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[leftwithmybones]

Now, McCoy's not an engineer. He spent a lot of years going to medical school to heal people and make a difference in the world, but it doesn't take a damn engineer to realize that the fritzing lines on his datapadd mean nothing good. His communicator went bust a long time ago, his tricorder has been working, and up until now, his datapadd had been

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[leftwithmybones]

"It's this piece of crap," he says with a sigh, giving it a small flick at the screen before holding it up to the light to see if that's made a difference. If anything, it looks like he's gone and made it worse. His patience is already beginning to falter and this isn't helping any. "You know computers at all?"

[leftwithmybones]

"Where I come from, there's a whole damn department of engineers who would look at this and know what to do in about three seconds," he says and feels a strange pang of homesickness for the Enterprise, of all places. It looks almost like he's started to miss the damn boat. "You don't even want to take a look, for curiosity's sake?"

[wizard_errant]

Well, the currently closest thing is sprawled on the couch, bare feet hanging over one end of it, with a newly-upgraded alien laptop on her stomach and a book in front of her face. Dairine shifts, hanging her head off one side to see who's asking. "Hardware or software problem?"

[leftwithmybones]

He gives her a lost look in return, shaking his head. "You give me a brain to dissect and I can do it. I can craft a vaccine from the rarest of resources, and I can put up with screaming and ill infants. I can't distinguish between whether these little wavy lines are hardware or software," he confesses. "I'm hoping that someone else can. You up for a challenge?"

[wizard_errant]

Dairine is usually up for a challenge, especially this kind. And she's feeling pretty on top of the world at the moment. She pushes the book aside and shifts so she's sitting up. "Sure," she says, reaching out a hand. "Hand it over, let's see what we can see."

[leftwithmybones]

McCoy can't help his sigh of relief. He knows this doesn't mean it's going to get fixed, but it's better off than he'd been ten minutes ago when he'd started to think that all his research would be forever lost in the technological bowels of an outdated piece of crap. He shifts the datapadd so it's top-up for the girl and hands it over. "I'm McCoy, by the way. Leonard McCoy, definitely not a tech kind of guy."

[loveofmasters]

"IT department?"

Florence pauses in the hallway, the book she's taking outside to read completely forgotten in the face of the man's apparent confusion. She has no idea what he's talking about, and quickly assumes it's one of those future things she's still struggling to understand. Considering herself well-read, if she doesn't understand what she's hearing, it's a safe bet to make.

Still, based on his level of distress, she assumes it's serious. "There's a clinic here, if you need a doctor?"

[leftwithmybones]

McCoy's amused, to say the least. "Well, that won't help much seeing as I am a doctor," he replies. "It's not a medical problem, it's mostly just that my goddamn equipment is failing," he mutters, voice descending into a low growl of frustration as he stares at the datapadd. "And considering it's my connection to my research, it'd be helpful if it didn't do that."

[loveofmasters]

"Oh, God, I'm sorry, I... I shouldn't guess at these things, it's bound to go wrong." Laughing a little, Florence quickly pulls her composure back in place, it does seem that it's serious business. She can only imagine how she'd feel if she lost all her player notes and game sheets back home. All a person's work isn't something that can be replicated easily, after all.

"But... all your research, is on that?" She had pocketbooks back home larger than that.

[leftwithmybones]

"Not all of it, but it's a portable tool and it's handy," he says, his brow furrowed and showing off the lines that will inevitably become deep chasms of wrinkles on his face if he keeps this up. "You try toting around six binders' worth of notes on various pieces of research. I don't care how strong you are, that gets heavy."

[awomanscornd]

Madelyne holds her tongue for a moment before replying, feeling (in her opinion, pretty understandably) awkward around Dr. McCoy, no matter how unwilling she is to show it. She's sick and tired of letting a woman who should be dead dictate any aspect of her life.

"I think you just ask around and cross your fingers," she says with a small shrug.

[leftwithmybones]

It's never going to be simple around her. McCoy's come to admit that fact. Even being in her presence is strange because he looks at her and all he can remember is Jean. He tells himself that it's not her and he stubbornly stands by that knowledge. It helps, but only in the most minute of ways. "What about you? Do you know anything about computers, Madelyne?"

It helps, too, to say her name aloud. The weight of it on his lips is as keen a reminder as any that Madelyne is not Jean and vice-versa.

[awomanscornd]

"A bit," Madelyne admits, hands crossed behind her back as she shifts idly from one foot to the other. "Probably not enough to be much use, though." The man is from the future, after all. "Stick a motor in front of me, and I can usually get by pretty well, but I've always been a little bit lower on the curve when it comes to electronics."

[leftwithmybones]

McCoy makes sure to keep a good bit of distance between them. He's not worried about her being too forward, it's just that he's not sure what he'll do if he gets too close and he doesn't want to get close to that possibility. "It's probably a software issue, but it could be hardware and usually I ship it off to the engineers."

Awkwardly, he offers the datapadd into the space between them. It's something. It's a start, but he doesn't know whether he should be asking her to take a look or accepting her words as an excuse to get away. The damn thing is already stuck between them, so he keeps on with his original tactic. "You wanna...I don't know, try?"