Comments | ultron_junior: Room 401, Sunday Evening

ultron_junior

Room 401, Sunday Evening

Feb 16, 2014 21:37

Victor's entire birthday celebration this year had consisted of two jelly donuts at J,GoBs, and he was totally fine with that. First, because he was turning 19, and that wasn't really a big birthday no matter how you looked at it -- he'd been legally old enough to vote for a year, but wouldn't be able to buy a beer to celebrate for two more. (It ( Read more... )

birthday, 401

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nobloodymessiah February 17 2014, 03:27:00 UTC

Eleanor didn't mean to be nosy; she was simply wandering the halls, unwilling to stay cooped up in her room, and not especially wanting to visit with any of her friends' new children, either.

She saw Victor through the door crack and remembered that she had yet to stop in at his workplace, so he could explain the Internet to her.

Impulsively, she knocked.

(if it's not too late?)

ultron_junior February 17 2014, 12:29:48 UTC

Victor hadn't expected company, and it took him a moment to pull himself away from a fascinating chapter on fluid dynamics.

"Eleanor," he said, once the door was all the way open. He was surprised to see her, but actually pretty happy about the company. "Hey. What's up?"

[OOC: Not too late anymore?]

nobloodymessiah February 17 2014, 18:23:53 UTC

"Hi," she said, feeling a touch uncertain. She wasn't exactly sure of the protocol of just ... knocking on people's doors. Making friends. Any of it. "I'm sorry. You weren't busy, were you?"

She offered him a wry smile. "I mean, not so busy that you don't mind being disturbed."

ultron_junior February 17 2014, 18:48:02 UTC

"Well, I had a hot date with my physics book, but I think it'll wait for me," Victor said, moving out of the door to gesture Eleanor in. "It's fine. Besides, it's nice to have somebody visit when everybody else is busy with kids."

nobloodymessiah February 17 2014, 18:59:58 UTC

"That's why I'm avoiding the common rooms," Eleanor admitted, as she stepped through the doorway. "Entirely too many loud and tiny people swarming about. Were you skipped, too?"

It shouldn't bother her -- she had expected it, really -- and yet it did.

"I am pleased that I outrank thermodynamics," she added.

ultron_junior February 17 2014, 19:32:09 UTC

"Fluid dynamics, actually," Victor teased, grinning a bit. "Would have been a harder choice if it was thermodynamics."

"And yeah, no kids this year. But I got two last year, so I figure it averages out."

nobloodymessiah February 17 2014, 19:37:24 UTC

"I'll keep that in mind," Eleanor laughed. "No knocking on your door if you're knee-deep in entropy."

She gave him a curious glance for the rest of it. "So it varies?" she asked. "These aren't the set, decided future? I thought perhaps ..."

That it had been a message, of sorts. One she didn't particularly like to hear.

ultron_junior February 17 2014, 20:13:47 UTC

Victor shook his head firmly. "Nah, it's just the island giving us sneak peeks at possibilities," he said. "Last year I had one with the girl I was dating and one with a guy friend of mine. Pretty sure neither of those relationships is actually going to turn into real kids."

he added, off-hand, "I don't think there's a set and decided future, anyhow."

nobloodymessiah February 18 2014, 02:43:37 UTC

"I don't know what I believe," Eleanor admitted. "I've never really thought about it before. How would ..."

She frowned, catching up. "A guy friend of yours. So the children were adopted, or ... aren't constrained to the realm of biological possibilities?"

(sorry, was at work!)

ultron_junior February 18 2014, 02:57:40 UTC

Victor wrinkled his nose. "I think Buzz was a made-in-a-lab cloning project," he said. "We can do stuff like that in my world. But some of the kids are just these totally bizarre combinations where you don't want to think too hard about how the biology works."

nobloodymessiah February 18 2014, 03:08:34 UTC

Eleanor was going to be grateful for a moment that she hadn't had any clones of herself show up. That would somehow have been worse than no kids at all.

"I feel like that applies to so much of the island," she mused. "Many things you don't want to think about too hard, or your brain starts trying to devour itself."

ultron_junior February 18 2014, 03:22:54 UTC

"Some of this stuff bends my brain, and I have a high tolerance for weird," Victor agreed. "And you're coming from a place without a lot of technology, right? That has to be a couple thousand times worse."

nobloodymessiah February 18 2014, 03:34:04 UTC

"I haven't much idea what's weird and what isn't," she said, apologetically. "I grew up ... in an unusual sort of place. And I'm only a few decades behind, but they seem to have been very eventful decades. Suddenly everyone has mobile phones that play sophisticated games, and all the computers talk to one another."

ultron_junior February 18 2014, 03:46:33 UTC

"Which I was supposed to tell you about," Victor remembered. "Got time for a crash course on the internet?"

nobloodymessiah February 18 2014, 03:55:02 UTC

"I absolutely do," Eleanor said. "If you don't mind. I don't want to keep you from fluid dynamics, even if they are less dull than thermodynamics. So why are all of these computers talking to one another, anyway?"

ultron_junior February 18 2014, 04:23:47 UTC

"Because about 40 years ago, a bunch of computer scientists decided they wanted to figure out a way to get information from one computer to another without, like, carrying tons of magnetic tape all over the place," Victor explained. He was already turning on his laptop as he spoke. "They started sending data over the phone lines. Then maybe ten years after that, computers got smaller and cheaper, so some people had 'em at home. And they used the phone line thing to set up bulletin boards so they could talk about Galaxy Quest or trade recipes or whatever."

He glanced over at her. "With me so far?"

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