Only two years ago, everything was fine:

Clare's sitting safe, warm, and caffeinated in the Royal Academy's classroom number three. The usual class of statistics, managraphing code, and practical engineering applications has been lifted today, the class coming up to its new block of instruction on automaton navigation dynamics. In sight of this, the strapping Jack Elwood has decided a visual presentation would be the best way to get them interested.

Clare of course is already interested, she's not doing this for the pay check, but she loves what she believes was her mother's line of work.

"So here," Professor Elwood starts, adjusting his glasses with a nod to the open testing area, "is an automaton with a mono-audio sensor. Can anyone tell me what a stereo-aud-"

Her hand shoots up just a fraction of a second before Jeremy LeJean.

Jack nods his head to her. "Airineth."

"It means that it has receivers at different parts of its body, so it can find something from two directions instead of one," she explains.

Jack squints. She realizes that wasn't quite enough, but Jeremy takes the initiative.

"It means that the auto can triangulate its target," he states with his classic sneer. She wishes she could punch him in the face, but non-violence is a sometimes-unfortunate requirement for civil society.

Mister Elwood nods gently, firing off a little finger point to LeJean's direction. "Right. Clare is technically right, but triangulation is the word I'm looking for." He turns his attention back to the testing area with a lone automaton, standing resolutely in the side nearest to the class. "Alright folks, so this auto has a mono-audio sensor in its right arm, but that's not what I'm interested in in this case. What I want to show you is how an auto with a triangulate-source managraph can build a more accurate picture of a target based on multiple inputs."

The platinum-blond, uncommonly cute Isri pokes her hand up.

"Miss Layman"

"Wouldn't it make more sense to have it in its head?"

Jack gives a good natured smile and a few of the students look over to her with incredulous gazes. To them, only an idiot would ask a question that was covered in previous material; nothing is more embarrassing to them than catching up with the class publicly, but Isri doesn't seem to share the same emotion.

"If it were a human, yes, but like we learned in block one of your first year, design fits function. Form must adhere to function, always. We build it based on what it’s going to do, and nothing else. For example, it might need an audio sensor inside it’s chassis to make sure everything's running correctly, or in one of its feet to listen to ground vibrations with the most accuracy."

Isri Layman squints in thought. "So like, we're making them do what... I don't think I get it."

"Your grades show that, too," Jeremy mutters under his breath like a total cunt.

Almost everyone hears it, but it was just quiet enough to treat like a whisper. Clare will always wonder if Isri heard it or not, because her expression doesn't even flicker from his words.

Jack Elwood sharpens his gaze, but his smile grows. "That's okay. I can go over purpose of design with you after class," he turns back to the class in general. "So, is everyone ready to see this lad run?"

Muted, semi-excited responses emerge from the socially-stunted class, with the exception of Clare, who draws in over her desk with wide, ready eyes.

He takes this cue to begin, and he walks into the testing area.

Instantly the mood in the room shifts. Uneasy glances among the students and a pair of gasps overtake the classroom while their professor walks up to no more than five paces from the automaton.

"S-sir!" Clare exclaims, only to be met with Jack's hand, signaling for everyone to be quiet.

"When activated, this auto will target for lifting the cause of the nearest sound. Now you all must be absolutely silent." He hits the remote activator ringed to his belt, operating much like a chat stone would, with a small jolt of mana produced by the operator to turn on the device. The little, magical *ping* of mana sent from Professor Elwood zips into the remote activator, and it lights up.

Without further warning and with nary a sound, the automaton looks up from its slouched position, the managraphic symbol on its face blinking up with an alert, cold blue. The whole class looks on nervously, watching with bated breath while a confident Jack Elwood taps his foot to the right of him. The automaton walks forward, completely devoid of any social sense of speed; a lumbering, almost comical walk, though everyone knows that they're not to be taken flippantly.

Jack lifts his foot to the side and silently steps aside. To the class' great relief, the automaton walks past him, and continues on. Then, like it weren't chilling enough, Jack takes a breath to talk.

"So, it missed me, because it only had one reference point," he says, causing another swell of gasps from the class. The automaton instantly about-faces back to Professor Elwood and walks up to him.

"Now that I've provided it with a second reference point, it could act off the stored first direction, in correlation with its current and past locations for receiving the data, to triangulate m- whoa!" He says, interrupted by the automaton's cold grip around his waist.

Clare, already on the edge of her seat, dives out into the stairs to come to his aid, just as three or four of the other students have; the rest are either too trusting or too lazy to try and save their professor.

Nothing bad happens, in fact, Clare wasted her breath.

Jack is firmly lifted into the air by the auto, holding him like a delicate child for the dumbfounded class to gawk at.

"What, you kids didn't know you could code an auto to be gentle? That's what social autos are."

"W-yeah but," Jeremy sputters moronically, "that's... you're too trusting!"

Jack shrugs, still held up like a little pup by the powerful grip of his machine. "When you students are nearing your forth year, you'll make autos so smooth they'll play chess. People hate the idea of it though because of... well, you know, but as the next generation of engineers you can fix that stigma. They only do as they are told, and there's a big difference in code between 'contact-hands-lift' like the industrials use, and 'contact-halt-lift' like this boy does."

"So how do you get down?" Isri says, a question everyone else is wondering.

He grins. "Its lift is based on sound input. Once it stops picking up noises, it will put me down, and finish its routine by walking back to the start point."

"So if we keep talking you'll just stay up there?" Isra asks, finally asking the kind of stuff everyone wants to know.

His grin turns awkward instantly. "Eh, well yes, technically, but that-"

"So what's everyone doing tonight?" Kimley Gaunter asks, pushing her eraser point into her hair with a twirl.

At once, the classroom is alive with ironic chatter, simply for the humor of seeing their professor dangling like an awkward baby.

Professor Elwood sighs. "Ahh, then while we're on the subject of tonight, I'd like to talk about homework for tonight."

Just as quickly as they started, the class goes silent. A few seconds pass, and the auto slowly lowers Jack to the ground. It turns around, goes back to its start point, and becomes dormant.

"That's what I thought," Jack says with a smirk before returning to his desk. "So you all understand that what we're about to cover isn't just important for saving you precious time and keeping your auto from running around without a clue, but its also a life or death serious subject. I know you all can take a wild guess as to what would have happened if we used a non-social for this little experiment?"

There's a cold silence in the room; the mental vision of a splattered Jack Elwood flashing in a few of their minds; the sounds, the sight and aftermath of it.

He adjusts his glasses with a critical, serious vibe. "It wouldn't have ended well. Your managraphs must be bulletproof to get past the safety division, but even approved designs can have flaws. Remember this, take it to heart, and you won't be the designer of the next Mk.2 Porter. Got it?"

Sober nods from everyone. They all remember their parents talking about ‘The Mk.2 Incident’ when they were all children.

"Good," his smile returns, and everything's back to being fun. "Let's continue by opening him up and showing you all how those managraphs look."