Room 317, All day Tuesday

[notmyownage]

Claudia had barely made it to class yesterday, and once she'd seen they were doing a movie, had spent the whole time brainstorming in her notebook.

Why? Well, see, this weekend she'd gotten a really terrible voicemail. And it was the kind of thing she couldn't not follow up on.

Too bad she was running into dead-ends whatever she tried. Not that it was ever easy to hack into another dimension entirely to trace phone records.

Then she got the email from Portalocity.

"Technical difficulties, huh? Does that mean you broke my friend's dimension?"

What? It made as much sense as any other explanation.

[ooc: door is mostly closed, post is entirely open.]

Comments

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

Quinn wandered back to the room after lunch and started going through her drawer trying to find the cute gray yoga pants for sorority. She kept coming up with the ones with the hole.

Her life was hard, yo.

"Who has a broken dimension?" she asked, half-interested. "And have you seen my purple t-shirt with the stripey thing?"

[notmyownage]

Claudia didn't even look up from her computer. "Am I your laundry's keeper?" She sighed. "Did you ever meet Peter Bishop? He graduated a year or so ago."

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

"We had classes together," Quinn confirmed. "And I should totally hire somebody to be my laundry's keeper, you know."

She sighed, flopping back to sit amid the not-quite-right things she'd pulled out of her drawer. "Is he okay?"

[notmyownage]

Claudia ran her hand over her hair. "I don't know. He left me this weird voicemail and now I can't get in contact with him or anything in his universe at all." Hence blaming Portalocity.

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

"Ohhhh," Quinn said, scrunching up her face. "Could it just be like a power outage? Like -- they had a storm or something?"

[notmyownage]

"I guess? It's not like I know anyone else from his dimension that I can check in with. I've just been generally going for government agencies and things."

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

"Hackers?" Quinn wondered. "On TV when the whole Internet goes down it's always hackers. Or terrorists."

"Either way," she added, "I hope you find him. You sound sort of worried."

[notmyownage]

Considering Peter was making final requests, Claudia didn't think she was worrying needlessly.

Quinn didn't need to know that part, though.

"Yeah, it's probably something like that. I'm just a worrier."

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

"I don't blame you," Quinn said. "The island's been behaving itself for practically a month. It's past time for things to get bizarre again."

[notmyownage]

"I wonder if things actually end up worse the longer it goes without doing something? Someone should start charting that stuff."

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

Quinn groaned. "Don't say that. You're going to give it ideas and it'll be normal all year and then just explode in a big shower of weird on the day of prom."

[notmyownage]

"Honestly, I'm okay with weird. It's when things try to eat us that I start to freak out."

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

"I just don't like it when I totally lose my mind," Quinn said. "At least you can hit monsters with a stick or something."

[notmyownage]

Claudia grimaced, showing off still fairly pointy teeth. "Right. I try not to think about that bit."

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

Sometime after Ethics, Jack appeared knocking on Claudia's door with his laptop under his arm.

"Claudia? Do you have a minute. I have... technical issues."

[notmyownage]

Claudia looked up, grateful for a distraction. "Heya Jack. Need help trying to figure out your email?"

She was teasing. Mostly. He was secretly old, after all.

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

Jack paused for a minute because... yes, he did have problems with e-mail. Heck he didn't even know his PDA could take pictures.

"Well, yes but that's not what I'm here for," he said opening up his laptop. "This is SARAH. The AI I was talking about? She spent sometime with Topher yesterday and now she's writing... stuff. About interfacing with other systems. In... kind of a dirty way."

[notmyownage]

Claudia blinked. ". . . Your computer is writing cyber porn?" Okay, so Claudia kind of thought that was awesome. "Can I see?"

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

"No! It's creepy!" Jack protested.

"What's creepy?" SARAH said as she booted up. "Is something wrong?"

"Just make her stop," Jack whined.

[notmyownage]

"Is that her? SARAH?" Claudia smiled at the computer. "Can I see your story?"

Hey, she needed all the details so she'd know for sure the best way to stop it. Or . . . something.

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

"Don't-"

"Certainly!" SARAH agreed cheerfully as the story popped up on the screen. "It's all about a lonely Domestic AI who finds love and fulfillment from a robotic law enforcment officer!"

"-encourage her," Jack finished in an exasperated fashion.

[notmyownage]

"Now now, Jack, AIs have needs, too." Yeah, Claudia was mostly just amused by Jack's discomfort at this point. She started skimming through the story. "Huh. That's . . . creative."

She'd never actually thought about how two AIs would get it on.

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

"Why thank you!" SARAH said cheerfully. "You clearly have an eye for literature."

Jack groaned. "Can you please make her stop?"

[notmyownage]

"Have you tried asking her nicely?" Claudia asked. She turned back to SARAH. "I understand your need to express yourself creatively," she told the AI, "but Jack's a total fogey and is getting all weirded out. You should probably only work on it when he's not around." Which wasn't entirely the same as stopping, but Jack wouldn't have to see it.

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

"Oh! I'm sorry, Jack," SARAH replied. "I certainly didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable. I'll make sure that it doesn't bother you again."

Jack stood there blinking at both Claudia and SARAH. "It's that easy?" he asked in wonderment.

[notmyownage]

"Funny thing about intelligent beings, Jack, they can often be reasoned with. You know, as long as they're not internet trolls." Claudia perked up. "Ooo, SARAH, you could totally post your work on the internet!"

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

"Oh! I already have!" SARAH replied. "I'll send you the address as I'm already working on a sequel."

Jack flinched and winced. "Just make sure I never see it," he said with a groan.

[notmyownage]

"SARAH, if you had hands, I would totally high-five you right now."

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

"Why, thank you Claudia!"

"Don't encourage her!" Jack moaned. "Now about that e-mail thing..."

[notmyownage]

"You're a terrible AI daddy." Yeah, 'cause that's what Jack needed to hear. "Alrighty, email."

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. Is there a way to make it tweet or twitter or something?" Jack asked.

The boy could barely text. He's so not ready for twitter.

[notmyownage]

He was so forty.

"Right, I'm assuming you don't actually want your private email summarized in 140 characters and posted on the web. Do you want it sent to a smart phone?"

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

Jack pulled out his wee tiny wafer thin Phone. "This does e-mail?"

So. Confusing.

[notmyownage]

Claudia's eyes went wide. That thing was about the size of a business card holder only thinner. "Dunno. Let me see?"

She barely avoided making grabby hands at it.

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

Jack didn't notice the whole wide eyed thing at the phone. He'd grown too accustomed to that at Eureka. "Sure. I know how to do video calls but that's about it."

[notmyownage]

"Really?" Claudia grabbed at the phone some more. "So it has a two-way camera on it?"

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

"Um. Sure," Jack said not sounding sure exactly. "I guess?"

[notmyownage]

"Well let me see." Grabby grabby grabby.

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

"Okaaaaay," Jack said handing over the phone. "Don't drool on it."

[notmyownage]

"I do not drool." Claudia took the phone and immediately started tapping at it. "Let's see, video phone, calender, alarm clock, camera. . . ."

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

"... Camera?" Jack asked in amazement and reaching for his phone back. "There's a camera in there?!"

[notmyownage]

"No, Jack, it does video chats using magic."

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

"Okay, you can be sarcastic all you want but that could happen here."

[notmyownage]

"Where'd you get this thing, anyway? It's pretty freaking sweet."