while shrinking it back until it fits just under her own mesh. She shakes her head much as Skids just did, shuttering her optics a few times - blinking - and looking at the world through a new set of directives. "I.... it's all so FLAT!" she exclaims. "... And small. Everything's so contained and opaque and flat and /small/."
Skids chuckles "Yes! It probably does look pretty small and opaque for you just like your normal vision seems so vast and overwhelming to others." He makes mental notes of the experiment's result. "Now while you are still seeing things this way I will grab some spare parts here and put them in these boxes here. Line up the boxes perfectly and we are ready for experiment number two." He motions to the boxes "Now...can you try and focus on the first boxes and tell me what is inside WITHOUT seeing through the second box?"
Feint squints. "I'll try," she responds, uncertain of her own capacity to do this.
Thinking about how to solve the problem, she is forced to delve deeper into her own sensor structure. Now that she's fine-tuned her fields and contained them within herself, she posits that the best way to accomplish the task ahead of her is going to be to try to project only a small portion of her field, like the pseudopod of an amoeba, into the first box.
Success! Her expression lights up. "Oh! There is is, I did it!" Without asking (far too excited at her accomplishment) she projects what she's seeing onto Skids' field of vision. This time it should be MUCH easier to handle - it's an x-ray of whats inside the first box.
Skids applauds "Wow excellent! It is a wrist servo indeed. Now for the tricky part. Usually when dealing with x-rays and such. There is a source and depending on the intensity you see or you do not. But since your vision is not a typical x-ray in physics senseof the word. Can you...project your senses further to look into the second box without seeing what is inside the first?"
Another problem to solve. This is getting harder! Feint squints once more and tries to think of a way to work this situation. As Skids challenges her to overcome obstacles, she's developing a greater and more precise control over her ability.
Remembering that she can tell her sensors to ignore certain data structures, she tones them back, and expands her field outward to envelop both boxes. Aware now of both of them at once, she struggles to make a pocket within and around the second box only, to penetrate it with the full-strength field: A field within a field. The lines of light along her body glow intensely bright and the nest of camera lenses on the dome on her torso are irising to different aperture settings. She's quiet for a few moments to set all this up -- and then slowly the second box alone is penetrated and visible. She projects her success to Skid's field of vision, sharing it.
Skids makes a note of how long it took. "Excellent. Now as you work through these tests you might want to take notes of the equations or settings to overcome these situations. In the future when situations arise you might want or need to focus faster. But small exercises such as these might seem ordinary but in time you will be glad you did them." Skids starts putting away the boxes and spare parts. "I think that will be it for today. Try and play around with your surroundings. Switching between seeing and not seeing or seeing but not everything. Next lesson we will work on simple illusions and work out way towards more complex ones."
Feint nods, relaxing her field and returning to "normal" sight, feeling claustrophobic without it, and releasing Skid's sensors from her demonstration. "Skids?" she asks, walking over to him. "Can I talk to you about something not related to the lessons?"
Skids takes a slightly more serious expression "Of course you can. If I can help out with anything I am happy to. Us 'gifted' have to look out for one another." He mutters something about the goverment not going to do it for us.
Feint smiles at that muttering. "If I want to learn medicine, where would I go to learn that?"
Skids is about to say Ratchet but remembers how grumpy the guy can be but... "Given your function is not medical I would say 'Nowhere official'. Also you must remember that even with your gifts you are still limited by your body just like I am." He ponders about Ratchet. "I might know a mech who could get you started. In your case your sensors can help with diagnostics and monitoring. Starting out as a medical assistant does not sound too bad does it?"
"That would be just fine," Feint says, relieved. "... I... I almost sold myself to Shockwave to learn what I need to learn."
Skids switches to a more stern look "Hey hey! No more talk about selling yourself. You are not a device, you are an individual with all the rights that come with it. I will get in touch with the mech I told you about and get back to you on it."
"Well not -now-, no! But for awhile I didn't have a choice," Feint quickly corrects to try to reassure Skids. "I was worried about Blurr's health and I didn't feel like I had anywhere else to turn, but Senator Shockwave isn't-- he isn't who he used to be." Her expression saddens. "He's cold. Emotionless. They took his head and hands, Skids, and I don't know what else, but... he's working in the gladiator pits now."
Skids looks a bit sad at the news "I did not know what happened to him after the fire at the academy. If he is working in the pits...I do not think we can trust him anymore. Problem is that he knows too much about too many people."
"Maybe that's why Megatron is working with him. Speaking as a former miner, I can say that things will probably turn worse before they get better. The mines are being automated all over, but none of the miners are being returned to the labor force. They're just being thanked for their service and turned out to starve. With all those desperate people who cannot change their function, all those decommisioned workers... they'll get desperate," says Feint.
Skids does not want to contemplate the consequences or possiblities of a massive uprising. "I hope the Senate comes to it's senses before it is too late. There has to be a solution to this problem."
"I hope so too, but... I don't hold a lot of hope in Sentinel. Not when he wants /even more power/," Feint sighs, shaking her head.
Skids glances at his chrono "Speaking of the Senate. I need to stop by the office. Maybe I will hear some good news. Work on those exercises, no skipping lessons." He says wagging a finger jokingly. "Catch you later Feint." Skids gives her a little wave and heads off.