OOM From The Future: The Dimension-Hopping Kid

[claudiometer]

Bristol Sector
Warehouse 13
South Dakota
2014

"Mandelbrot's in heaven, at least he will be when he's dead...Claudia isn't prone to wearing her headphones around the Warehouse. Generally, it's better if she can keep her ears open, and it's not one of those cases where she's pissed at someone and wants to make their life difficult

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[walksthebounds]

Jamie hates coming through in buildings; it almost always means there's someone there, and awkwardness inevitably ensues.

However, in this case, the someone seems to have some kind of music thingummy in, which might make her easy enough to slip by.

. . . Jamie attempts to saunter very quietly, in case she opens his eyes and catches him, and starts trying to come up with plausible explanations for his presence in a warehouse.

[walksthebounds]

Jamie does not look one hundred percent reassured by this, but he salutes.

"So . . . if I've got this right, my job now is wander about, poke things safely, and don't die before dinnertime?"

[claudiometer]

Claudia returns the salute, mostly for the hell of it. "That'll work for a start. The not dying part is easier than it sounds."
Usually.

[walksthebounds]

"Good," Jamie says, "because, just to be clear, and not to toot my own horn or anything, it's sort of a problem for the universe if I die. Er, don't think I'm trying to pressure you. I just thought it might be helpful to know."

Claudia seems nice, but he's not sure he trusts her to see to getting him prompt medical attention if there's something nifty going on over in another corridor.

[claudiometer]

Hey, she wouldn't be distracted! (...not that distracted, anyway.)
"Don't panic. We're pretty on top of things, far as that goes." She stuffs her headphones into her tool belt, alongside her MP3 player; there's a noob on the job, after all. The rocking out will have to wait.

[walksthebounds]

"This isn't panic," Jamie says, and grins disarmingly. "Sensible precautions, is all.

"I suppose I ought to let you get back to work now, anyway."

[claudiometer]

Claudia shrugs. "Inventory's one of those jobs that never ends. Slowing down for a few minutes won't hurt anyone. Better than you getting hurt because I didn't, anyway."

[walksthebounds]

Jamie is not going to argue with that analysis. He doesn't like getting hurt. It tends to - well, hurt.

"Well - give me a holler, I suppose. If you don't hear me hollering."

[claudiometer]

"Will do."
***
When Claudia does give him a holler, a couple of hours later, it's because it's close enough to time for dinner that they might as well head back up to the office.
One of the desks in said office is currently all but swamped in paperwork, spilling over onto the floor - Artie's been trying to keep everything he might need to help Myka and Pete close at hand (problem is, there's rarely a case where that's not a lot of stuff). Claudia plunks down at the other desk and starts pulling some stuff up on her computer, while she's got a little down time.
"Well, nothing's attacked you so far, looks like. I'd call that a good sign."

[walksthebounds]

Jamie has been shaking his hand vigorously up and down for the past twenty minutes, as he made his way back to the office; at this comment, he makes a face.

"Depends on your definition of 'attacked'. I can still feel that thing sticking to my fingers."

[claudiometer]

"Half-hour tops, and you'll be better. I've had a run-in with that thing before. Not to say it was fun, but." She's also been though much worse, in her time at the Warehouse.
Then her email loads, and she skims through the results. Her spam filter's as impeccable as a spam filter can be (thanks to her periodic adjustments), and she doesn't have anything oustanding from her class of the moment - just something called 'something you might want to watch.'
She reads the message and frowns, then says, "Okay, Joshua, only because you're recommending it. And we have time to kill before dinner, so why not stream something?"

[walksthebounds]

"Stream something?" says Jamie, cautiously.

He assumes she doesn't mean stream as in somewhere between a brook and a river, but then again, you never know . . .

[claudiometer]

"Online. Some overblown rock star's doing his first show in a couple years, and my brother seems to think I should check it out." Claudia's got one of her best dubious faces on; she's never thought much of the guy in question. (She's really only doing this because her brother recommended it.)
"But that's going on... now, so I gotta stream it." After she clicks on the link. a video screen starts loading.

[k39zzz]

The feed is a blur of pixels for a moment, then resolves into an image of a well-lit but empty outdoor stage attended by an enthusiastic throng of people. "Ladies and gentlemen," an announcer's voice booms from the speakers, "welcome to Rocking The Bayou 2014! Let's give it up for Louisiana's own homegrown rock legend, Johnny Lancaster!"

The crowd's cheering intensifies as a lean, lanky young man with an acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder lopes toward center stage.

[claudiometer]

"Blah blah blah," Claudia says, accompanying the words with a very epic eyeroll. "Dude's ditching his backup band and the electric? This had so better be worth my time."
(You'd think she'd know better than to tempt fate by now.)

[walksthebounds]

"You know, you can do quite a lot with a solo guitar," Jamie remarks, peering over her shoulder with interest.

"Of course you'd better be awfully charismatic if you're going to try to put on a show like that without any bells and whistles."