"How'ya feeling, Epsil?"

Tired and ready to collapse from lack of anything real as a meal, Epsilon's mind didn't register Maru's question. Part of her wanted to flee to a safe space and curl up in her bed until morning, yet another, more guilty feeling urged her stay near the tilt-rotor's side. It was a battle of her self-preservation instincts and her drive to protect.

"Is she going to be okay?"

Almost as tired, the mechanic moved a shorter pump-lift close to the jet fighter's wing, immediately tending to an open wound. A near perfect 'C' shaped bite was cookie-cut into the metal, the very ends punctuated by the first of two sets of canines buried deep in the Osprey's mouth. Chrysler the prototype had a set of jaws on her that could tango with the best of them.

"That's gonna be up to her. We've done what we can to pin her down for tonight." Such quitter words, but they were true. The crew had stepped up when they were needed most, and received a morale punishing beat-down as a thank you. Yet, they couldn't EXACTLY blame Nova for it. She didn't ask to be the first of her kind, plagued with all sorts of glitches and bugs that came with new aircraft models. It's probably the only fact that convinced the tug to keep trying. "What do you think, Rex?"

The younger medic was rather unresponsive, lost deep in the files and codes of his memory core. His repairs of the F-22's ailerons were a sign that his mind was elsewhere. He worked slowly, lost in the repetitive and oddly satisfying nature of soldering torn cables. The Osprey's attack worried him. It had taken the strength of five full-grown aircraft and a full dose of grade three tranquilizers just to subdue her, and she still managed to dish out a mighty beating.

It reminded him of the "biological programming" class he'd taken years ago in medical school. Rex hadn't payed attention as closely to that lecture as he now wished he had. What he remembered was basic, and terrifying. That one particular program was impossible to remove or control - at the time. Its symptoms varied, and so did the length and frequency of its attacks. Yet the common theme between this vicious program and the vehicles that housed it; they were all experimental or older military prototypes. Yet, the possibility of such a weapon continuing to exist... was not impossible.

Rex's tail flaps twitched and his main rotor did a quarter-spin. All this deep-thinking was making the Blackhawk steam from his vents, figuratively and almost physically. It wasn't good to overwork the processors like that, no matter how 'designed' one was to handle it. He was too valuable to the base and the tilt-rotor's case to blow a gasket now. Trawling his systems for the info he was compiling would help the fellow mechanic relieve some of the building stress, and Maru's question provided just that opportunity.

Epsilon sighed softly, watching the mechanic work on her wings. Oh what she'd give to have old John here to offer his snarky comments and advice. Though crude and not necessarily politically correct, he had accurate descriptions of every aircraft from Super Cubs to F-15 and onward. Such as, knowing that 89% of Sea Kings liked the smell of spring rain. Trivia that wasn't important...unless you're buying one a candle.

Noticing the field medic's change of stance and Maru's attempt to get his attention she opted to slip in some solid Air Force advice. "If you want his attention, put your fork on the latch of his passenger door. He won't attack you. They're hard-wired not to attack their own crew."

"The vow of a mechanic," Maru grunted, humored by the advice and ready to put his own armor to the test .. again. Balancing caution with boldness, the tug followed through on the suggestion and reached up to fit a tine exactly where Epsilon mentioned. Even if the Blackhawk surprised them both, he'd still have a chance to get out of the way even if it meant diving under the F-22's belly to do so.

Or at least he tried to follow through...

Outside the sudden gentle scrape of metal on gravel signaled that someone was on the move; someone of the Osprey class. In a hurry, the tug rolled closer to the bay entrance, expecting the worse.

He wasn't expecting a tilt-rotor to be on her back listening to the radio!.

Somehow, Nova had managed to roll her "legless" self the whole 180, marooning her massive frame even more. The replacement cone muzzle was still where he'd left it, but the pizzas Drip left nearby had completely vanished; boxes included. What?! Even as he parked there, watching, the aircraft swayed gently in tune to a song that was playing, not over the tower speakers, but in the inner workings of her own airwaves.

Epsilon jerked her head to the side, moving her whole wing enough to startle the Blackhawk out of his daze. It took a little while for him to figure out what he'd missed. How long had he been thinking? Rex followed Epsilon's shocked gaze to where the V-22 had rolled over and begun to sway to the music like a hypnotized cobra. Who knew it took elevator music to calm the furious tilt-rotor. How had she managed to turn on the radio under those kind of drugs? She was becoming as bad B-2s! Though she'd certainly been happy to get her teeth on that pizza. Better pizza than someone's tail.

For another minute, and through another slow, sing-along song, the Osprey's automatic "alarm" system did its job just as Ronald had programmed it to. Genius Germans. It only took five months to find solutions to almost all the bad habits that came with the 'retired' prototype. To deal with a crowd like their group back at the museum, one would have to be at the top of their game anyway, or get eaten.

Bless that paper clamp.

As best as the cone muzzle would allow, Nova yawned and finally ceased her psychotic lullaby, both sets of drugs having finally run their course. On her back she stayed, comfortably folded up so as to protect her rotor blades if she ever shifted during the rest of the night. A sight like this had really never been witnessed since the poor tilt-rotor stayed outside in those parking blocks for years at a time.

Maybe she'd always slept like that.

"Well, ... that's a new one..."

It was good to know the Lockheed could finally close her eyes and rest as well, now that the threat had passed like those Southeast Alaska rainstorms. They stayed, ran their course then left as quickly as they had arrived.

"I've never seen anyone sleep like that... other than babies."

"I can't say I've seen it either."

"Heh, that's a pleasant thought," Maru chuckled softly as the realization of how completely unprepared they were for the tilt-rotor's antics slowly came to the fore. Situations like this made for happy mechanics if alternate sources for input were available when the prime source of information was not; such as asleep. If only that Education Center's website was still up and running.

Dodge his canopy hurt.

"Rex, it's almost 1 a.m. so there's next to no point in hurrying back home. If we leave the her out there, you can have this workspace as soon as Epsil's finished up. And another thing, what were you so focused on earlier?"

Rex stifled a yawn before allowing his gaze to wander back towards the sleeping prototype. His tail twitched slightly. The second part of the tugs comment drew a long silence as he considered what to tell Maru. Did the other know of the possible dangers?

At this point, he was hoping beyond hope.

"Have you heard of … Monster Programming?"