justbeingbay | Room 307, Tuesday Afternoon

Bay had decided to try a cool new manicure design she found online. Because she had yellow and black polishes, and she was bored, and -- well, why not?

She carefully applied the polishes with a teensy nail brush, wiggling her fingers as she did. Waiting for layers of polish to dry was the worst.

Topher Brink	"It smells gross," Topher complained from where he was modifying some of Broca's circuitry on his bed. "Whatcha doing?"
Bay Kennish	"Trying to get my fingernails to look like bumblebees," Bay answered, cool but not unfriendly as she dotted a miniature black wing onto her right thumbnail. "What are you doing with your robot dog?"
Topher Brink	"Trying to see if I can make him bark with a cool accent," Topher replied absently. There was some epic productivity up in this room, oh yes. "Maybe British. Why do you want bees on your nails?"
Bay Kennish	"To see if I can do it," Bay said. "Nail art is like this whole thing, right? Besides, bees are cool." She looked up from her nail polish. "See, now I wanna know if regular dogs bark with accents."
Topher Brink	"They do in Disney movies," Topher shared helpfully. "There's that one with the dogs and some of them have accents. But they also talk." Don't ask how often Topher watched Disney movies in the common room. Just don't. "Bees are pretty cool, though, I guess," he admitted. "Primarily when they don't smell like nail polish."
Victor Mancha	If Bay was going to answer with more than the shrug she gave at that piece of information, the priceless opportunity was deferred by a knock on the doorframe. "Hey, Topher," Victor said, then glanced to the other bed. "And Bay." Mainly Topher, it was clear; he just didn't want to seem rude. Minimal social duties fulfilled, he turned back to Topher "Hey, I found some interesting circuits at the shop today. Want to help me figure out what they do?"
Topher Brink	"Only always," Topher said at once, promptly turning away from Bay to look at Victor. Because he cared less about social obligations than Vic did, clearly. "They don't have bees on them, do they? Actually, I don't care, lemme see."
Gert Yorkes	That was when another head poked its way into the doorframe, this one bearing purple hair and a mild expression. "Oh, wow," Gert observed, largely to Bay. "It's a party in here." The look she shot Bay was mostly sympathetic. No one liked being talked at while trying to primp. She had tried explaining to Molly that hair-dyeing time was quiet time only a hundred times, to limited effect, and knew how annoying it was.
Bay Kennish	"Totally," Bay deadpanned, after she shot Gert an oh-thank-god tilt of her eyebrows. "Victor was about to show Topher his new circuits. It's a rager in here." She gestured to the doorframe. "Both of you, c'mon in."
Victor Mancha	Victor stepped in, giving Topher a vaguely concerned look. "Thanks," he said, handing over two pieces of hardware. "They just look sort of high-end and ... dude, why would there be bees on them?"
Topher Brink	"I was just learning about how bees are all stylish," Topher explained more than a little dryly before turning his attention to the circuits. "These are cool, yeah. You know what, I bet these are for--" But unless Victor had any ideas about what they were for, it would have remain a mystery, because in a flash, Topher turned into a gopher, and the circuits tumbled onto his bed beside him. Topher's unhappy squawk could roughly be translated as 'Really? This again?', to anyone in the room who happened to speak gopher.
Gert Yorkes	Gert had never seen an animal transformation like that before, and she was left looking back and forth between the two remaining humans in the room and beginning to wonder if maybe people were on to something when they said this town was weird. "We all saw the annoying geek turn into an animal, right?"
Bay Kennish	"Yeaaaaah," Bay said gingerly. "My roommate turned into a -- what is that, a prairie dog or a groundhog? Right in front of our eyes. That, um ... I kind of figured people were joking about that." Silly silly Bay.
Victor Mancha	"Gopher," Victor supplied, sounding a bit dazed himself, and snickered. "Topher the gopher. Like the old file transfer protocol." The rhyme alone made it comedic. "People say they turn back to be back to normal in a couple days," he offered. "So I guess we just wait it out."
Gert Yorkes	"Yeah, that sounds like a good time." Except for how it really didn't. "Where do I volunteer to not take him for walks?" That was a little bit mean, Gert. And also a little redundant, because not two seconds later, she was also an animal: a small chameleon, currently purple, and decidedly displeased about it.
Bay Kennish	Bay licked her lips, looking decidedly dumbfounded. "So we had two, like, fairly regular people here," she said. "And now we have ... a pissed-off purple lizard and a nerdy gopher." She wrinkled her nose. "It didn't sound less insane when I said it out loud, by the way."
Victor Mancha	"Kind of didn't think it would," Victor said lightly, and stepped over to Topher's bed, where he stood staring at the gopher with a furrowed brow. "I -- guess I could take him. You know. So he doesn't get into your stuff." He sounded completely bowled over with enthusiasm for the task. Really.
Bay Kennish	"Don't get too excited and hurt yourself," Bay said. "But thanks. And she seems pretty low-maintenance, right?" Bay was not the world's greatest expert on lizardsitting, but from the way Gert was sitting there glaring and blending into the rug, she suspected it wouldn't be too bad. Though, speaking of maintenance -- "Um, do you know anybody who can feed her dinosaur?"
Victor Mancha	Victor hesitated, but shrugged. "Old Lace doesn't eat that often. She can sleep in the stables, and maybe we'll be lucky and she won't get too hungry before she turns back. If it does -- we'll figure it out then, I guess." He wasn't sure how Old Lace would like being taken hunting by somebody who wasn't Gert or Chase. He supposed he could find out. He scooped Topher up. "I'm gonna go get a gopher cage. You cool here with the chameleon?"
Bay Kennish	"It's the least bad option," Bay shrugged. "And it's not like I have a roomie to complain about sudden pet lizard right now." She knelt by Gert, offering her palm for the chameleon to crawl into. Looked at from the right angle -- and assuming this was temporary -- she was even sort of cute.