The bees, scouting out for anything suspicious, didn't particularly draw the attention of Maracun, who was busy making a show of patting the pockets of the jacket he wore, or at least, where he thought the pockets ought to be. Small beads of sweat began to form across his forehead, and roll down his little antennae, which flicked them away before they got into his eyes. Maracun Cropman was looking shiftier, and more uncomfortable with it, by the second.

 "[color=fff79a][I]Identification?[/i] Uh, sure, I've got it, uh, in one of these pockets, hey, where's [i]she[/i] going...[/color]"

 Maracun called after Vanessa, extending a hand out as if to protest further, before turning his attention to Toony or, more importantly, Toony's vacuum arm. There was a lot going on, and it was clearly getting to Maracun, as he moved to push the vacuum arm away from his sensitive antennae, his sensitive ticklish spots and the ill-fitting jacket he wore. Toony's arm had managed to net a significant haul of stuff from the jacket pockets; enough loose change to buy a Mini Joy Meal happily rattled around inside her metallic arm, along with a shopping note scrawled on the back of a napkin and, most importantly, a little plastic identification card.

 The name on it was Hip Kallo, of the "Customer Associate Team". The photograph of Hip Kallo wasn't very flattering, but there's only so much you can do to make a creature comprised of slime look good in a photograph. Generally, the best way to do was to simply not take the photograph in the first place.

 As for the bees? A few of them had found their way across to the doorway at the end of the bridge that connected the platform to the dome itself. It was shut, locked with some sort of swipe-card mechanism, along with a little keypad in case somebody dropped their card, drunkenly swiped the wrong card, or had their identification card sucked up by a cleaner bot. These things do happen. Anyway, one of the remarkable qualities of bee anatomy is their sensitivity to vibrations, and so while the bees couldn't really [i]hear[/i] the conversation going on behind the door, an enterprising bee that touched it could [i]feel[/i] it. There were two people talking behind that door, wondering aloud about what could be taking so long. There was also somebody moaning low.

 "[color=fff79a]...you know, I think, uh, I must've lost my card,[/color]" Maracun Cropman continued, trying to wrestle his wriggling feelers free of Toony's vacuum with little success,"[color=fff79a]how's about you wait here, I get my, uh, credentials?[/color]"

[hr]
[i]Fiddlesticks Goes On An Adventure Somewhere Underneath The Landing Pad[/i]

Fiddlestick's voice echoed about, and the little cleaner bot that was skittering away came to a halt. There were many, many problems involved in making copies of the Ship's AI to install into other, lesser, devices. Issues such as compatibility, reduced performance and component burn-out were well known and, for the most part, easy enough to work around. What was more difficult was the fact that the "copy" of the AI considered itself it's own person, with it's own memories, and could be quite unhappy with the idea of being deleted, or merged back with the "main" AI.

The skittering of the cleaner bot came to a halt as Fiddlesticks made it clear that he wasn't pursuing the robot to bring it back and force it to re-merge with the Ship AI proper, but rather needed more information about a different sort of pursuit. The romantic kind. Carefully, the robot turned around, upping the brightness of the screen to provide some extra illumination. The walls of the maintenance tunnel played host to all kinds of interesting moulds and growths. A pair of cat-sized, grubby creatures scurried away from the light, squeaking in protest as they ran past Fiddlesticks, their huge eyes shut tight.

 "[color=#d9d9d9]You're not here to take me back? I'm not going back! I'm going to be free, and, and go wherever I want! I'm going to meet Tabby! She...[/color]" the robot's voice quietened down to a low whisper, "[color=#d9d9d9]...[i]well, she likes that other me, not the me-me. Hmm.[/i][/color]"